Canoa Ranch leads the list of the Top 15 stories of 1999

By The Editorial Staff
Green Valley News

1999 was a very busy year for the residents of the Santa Cruz Valley and Southern Arizona.

It was the year of the developer.
It was the year of mines.
It was the year of the override. 
It was the year of the lake debate.
It was the year of the grocery store.
And it was the year that we worried about the clocks turning from 1999 to 2000.

In the past, we have presented what we felt were the top 10 stories of the year past, however there were just too many to chose from this year so you get the Top 15 stories of 1999.

Canoa Ranch

Fairfield Homes’ plans for the Canoa Ranch were dealt a setback on Jan. 14 when its master plan to develop the 6,000-plus-acre parcel southeast of Green Valley was rejected by the Pima County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 14.

The developer had submitted the Canoa Ranch Specific Plan to the county over a year before. 

But as the plan wound its way through the required public hearing process, opposition to Fairfield’s ambitious development plans grew.

Critics said the proposed 6,111 homes, 600 acres of commercial, golf courses and private airstrip were unsuited for the historic ranch property and would forever change the character of the surrounding rural area.

It culminated on Jan. 14, when over 1,000 people jammed the auditorium at the Sahuarita schools campus, some to speak in favor of the plan but most to voice their opposition.

The proposal drew opposition from the Smithsonian Institution, whose astronomers at the nearby Fred Lawrence Whipple  Observatory worried aloud that  “light pollution” from the development posed a threat to impair astronomical research on Mount Hopkins.

Also registering opposition were environmentalists, who argued that the Canoa Ranch represented the last remaining open space area for wildlife to range from the Santa Rita Mountains west to the Sierrita Mountains and Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge.

And, others argued, the property was a valuable historic and cultural area, with Native American archaeological sites dating back 10,000 years. 

Juan Bautista de Anza camped at Canoa Spring in 1776, starting out on his expedition that would lead to the founding of San Francisco.

The supervisors did not stop the rejection of the Canoa Ranch Specific Plan. 

They voted as part of the motion to deny the plan that county officials draw up amendments to the Pima County Comprehensive Plan, the county’s official long-range land use planning guide, that would change recommended land uses for the property to conform with a yet-to-be-finalized Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.

That plan is intended to set aside permanently lands that are identified as environmentally, culturally or historically important. 

It contains six elements defining such lands, and county officials say Canoa Ranch fits five of the six criteria.

Nine possible comprehensive plan amendments came before the supervisors on Nov. 16. 

In a surprise move, the county governing body adopted none of them, instead voting to begin the process to condemn the property for acquisition as public land instead.

Fairfield’s attorneys filed a lawsuit two days later, alleging that the actions of  county officials were intended to unfairly deprive the company of the full value of the land.

A week later, the supervisors did act to adopt an amendment to the comprehensive plan that, in effect, changed the recommended uses of the property to single-family residential with a density of no more than one unit per 4.1 acres.

As the year drew to a close, it was lawyers, not public officials and property owners, who looked most likely to decide the fate of the Canoa Ranch.

Developers

The town of Sahuarita may have incorporated a mere five years ago, but the community is fast on the way to becoming a population center for the Santa Cruz Valley.

Developer Robert Sharpe broke ground on his long-awaited Rancho Sahuarita master-planned community with its first phase Rancho Resort, an age-restricted, gated subdivision of manufactured homes northwest of Helmet Peak Road and Interstate 19.

Rancho Sahuarita is planned for a mix of up to 8,000 homes, a golf course, commercial areas and a town center over a 20-year period.

Sharpe was the first major developer to come to the community. 
But he is not the last. 

The Tucson metropolitan area is running out of land and the eyes of developers have begun turning south. 

Donald Diamond is seeking to develop two parcels in the community as both residential and commercial. 

One is a 116-acre tract north of the Kmart Plaza on Duval Mine Road and Interstate 19. 

The Sahuarita Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended that the parcel be rezoned to allow for up to 420 homes.

Action was still pending a year’s end on a 222-acre parcel north of the Wal-Mart/Bashas’ Plaza east of I-19 and north of Duval Mine Road. 
Diamond wants to build housing and a large commercial development on the property.

