BOND, JAMES BOND: The mega-developer bozos pushing the sewer bond proposal in the upcoming election want us all to vote yes. But, wait, what's this little request going to cost the average Tucson homeowner to fuel the uncontrolled growth outside of town? About $3 by our calculations. Three bucks a month, every month, for what? Twenty years? Yeah, that's a good idea. And what will the Growth Lobby be doing with the $4 million or more a month they rake in from this little deal? Promoting even more uncontrolled growth, of course. PROCESS THIS: Watching Pima County supervisors Raul Grijalva and Sharon Bronson dance around the appointment of a replacement of the late John Even in District 4 is a choreographic challenge. Does either one remember who elected them? It was a bunch of voters, workers and contributors who were fed up with a Board of Supervisors dominated by land speculators and developers. Now both Grijalva and Bronson have a chance to appoint somebody who agrees with them--and us--on the most important issue facing this community. And how have they played it? They've obfuscated with process--apparently how we get a new supe is more important to both of them than who. We say both of them oughta announce it's past time for the neighborhood and environmental leadership to get their act together and bring forth a GOP candidate who agrees with them and pledge to support that candidate based on the issues. A Teddy Roosevelt Republican candidate shouldn't be too difficult to find in a district with about 45,000 Republicans. And letting them know you'd support them would go a long way towards bringing them out. Then both of you could tell your fellow supervisors, Mikey Boyd and Dan Eckstrom, that your choice will be Mr. or Ms. X and that's it. If they don't want to play, they can get their own horse and solicit the Clerk's vote. And if you lose, the two of you could then exercise some further genuine leadership by labeling that candidate as the developer hack and urging the green GOP candidate to run in next year's primary. Unfortunately, both Grijalva and Bronson are into their respective political alliances with Boyd and Eckstrom, and both seem to have lost sight of how they were elected. TRY JUST GIVING IT AWAY, DON: Legendary land speculator Don Diamond has been working a deal to trade his 711 acres of pristine wilderness to expand Saguaro National Park West for 4,322 acres of really nice land in Maricopa County. But as it works out, appraisals show the Maricopa County land isn't as valuable as the Pima County land, with the difference working out to about $1.1 million. So the Don apparently will cut the amount of land in the Pima portion of the deal. Here's a plan: Diamond is worth a minimum of $600 million. If he had it all in tax-free bonds--and trust us, he doesn't--his income from all that would be about a million bucks a week. So, Don, why not just give the community the difference? After all, what do you plan to do with all that money after you've croaked? We've heard survey data shows your negative rating among the common folk of this valley exceeds 70 percent, which means you're about as well liked as Saddam Hussein. Why not do something about it? A million bucks to you is peanuts, big guy. YELL AT YALE: For most of this century, biologists have been studying the Sonoran desert atop Tumamoc Hill west of Tucson. And for most of that time, development has steadily surrounded this desert laboratory. Now Starr Pass developers are planning yet another neighborhood--Crown Vistas--right smack in the middle of the last wildlife corridor linking Tumamoc Hill, Saguaro National Park West and Tucson Mountain Park. Turns out the largest investor behind this ecological rape is the Yale Endowment, which apparently doesn't much care about the catastrophic environmental consequences of its pursuit of stuccodollars. If you want to give Yale a piece of your mind, call Chief Investments Officer David Swenson at (203) 432-6386, or write him at 203 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511. The Tumamoc Neighborhood Coalition, which is hoping to derail the development, plans to hold a wake for the ill-fated wilderness area at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 18. Protesters will gather at the west end of Calle Morado and hike the trail up Deer Mountain to a site overlooking the Crown Property. Join 'em for a last look before the greedheads roll the 'dozers.

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