ORO VALLEY WORD WAR: At a recent Oro Valley Town Council meeting, Councilman Bill Kautenberger demonstrated his environmental sensitivity when he stated that Honeybee Canyon, last of the genuine unprotected riparian areas in Pima County, was nothing but "rocks and cactus."
Kautenberger drew the ire of Nancy Wright, Honeybee Canyon's hard-charging protector and chair of the town's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, who burst out with an uncomplimentary reaction to Kautenberger's remarks. That in turn drew the ire of Councilman Marty Wells, who has written to the rest of the council trying to remove Wright from her Parks chair post because of the inappropriateness of her actions. Wells says Wright's lack of decorum was "embarrassing" for the town and Kautenberger is now trying to remove her for making an "obscene gesture."
Please--the real embarrassment for the town isn't Ms. Wright's one-shot lack of decorum, but Councilman Kautenberger's mentality, which is all-too-evident in some of his present and former colleagues. Their willingness to roll over for any developer's whim put the town in a potential financial bind and inspired us to name the place "Caddyshack." Most of Oro Valley and most of this entire valley wants to preserve Honeybee Canyon from the bladers and graders. That Kautenberger has publicly stated that he basically doesn't give a damn about it is reason to remove him, not Wright. Anybody up there for another recall?
ORO VALLEY REFERENDUM WAR: The Oro Valley Town Council recently (and for some reluctantly) passed a mammoth apartment rezoning on La Canada. The good folks in Oro Valley kicked off a referendum drive and in a mere 13 days collected twice the signatures required to force a public vote on the action--which should tell you where the voters are on the growth issue.
Now, however, the town's legal counsel says the item was "administrative" instead of "legislative" and is not subject to a referendum. Referendum backers plan to take the issue to court.
The Oro Valley lawyer may be correct. The previous mayor and council cut so many sleazy side deals with various builders with pre-annexation agreements (which seem to work sort of like private deed restrictions) that both the new council and the voters may be powerless to overturn them.
Maybe. We always thought that if a public body had the prerogative of voting "yes" on an issue, they had a similar prerogative to vote "no." And we find it interesting that the actions of a prior body, even after its members are creamed by the voters, extend in perpetuity.
The petition passers will be taking this item to court, but once again the citizens will have to pony up their own money to fight a legal opinion favoring the builders who will be represented by lawyers paid by the taxpayers.
BIG ED TO BREAK FOUR TIE VOTES ON RETURN: Supervisor Big Ed Moore was off fishing in Alaska last week, when the board was considering three controversial rezonings which were either in Moore's district or close enough to effect his constituents. All three, plus one more rezoning, deadlocked at 2 to 2, with Supes Mike Boyd and Paul Marsh voting aye and Dan Eckstrom and Raul Grijalva nay. The matters will be back on deck on August l.
And Big Ed has some real problems. One of these is a 20-acre slice on La Cholla between Tangerine and Naranja, which drew a negative from both staff and Planning and Zoning. Another is a 94-acre parcel at River and La Cholla, which belongs to legendary land speculator Don Diamond and is close to property owned by Moore himself. Both rezonings have strong neighborhood opposition.
Big Ed will have to come home and offend somebody by voting on these items--and the 20-acre commercial chunk at Oracle and Magee in Mike Boyd's district. District 3 voters will get to find out just how serious Ed is about listening to neighborhood concerns.
AMPHI SCHOOL DISTRICT: DON DIAMOND'S LATEST FRONT GROUP? Amphitheater School District staff appeared at the Board of Supes hearings on the above zonings and on two occasions supported the developers. They denied they were representing some action by the Amphi board and claimed they weren't actually "supporting" items like Don Diamond's attempt to place 950 apartments and at least 160 homes on those 84 empty acres on River Road. Instead, the Amphi staffers were only commenting on whether the project would be "beneficial."
So Amphi parents and taxpayers need to know that Amphi School personnel find having another 1,100 families sending kids into their already overcrowded schools "beneficial."
Amphi School Board member and Realtor Vicki Cox-Golder was directly involved in lobbying the board of Supes for passage of the Hadd Co.'s development on La Cholla. The Skinny has been told that she met privately with developer Robert Hadd and Amphi Associate Superintendent Katie Frey. In a July 17 letter to the Supes "summarizing this morning's meeting," Frey wrote, "Amphitheater School District will benefit if your rezoning request for the property at the Northwest corner of La Cholla and Glover roads is granted."