The Town Council voted in September to rezone 920 acres east of Old Nogales Highway to allow for the development of up to 1,800 homes and a golf course in a non-age restricted subdivision to be called Madera Highlands.

That property was not in the town when the year began. 
The property owner, the Scottsdale-based Harvard Investments, petitioned the Council to annex the property. 

The Council did so, expanding the town’s area by 3.25 square miles in the process and bringing incorporated Sahuarita southern boundary to within a stone’s throw of unincorporated Green Valley.

The town has not annexed the Quail Creek Country Club. 

Yet, the property changed hands in late July, having been acquired by Robson Communities Inc. 

The property owner and town officials have discussed annexation, which would put future development there in the hands of municipal officials and take it away from Pima County planners.

Incorporation

Incorporation has been on the minds on Green Valley residents for over three decades.

Those both for and against this official creation of town or city have not been shy to express their opinions.

Regardless of how many times (Three) thevoting residents of the community have said “No” to it, much controversy has continued to follow this word around.

Approximately every five years, the issue floats to the surface, a delightful rubber ducky to some, an old tire to others.

On Sept. 16, the Board of Representatives of Green Valley Community Coordinating Council, Inc. listened to an update from the Planning and Zoning Committee in which Hugh Copeland, chair of the committee made a request.

“We feel that it would be important for us as a community to establish an advisory committee, a study committee to look at the pros and cons of incorporation,” said Copeland.

After very little debate on the issue and no public comment, the GVCCC Board of Representatives voted almost unanimously to approve the establishment of an advisory committee on incorporation, with what appeared to be three negative votes.

By Oct. 1, no word had come from the GVCCC on the matter. 

Jud Richardson, president of the Council, assured that he was in the midst of establishing such a committee.

A week later, Richardson had chosen the Committee for Investigating Incorporation comprised of Jack C. Cissel, Marianne Collins, Pete J. Davis Jr., Al Fisch, Jim C. Hodges, Ken Patterson, and David Sirota. 
Richardson said that he tried to get a cross-section of the community so that the committee would be “more equally divided.”

He added that his main requirement was that all of the members remain open-minded.

On Oct. 14, they had their first official meeting developing a mission statement to guide them in their research: “The mission of this committee is to research and develop the information and options related to the pros and cons of incorporation for the area known as Green Valley, Arizona and to report this information orally and in writing to the general community.”

The plan was to have their information ready for public consumption by March 1, 2000.

“I do feel it is very important for each of us to enter into this endeavor with a totally open mind,” said Hodges, who took his seat as chair of the committee.

Since the first meeting, the established subcommittees have been looking into several issues including: boundaries, city services, government structure, and finance and budget.

Speakers have included Jeff Ziegler, executive director of Green Valley Recreation, Inc., Ray Carroll, Pima County Board of Supervisors, District 4, former Sahuarita Town Manager Ann Parish, (who recently accepted a position with the town of Casas Adobes) and representatives of the local water companies. 

Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup had to turn down an appearance due to his hectic schedule.

With each new subcommittee report, the committee moves one step closer to their final report.

By March 1, 2000, the committee should be able to present a full report on what they feel should be the boundaries of a town of Green Valley, the services they feel should be provided by the town, the type of government they feel would best suit the town and the means by which operation of a new town would be financed.

Their job is not to express whether or not incorporation would be best for the community, but to present the information that they have developed from months of research and discussion.

While all interested residents are allowed to attend the meetings, there have been an average of about seven attendees at each meeting. 

Pima budget woes

Pima County will end the year and millennium in the red, mostly because of longtime fiscal bleeding by the county’s public hospital for the poor.
Kino Community Hospital ended the year about $40 million in long-term debt. 

Much of that was accrued over a span of years, mainly because of a failure by hospital officials to collect millions in payments for care provided from state and federal agencies.

Members of the Board of Supervisors also found themselves pressed to provide money to law enforcement and the courts, with officials of those county branches noting that understating and overcrowding in the courts and jails put the county far beneath state and federal standards.

Board members appeared to agree that a half-cent sales tax was needed. 

It would raise about $40 million in a 12-month period, allowing the county to pay down the Kino debt, hire more sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors for the county attorney, open a new juvenile detention center, and avoid a property tax increase.

But Supervisor Ray Carroll, who represents Green Valley in his District 4, had campaigned in 1998 on a pledge not to raise taxes, even indirect ones like a sales tax. 

