The Rapidly Deteriorating Town Of Oro Valley Trudges Once More To The Polls. By Jim Nintzel SOMETIMES, IT SEEMS the folks in Oro Valley vote more often than they hit the links. Residents in this once-sleepy boomtown just north of Tucson have visited the polls eight times in the last four years. This time out, on Tuesday, May 21, they're choosing between six candidates--incumbents Cheryl Skalsky and Paul Parisi and challengers John Clarke, Al Jakubouskas, Paul Loomis and Matt Moutafis--to fill three council seats. Part of the reason for the volatile politics in Oro Valley lies in its explosive growth. Developers have been steadily blading and grading its pristine desert hills as the town has more than tripled its population from about 6,000 residents in the late 1980s to about 20,000 today, with more on the way. The rapid influx has translated into a greater demand for services, roads, parks and the like, which the town has struggled to provide. Small wonder, then, that the town's political foundation seems built along a fault line. For all the problems, Oro Valley Mayor Cheryl Skalsky says the town's politics are beginning to stabilize. "We've had pretty stable government for the last year and a lot of the community working together," says Skalsky, who has been on the town council since 1988. (She once faced a recall election, but no one registered to run against her, so she retained her seat.) "It has pretty well settled down. You always have challengers." This year, Skalsky's challengers include an old ally, Nancy Young Wright, whom Skalsky once appointed to a town parks board. Later, in a well-publicized event, Skalsky awarded Wright with a plaque after other council members threatened to call Wright on the carpet over an anti-growth editorial she wrote for the daily paper. But Wright is now working for two of Skalsky's opponents, Loomis and Clarke. "We used to have a lot of fun," Wright says, "which is why this is really hard and sad and all that other mushy stuff that doesn't go too far in this arena." Wright says she keeps a thick file she calls "broken promises." Chief among her complaints are the town's recent purchase of a water company without voter approval, Skalsky's willingness to allow developers to use ground water on golf courses and the council's failure to protect Honey Bee Canyon, where a housing development is going up right on the edge of a tiny perennial stream which is one of the last remaining Class 1 riparian areas in Pima County. Wright also points out that during last year's stormy recall election, Skalsky criticized council members Richard Parker and Valerie Hoyt for taking huge contributions from developers, most of whom didn't even live in Oro Valley (Both Parker and Hoyt were defeated in the election). This year, Skalsky herself has accepted more than $3,000 from developers. (Candidates Parisi and Moutafis have also accepted thousands of dollars in contributions from players in the development industry.) "I still stand by that (criticism of) Parker and Hoyt, because that was the only money they got from anywhere," Skalsky now says. "What people are failing to note is that I received almost the same amount from environmentalists, homemakers, business people, white-collar and blue-collar workers. My record speaks for itself. The main reason I took money was because Loomis and Clarke were getting a lot of name recognition and I, having a pretty full life and not being willing to spend my personal money, had to get these facts out. I found I wasn't doing real well at $25 a person when it takes $3,000 just to get a mailer out." Among the developers donating money to Skalsky's campaign were legendary land speculator Don Diamond and his wife Joan, who kicked in a total of $260. Skalsky later returned the donation, because, she says, "I don't know Don Diamond other than what I've read, and I don't know whether it's true or not, but the other developers that I took from, I know who they are and I know they truly care about the community and they have done a good job of meeting the standards." Skalsky's words these days stand in stark contrast her comments to The Weekly in December 1994, when she complained that "They (developers) can't even believe what the council's giving them...You might as well shut down town hall and turn it over to the developers." After serving as mayor for about a year, Skalsky seems much less antagonistic toward homebuilders. "A lot of the developers are interested in working with the town," she now says. "Our job is to look at what can we do to make their development better, and when you do that, it's just like anything else. People have a natural tendency to respond in kind. They don't feel as threatened." Skalsky argues the council has only so much leverage with most of the homebuilders in Oro Valley, since earlier councils granted the rezonings that are now allowing them to build their master-planned stucco communities. And, because the town has no property tax, for years Oro Valley has supported itself on the building fees. State restrictions on impact fees make steep demands from homebuilders impractical. Skalsky says if she's re-elected, she hopes to wean the town from the building fees and support the town on taxes from what she calls the "three R's: resorts, retail and research and development." If she's successful, she believes future councils can still avoid levying a property tax. But longtime residents who moved to Oro Valley for its small-town rural charm might as well hang up a For Sale sign in the front yard. Those days are gone forever.

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