This letter came after both county staff and Planning and Zoning had come out against the rezoning. The letter was copied to only one Amphi board member, Cox-Golder. It was also copied to Bill Arnold of Genesis Real Estate, a P&Z Commission member.
Cox-Golder is looking at a run at Ed Moore's seat in next year's GOP primary and Skinny sources tell us she's Don Diamond's choice to replace Big Ed, because Diamond considers Moore unstable. And she is clearly milking her position on that board to curry favor and contributions from the development industry at the expense of her constituents, apparently with her colleagues' acquiescence, via a high-handed use of school district staff.
Looks like the Board of Supervisors isn't the only group that needs replacing in the next election.
MORE ALTERNATIVES TO BIG ED: While a host of Republicans are lining up to tackle Big Ed Moore in the GOP primary for his Board of Supes seat, the Democratic side has come forth with a host of rumors.
For once, let the Skinny dispel a rumor: State Rep. Elaine Richardson not only has no interest in running for the board, she doesn't even live in the district. She is supporting neighborhood activist Sharon Bronson for the Demo nod against Moore or whoever bags him in the primary.
Richardson is a likely candidate for the state Senate seat of retiring Peter Goudinoff in District 11, which makes sense. Richardson is a highly competent legislator who runs well ahead of her House teammate Jorge Garcia and a general election for her would be a slam-dunk. Any election to the supes in District 3 will be a roadhouse brawl.
Those who keep trying to report that Richardson is running for the board should check with her.
MEANWHILE, IN MOTOR CITY: We are NOT sending folks there to help break a strike, writes Larry Aldrich, president of Tucson Newspapers, Inc., in a July 14 memo.
Well, Larry, it sure seems that way.
On July 13, about 2,500 newspaper workers in Detroit walked off the job after contract talks broke down. Management vowed to keep publishing. Because Gannett Co. Inc. owns one of the two Detroit dailies, The Detroit News, it has tapped employees from elsewhere in its huge, bland chain to keep its picketed operation open.
So TNI has sent some employees to help. Unionists might call them scabs, non-union workers who keep the operation goinwg to undercut the union's leverage. While Aldrich denies they're being used as strikebreakers, TNI has increased security at the building to prevent any trouble.
Aldrich offers his take on the whole affair in his memo.
"We do not believe that a strike is the way to reach agreement," he writes. "If the papers shut down, the newspapers will have absolutely no bargaining position in their negotiations." Aside from this statement being absolute malarkey, it gives zero concern for the striking workers.
Aldrich goes on: "We are not taking sides in this particular dispute, but we are helping to allow the continued publication of the newspapers while their negotiations are ongoing."
And those negotiations depend greatly on who has the upper hand.
THE KILLING FIELDS: Your tax dollars have been hard at work again, this time coming to the rescue of cows across the state. During fiscal year 1994, the federal agency Animal Damage Control spent some $437,239 to kill critters who were out of control.
Sure, ADC knocks off the occasional badger or mountain lion, but the big target in Arizona is coyotes. The agency bagged 1,528 coyotes last year, mainly because they threatened cattle.
Which only supports the argument that ADC is just another federal subsidy for ranchers. Of that $437,000 the agency spent here in Arizona, $381,461 was to protect livestock.
Remember that next time you hear these independent westerners bitching about how those damned feds don't have any respect for their custom and their culture.
CITY SPIES: Folks living southeast of Tucon's city limits have opened discussions on the possibility of incorporating into a new town to try to prevent a hungry City of Tucson from swallowing them up through annexation.
At its first meeting, the group asked if anyone was present representing the city or legendary land speculator Don Diamond, whose Rocking K development is near the area that may become the small town of Rincon Valley. No hands were raised.
But city officials were present, admits Tucson's annexation czar John Jones, who heads up Project Foresight. Jones says city employees attended the meetings, but he says he can't release their names because they're "undercover."
The people in Rincon Valley are considering incorporation because they don't trust the city. We doubt having undercover spies will help ease those suspicions.
