MARANA COPS DON'T MAKE HOUSE CALLS: Northwest residents just discovered unrestrained, poorly planned growth brings even more than congested roads, overcrowded schools, environmental blight, and higher taxes. They're also getting more thugs too, as this horrendous incident illustrates: On a recent Friday night, a perp went into a home in the Ina-Thornydale area, shot the lady of the house twice in the stomach and put three slugs into her dog. Fortunately, both lady and dog will live. Unfortunately, it took the Pima County Sheriff's Department eight minutes to respond to what was clearly a high-priority call. It took that long because there simply aren't enough cops in the Greater Tucson area to answer calls much quicker when they're at the other end of their patrol areas. Pima County government has never chosen to hire enough deputies--or support personnel--to cover the massive growth that's occurring in many areas. In fact, we have one of the lowest cops-per-1,000-population ratios in the country--and one of the highest crime rates. But a little over a mile from where this bloody incident occurred, there's a Marana Police substation in the old K-Mart shopping center at Orange Grove and Thornydale. A cop stationed there should have been able to get to the bloodbath on foot in less than eight minutes. Only Marana cops don't make house calls. Because in this area, Marana doesn't have any houses; and, besides, this incident occurred in Pima County. Remember when those wonderful folks on the Marana Town Council annexed all the shopping areas around Ina and Thornydale? They deliberately gerrymandered that annexation so they wouldn't have to take in houses. Houses don't produce any sales tax revenue, and the people in the houses expect services--like police protection. So the Marana Police substation's purpose is to supply a free security force for area merchants, paid for by higher sales taxes at places like Price Club and Target. Meanwhile, all the folks who live in the area have to wait for a Sheriff's deputy when they're in trouble. 911 calls are computerized and geo-coded to dispatch to the correct jurisdiction, so nobody would've called the Marana PD. In fairness to Marana, had the Sheriff's Department requested them to help, they probably would have. But that process itself would have lengthened the response time, which is kind of critical when there's a guy with a Tech 9 in your living room blasting away at your dog. In fact, some well-armed gangbangers could've been firing Katusha rockets across the street and the Marana PD wouldn't have to respond--hey, it's not their turf. Which illustrates two points: • That bureaucracies are more interested in taking care of themselves than the citizens who pay for them, and; • That Marana is run by a bunch of totally irresponsible bozos. If you want to be a real town, Dogpatch, try serving real people instead of ripping them off. BARNEY FIFE KICKS SOME SERIOUS ASS: The Ina-Thornydale area has replaced the Portland cement plant as the Heart of Dogpatch, even though the intersection is just about as far south and east as the sprawling town extends. All four corners of that intersection are filled with shopping centers, banks, and fast-food joints, with more construction to come. Ma Nature and Don Diamond abhor a vacuum. This cash cow (as opposed to the real cattle which inhabit most of the rest of the town) belongs to Marana, and its significance is not lost on Dogpatch officials, nor on the hapless consumers who shop there. The intersection is rapidly approaching a state of permanent gridlock, what with all of the businesses and the fact that one-lane Thornydale is the only route to the rapidly growing area of leap-frogging subdivisions north of Cortaro Farms Road. Ina-Thornydale is also one of the most accident-prone intersections in Pima County and, at current projections, will pass perennial "champions" Speedway-Wilmot, Broadway-Wilmot and Broadway-Kolb within a couple of years. Apparently, the parking lots are none too safe, either. Or so we would be led to believe by the existence of "Stop" signs inside the parking lot at one of the intersection's shopping centers. However, it's not the existence of these signs that's most intriguing, but rather the placement and questionable legality thereof. The shopping center on the southeast corner is anchored by a Michael's crafts store. The center includes Bookman's, an Osco, and several small businesses and auto-repair shops. The north and west perimeters of the center are mostly lined with fast-food joints. If you enter the center from Thornydale and head east, you'll come upon a "Stop" sign about 50 yards inside the parking lot. It's a small sign, about half the normal size. It looks like something they bought when the miniature golf place closed. The sign is at the east edge of a daycare center, and there's another one which stops traffic coming from the other direction. However, it's not a four-way stop, meaning the drivers who have the right of way are those tooling along the east side of the daycare center and heading straight into the