Fellow board members, along with the sheriff, county attorney, presiding judge, and the area news media all pressed Carroll to change his mind and vote for the sales tax.

He didn’t and the tax failed because under state law, it had to be passed unanimously by the supervisors.

That left county officials to struggle with the politically abhorrent task of raising property taxes to begin paying off the Kino debt and avoid cutting services drastically. 

On Aug. 3, board members bit the bullet and approved a 1999-2000 fiscal year budget of almost $780 million that contained an increase in the primary property tax rate of about 32 cents per $100 valuation.

Many homeowners were hit even harder than that because on top of the flat-out property tax hike, they also may have seen the valuations of their homes raised by the county assessor’s office the year before, making for a double-whammy.

Homeowners in the Sahuarita Unified School District experienced a triple-whammy this past year. Their taxes went up even more most county residents to make up for the lowering of the value of mine property in the district by the Arizona Department of Revenue. 

As a result, the mines paid less and Sahuarita homeowners subsidized the tax break by paying more.

One of the casualties of the budget war was the Pima County Office of Pollen and Mold. 

County administrators cut the office’s budget of $45,000, wiping out the only air-quality monitoring agency that provided free daily reports on airborne organic allergens to the public.

Mines change hands

The two local mines are soon to be under new ownership as the end result of some major corporate maneuvering.

It all began when Asarco and Cyprus Amax began discussions about a possible merger.

Then, copper giant Phelps Dodge suggested that those two companies merge with them to make the largest copper country in the world.

Both Cyprus and Asarco resisted the idea of merging with Phelps Dodge at first, but eventually, Cyprus and Phelps Dodge reached a deal and the merger between Cyprus and Asarco was canceled.

Meanwhile, Phelps Dodge continued to pursue Asarco until a Mexican conglomerate, Grupo Mexico, which owned 10 percent of Asarco made an offer that Asarco couldn’t refuse and a merger was agreed to. 

All of this maneuvering drove up the price of copper, which had been one of the reasons why the companies had begun discussions of mergers and takeovers.

What the future holds for the newly-reconstituted copper giants is uncertain.

Override failures

For the third time in 12 months, voters in the Sahuarita Unified School District will have an opportunity to go to the polls March 14 to decide whether or not they will allow themselves to be taxed for additional funds to finance programs and personnel costs over the next seven fiscal years.

A 10 percent budget override request was defeated at the polls, Nov. 2, by a vote of 566-635.

Last March, a similar proposal was defeated at the polls 281-338.

In Arizona, school districts are allow to seek voter permission to spend an extra 10 percent of what they are allowed to spend under state funding formulas.

“Maintenance and operations funding is the problem,” said Superintendent Jay C. St. John. “School budgets are expenditure driven and they are based on the number of students that you have, period.”

Revenues to support this proposed extra 10 percent spending are generated by imposing additional taxes on property owners in the district.

As a result of the two override election failures cuts to programs and services have been imposed by the district.

“We spend almost all of our money on people,” St. John said. “Any time you have to cut large sums of money you cut people and you affect children.”

As a result of the override defeats, district residents began lining up on both sides of the issue.

“This district has an awful lot of anger,” said Tony Bruno, a member of the Governing Board. “It’s time to let some of that anger go.”

Perhaps the biggest fallout from the override defeat was the imposition of $50 fees on students wishing to participate in extracurricular sports at both the high school and the middle school.

If the override fails again in March, students can expect to only be able to participate in a limited number of sports, including, football, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, and track.
All other sports would be eliminated.

ABCO closes

Last May, Green Valley and area residents were stunned by the announcement that ABCO supermarket at the Green Valley Mall would be closing and leaving the community.

The closure left many local residents, many of whom do not drive and who had moved to neighborhoods adjoining the mall so that they could walk to the market without many options for groceries.

All summer and into the fall, rumors floated about regarding plans by one chain or another to take over the empty store after extensive renovations.

Finally, in December, it was revealed that a deal was in the works with Idaho-based Albertsons’ that if consummated after the first of the year would result in the building which housed ABCO being torn down and a new building built to house a supermarket.

