Board Candidates Stake Out Their Positions. By Jim Nintzel MORE THAN ANY other supervisor, District 5 Democrat Raul Grijalva led the charge for the county impact fees. Although he'd like to set them at the level county staff recommended--between $1,824 and $3,876--he voted in favor of the $1,550 fee, saying he thought it was a start. His opponent in the September 10 Democratic primary, Susan Chambers Casteloes, says she thinks a $1,500 impact fee is too low to do raise significant revenues, but anything higher will drive home prices too high, so she doesn't support the fees. District 3 incumbent Ed Moore, who is running as an independent in the election to avoid the Republican primary, opposes impact fees, saying that trying to fix our transportation problems with them is like trying to build a car by buying a hubcap. When the impact fee ordinance passed, he encouraged the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association to sue the county to stop the ordinance from being enacted. Vicki Cox-Golder, who is seeking the Republican nomination in the race against Moore, supports the $1,550 impact fee, but says her concern for affordable housing would keep her from raising it any higher. She adds she'd like to see impact fees imposed for schools if the state Legislature would pass enabling legislation. Ann Holden, who is opposing Cox-Golder in the GOP primary, says she she'd like to see impact fees set at least at the level recommended by county staff, which ranged from $1,824 to $3,876. Sharon Bronson, who is running on the Democratic ticket for the District 3 seat, also favors the levels recommended by county staff. Paul Marsh, who provided the swing vote to enact impact fees earlier this month, says he'd like to keep them at $1,550. His opponent in the District 4 primary, retired real estate attorney John Even, agrees, although he admits there's a tremendous cost to new development. "I really believe the true impact of a new house is $40,000 or $50,000," Even says. "People have no concept of it, but that's what it probably is. When a family of four moves in, Johnny is going to get into trouble and when that happens he has to go to a juvenile judge, and at that point you're adding one more case to a caseload that's already overloaded. Jails and hospitals and roadways and sewer lines and police and schools and things of that nature. So...anything lower than $50,000 is a political issue." And, when it comes to politics, homebuilders often get their way. Even doesn't support anything higher than the $1,550 figure the board approved, which he describes as "a good threshold." District 1's Mike Boyd, who helped keep the impact fee process on track during the last meeting, says he'd like to see fees at about $2,000, but supported the $1,550 as a compromise. His opponent, Sally Slosser, says she opposes impact fees because they won't raise enough money. The Democrats in District 1 have varying points on view on the impact fee question. Winston Smith would like to set impact fees at county staff's recommended level. Democrat Wayne Bryant has a novel idea: He wants to determine the total impact of a development over 20 years and then charge both an impact fee and a "developer matching fee" which would equal the total cost of the impact. This "developer matching fee" would be differ from impact fees in that the developer would be prohibited from passing it along to the home buyer. In an alternative spin, Bryant imagines the cost might be split three ways, with the county picking up a third of the impact cost. Besides the obvious economic flaw in Bryant's idea--do we really want the government telling homebuilders how much they can charge for a house?--this plan completely ignores how impact fees are structured under state law. Not to worry, says Bryant, who adds the enabling legislation could be created through the charter process. Chris Jones, a college student seeking the District 1 nomination, would like to set the fees at county staff's recommendation, ranging from $1,824 to $3,876.

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