eegee's drive-through lane. After passing the daycare center, a driver comes upon another "Stop" sign about 50 yards farther along. Again, there are only two signs, not four. And this time the right of way is given to those drivers who are heading from the general direction of the Burger King and toward the National Video store. The other night, we were heading from Bookman's toward eegee's at around 10 p.m. We slowed as we approached the "Stop" sign, stopped for a second, then drove on. As we pulled into eegee's, one of Marana's finest pulled up behind us, lights flashing. We just figured he wanted to go ahead of us, since the flavor of the month is Galactic Grape. But he wanted to talk about our having "run" the "Stop" sign. We hadn't seen him as we approached eegee's, but Marana cops are all over that place. In fact, the town has a police sub-station at Orange Grove and Thornydale, but they could save money by just putting up a kiosk between eegee's and Taco Bell, because that's where all the cops are. He told us he wasn't going to cite us, but that he wanted us to be aware of the signs. Thanks, officer. Now maybe you could scamper off and investigate a hideous attempted murder or something. We called the Marana Police Department the next day and asked about the legality of those signs. The woman by the name of Chris who answered the phone told us they were legal, and that neither the size nor the fact that they were on private property mattered. Then we called Pima County, whose officials said it was up to the enforcing jurisdiction--meaning Marana, unless there was an overriding state law. So we called the Dogpatchians back, in an attempt to get an actual ordinance number. We started with the police again, who referred us to the town hall, from which we were referred to the town attorney, and finally to the town planner--who didn't know. But he called us back a day later to say: Private property owners can put up any kind of "Stop" signs they want, but the Marana Police don't enforce them. Right. Why bother enforcing anything in that neighborhood--armed burglaries, stop signs, attempted homicides. Dealing with that stuff is such a drain on tax revenues. ORO VALLEY HARDBALL: The fiercely contested elections they have in Oro Valley are like none that occur in the rest of this area. This is the place that has almost as many recalls as it does council members. Currently, six candidates are vying for three seats in the May 21 election. Controversy rages around one of the winners in last year's recall, Councilman Rudy Roszak. He's one of the more bizarre elected officials in this whole valley, and he's supporting the team of John Clarke and Paul Loomis. Longtime Oro Valley resident, community leader and former Roszak supporter Ben Baker has formed a group called Citizens Against Property Taxes (Oro Valley has no local property tax) to oppose Loomis and Clarke. And Roszak has responded. In a letter to the editor of the Oro Valley Explorer, Roszak counter-attacked as follows: "Ben Baker, a former planning and zoning commissioner, was successfully sued for libel after the 1992 election in Oro Valley for a malicious and false campaign flyer. The court awarded a judgment in the range of $10,000 against him. Baker is a longtime friend and supporter of Cheryl Skalsky." Excuse us, Rudy, but it appears the libel may be yours. There was no such "successful" lawsuit and no $10,000 judgment against Baker. We'd let the pitiful Oro Valley paper make this correction, but it doesn't come out again until after the election. And it tells us that Pima County Supervisor Ed Moore isn't the only wacko in public office who makes ridiculous and false charges against his opposition. Heartening, huh? CITY-COUNTY COOPERATION? Pima County Supervisor and Board Chairman Paul Marsh got huffy in a letter to Tucson Mayor George "Cementhead" Miller last week. Tisk-tisk: "George, the first thing that came to mind last night when you called, was this thing is unbelievable. "Pima County has nothing to do with annexations. It is up to the residents and property owners whether or not they will be annexed. If people involved in a proposed annexation need information that is public, we will provide it to them. Your request, that if Pima County stays out of annexations the city will rescind the additional golf fees (recently imposed by city ordinance), is preposterous. I can't believe you even asked. This is City/County cooperation? "George, the right thing for the City to do is to drop the additional golf fees for county residents." Having flushed Miller into the open field, The Skinny wonders how Miller could call Marsh without four votes in hand to rescind the ordinance. And if Miller did have three other votes, shouldn't the County Attorney and the State Attorney General look in to this issue? The last time Miller reported this kind of an issue to the AG, he was claiming it was illegal for his fellow council buddies to presume four votes to fire then-City Manager Tom Wilson. Don't the same laws apply to Hizzhonor?

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