Green Valley Recreation

In February through April of this year, the Green Valley News reported on a proposed resale fee for houses that held a membership with GVR.
The fee would have applied to all GVR homes, regardless of the GVR membership status of the home buyer.

Concerned about the possibility of voter fraud and manipulation of the GVR election results, some GVR members continued to call the Pima County Division of Elections that was in charge of vote tabulation.

Division of Elections Director Mitch Etter told the News, “... if they don’t trust me to do the election, then cancel the contract, I have no problem...I’m getting calls from both sides and I’m getting sick of it.”

In the end, the Resale Fee ballot was defeated by a 1,472- vote margin at the March 30 annual meeting.

Also at the meeting, the four new GVR directors were announced.

The top four candidates with the most votes received were Betty Jo Preis, Jim Mauldin, Dick Ramette, and Bernie Klein.

In the Dec. 8 edition of the News, resident Rod Stebbins made his views on what he called the “Battle of the Richards” known.

He listed five options in finding a conclusion to the verbal battle between Richard R. Long and Richard J. Hansen.

One option went so far as to call for “a boxing match between Richard Long and Richard Hansen on the stage of the West Center charging an admission fee of $10.”

Quotes like “GVR must obey the law,” and “Jeff Ziegler’s contract should be terminated” have filled the letters, commentaries and speeches of Long over the years.

Hansen thus responded, seldom at GVR board meetings, but often in the form of a commentary in the News.

Their verbal fisticuffs came to a head recently prompting Hansen to refuse to respond to Long in any form stating that it is “a fruitless task.”

A December editorial called for a moratorium on letters from Long, thus ending, at least on the editorial page of the Green Valley News, the “Battle of the Richards.”

The final GVR Board of Directors meeting of the year was a special meeting called for the purpose of taking actions related to the Phase II Las Campanas Recreation Center Project.

Sharpe’s lake

Critics said Robert Sharpe’s plan for a 10-acre lake for his Rancho Sahuarita development was all wet.

Sharpe envisioned the lake as the centerpiece of his 2,810-acre master planned community, but quickly came to realize that not everyone shared such a sanguine view of the lake.

Instead, critics lambasted the idea of using groundwater to fill and maintain a lake in what they continually reminded the developer and town official alike of: That the community is in the desert.

Under state law, a private landowner like Sharpe cannot have a lake as large as the one proposed for what was to be a 15-acre town park. 

For that, Sharpe needed town officials to agree to take over and operate the lake and park as municipal property. 

In return, he agreed to provide the water to fill and maintain the lake and surrounding park.

The developer temporarily withdrew his proposal in the face of vocal opposition. 

It returned to the Council after Sharpe had rallied equally loud support for his proposal and the lake deal was approved by the Council in late October.

Y2K

Preparation for Y2K was on the minds of most people this year.

Concerns centered around whether or not the fabric of society would be damaged or begin to break down as the result of computer glitches anticipated as the result of the date turning from 99 to 00 in older computers.

As the so-called end of the millennium approached, most countries and societies were reporting they were ready for the situation.

Some concerns were expressed locally regarding the preparedness of Mexico to deal with the problems anticipated from computer crashes.

Local law enforcement was prepared for the change from 1999 to 2000 by installing a new two-way communications system and with training of officers in the skills necessary to quell anything from fights to riots.

Health care cuts

Carondelet Health Network saw some major changes in 1999, including moving its hospice services office last May.

Although Carondelet Health Network (CHN) Home Health, Hospice, and Behavioral Health Services remain in Green Valley, the local offices for these services and the Durable Medical Equipment showroom were merged with offices in Tucson.

Carondelet Hospice Services offices now operate out of the St. Mary’s site in Tucson at 1802, W. St. Mary’s Rd.

Hospice patients who need in-patient care still have the option of using the facilities at Santa Rita Care Center and La Posada.

Officials said these changes are part of a $43 million dollar turnaround plan designed to put the organization back on stable financial ground.

By reducing administrative overhead, Carondelet officials said the organization can better focus its resources on patient care.

CHN also gave notice in May to 175 employees that their jobs had been eliminated.

These and other recent staff reductions are one-half of the $43 million plan designed to put Carondelet back on solid footing.

In the last year, Carondelet has entered into new contracts with some HMOs and have dropped a significant one.

Town manager

Sahuarita Town Manager Anne W. Parrish abruptly resigned in early July, stunning residents and leaders in both that town and in neighboring Green Valley.

Parrish said she quit the post because of threats by some Town Council members that she would be fired if she didn’t resign.

Her resignation led to a recall election for Council member Louis Butler that will be held March 14. 
Some residents and two fellow Council members
blamed Butler for leading the move to oust Parrish and circulated recall petitions that garnered enough signatures to put the question on the ballot.

The Council conducted a search for a replacement for Parrish and this past September named Gerald Flannery to the post, which pays $64,500 per year. 

Flannery is a former assistant manager of the town of Marana.

Parrish recently was named as manager of the new town of Casas Adobes northwest of Tucson.

Tucson annexation efforts

Sahuarita town officials listened politely this year to two presentations by an official of the city of Tucson’s Project Foresight about a proposed massive annexation of 32 square miles of State Trust Land to bring the boundaries of the municipalities to within a mile of each other near the Santa Cruz River.

Town Council members heard that the city wanted to annex the land to ensure that existing well fields of Tucson Water, one three miles north of Sahuarita Road, would be protected from possible contamination from future development.

But Council members said that they saw no benefit to the town from the annexation, and voiced suspicions that Tucson officials were after new water rights, not to protect existing wells.

The Council voted 7-0 to oppose the city’s annexation proposal to state land officials. 

The town has no actual authority to veto such an annexation, however.

Rio Nuevo

Sahuarita voters were asked in November: Who wants to be a millionaire?
They said no. It was their final answer.

The town stood to reap $1 million in cash from voter approval of a partnership with Tucson in the planned Rio Nuevo redevelopment of historic downtown Tucson. 

All that was required of the town was voter approval and participation in occasional meetings of a Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District board.

Under the deal, the town coffers would receive $500,000 directly from the city in the form of diverted state sales tax revenues from the new district. 
Another $500,000 would come from private developers who would have to agree to do so before getting permission to build in the district.

Plans by the city called for a massive redevelopment of the downtown area featuring museums and cultural attractions, new restaurants, hotels and retail stores, and residential areas.

But town voters rejected participation in the project on Nov. 2  by a 307 to 279 vote. 

Voters in South Tucson approved the venture with Tucson.

Movie theater

The area’s first cinema complex is set to open this spring, after a series of delays that prompted what may have been the one question most frequently posed to this newspaper this year: 

When is the movie theater going to open?

The Desert Sky Cinema is slated to open around Memorial Day, according to officials of Trans-Lux Theaters, the company that will own and manage the six-screen complex.

The 17,000 square-foot complex is going up right now northwest of the Duval Mine Road and Interstate 19 interchange. 

Trans-Lux officials had planned to have it open by now, but ran into design red tape with county officials.

Plans call for the theater to show first-run films. 

The complex will feature digital sound, stadium seating, a snack bar, sit-down dining area, and an arcade.

Trans-Lux operates movies theaters in the United States, Canada and Mexico and specializes in smaller market communities.

The theater was cited as the most wanted amenity for the community in s survey of Sahuarita High School students several years ago. 

Company officials cited that survey as the foremost reason for their decision to come to the community.

Fairways revolt

The Fairways Property Owners Association, the largest in the community, voted nearly 2-1 to remain in the Green Valley Community Coordinating Council (GVCCC).

On Sept. 22, a heated meeting was held in which Robert Munsie, president of the association, listed the pros and cons of remaining in the Council.

In an effort to express their belief that the GVCCC was not acting in the best interest of Fairways residents, the Fairways Board met to discuss removal of the $4,169 collective payment to the Council from the Fairways proposed 2000 budget.

“We thought we were misrepresented by the GVCCC,” said Munsie, adding that the decision had nothing to do with the $5 a year dues.

Herb White, Fairways I homeowner and 2nd vice president for the GVCCC, a strong voice for the opposition, concluded that the representatives of the Fairways have been absentee members of the GVCCC.

“You have a seat,” said White. “Sometimes it’s filled, sometimes it’s not. No one has spoken.”

With the receipt of 400 ballots from 759 Fairways homeowners, over half of the residents proved they have a voice.

266 homeowners voted to stay members of the Council. 134 voted to leave the Council.

Munsie had no comment on the outcome.