By Tim Vanderpool PINAL COUNTY'S drowsy politicos were roused by the cold splash of rebellion last month, when some 8,000 proper citizens decided to raise a little fuss. That's the number of names gathered in less than a month by opponents of a massive development scheme in Oracle. Developers hoping to turn the laconic hamlet of 4,500 into a strapping stucco suburb were likewise startled by the powerful petition drive. Now their dream of planting 4,000 homes across 3,000 acres of desert will probably land on the November 2000 ballot for a county-wide vote. If so, it will be the first referendum in the mostly rural county's history.
Klesch says the three-member Pinal County Board of Supervisors was also shocked by the petition, which contained more than twice the number of names required for a referendum. On April 21, the Board had voted to approve the Rancho Coronado plan for Oracle, in a steamy Florence hearing room packed with cranky opponents. Today, Supervisor Lionel Ruiz, whose district encompasses Oracle, admits that his vote probably wasn't a wise political move. "But my job is to look out for the best interests of the county," he says. He calls the plan an economic necessity, given a moribund copper market that's dropped the San Manuel mine near Oracle into the doldrums. Ruiz also touts Rancho Coronado as an alternative to wildcat growth. Considering the development's opponents, "I don't think the people raising Cain with this have even been up there (in Oracle) for very long," he says. That notion raises the hackles of Michelle Taylor, another petition-pusher who says many signatures came from folks inhabiting Oracle longer than Ruiz has been in office. "The Board and the developers have taken a condescending view of residents trying to have a voice in the democratic process. All along, they've referred to us as 'those people,' when they should be applauding people for wanting to get involved." Taylor says such haughtiness has prevailed from the get-go, as Pinal officials tried to squelch the petition through a variety of shenanigans. Some could be dismissed as dumb mistakes for a government scrambling over new turf. Others seem deliberately designed to protect a good-old-boy political culture. When she first tried to get petition forms on April 26, Taylor says she was told they wouldn't be available until May 12. That would have left less than two weeks to collect the 3,000 signatures needed. When she persisted by motoring up to Florence, she says County Manager Stanley Griffis took a snotty tone, telling her she couldn't even file for a referendum at all. But cooler heads--and the law--prevailed: within 90 minutes she had a green light from the county attorney. It was an auspicious beginning for what became an incredibly successful campaign. All of which hardly sat well with the big enchiladas behind Rancho Coronado, who probably expected a smooth ride. But at least a few bumps in the road were of their own making. Despite protestations that "we bent over backwards to work with those people," Coronado point man Charles Hulsey, a consultant with Tucson's WLB engineering firm, didn't exactly endear himself to Oracle residents with an earlier presentation before Pinal's Planning and Zoning Commission. "He started showing slides of what happens when you don't have master-planned communities," Taylor says. "They were pictures of slopes and people's homes in Oracle. He didn't come right out and say it, but he obviously considered them just to be examples of white trash. Of course people were absolutely outraged." For his part, Hulsey is a little perturbed at what he considers a double-cross by the Oracle contingent. The tiff goes back to the developer's decision to pull two areas of the original three-pronged plan from consideration prior to the supervisors' April 21 vote. He calls it a compromise initially applauded by residents--and later ignored like an unwanted stepchild. Others call it a cynical move that only deserved the boot. Still, Hulsey says backwards-thinking residents of Oracle will emerge the real losers. "They seem to think they're saving their town," he says. "Now we'll probably proceed with subdividing Area 2 under the zoning that already exists. There are about 800 acres in that second piece, and I think I'll get 500 to 550 homesites." But what won't happen is the important part, Hulsey says bitterly, contrasting the current zoning with tighter requirements under the master plan Coronado hoped for. "Will we have restrictions on what we can grade? No. We can grade anything we want to. Is there a restriction on salvaging the native plants and reusing them? No, we don't have to do that. Is there any donation of land for schools? No, no requirement to do that." Meanwhile, any pretense of conciliation is achingly absent. Hulsey says he was even physically accosted in early June, while giving a presentation in Oro Valley on an unrelated topic. "A group came down from Oracle, obviously to disrupt the meeting. And one little lady decided to knock me into a wall. Twenty-five years in this business, and this is the first time somebody has done something like that." While she doesn't condone such mayhem, Taylor says Hulsey's own pissy arrogance--and that of Pinal County muckety-mucks--has prompted the current, dismal relations. "Basically, what he's saying is, 'I have no respect for the democratic process, and I don't really give a shit what "You People" think. I'm going to come out on top.' " But in formerly peaceful Pinal County, at least 8,000 folks figure otherwise.
And the ink from their pens is still damp. |
But the issue spreads way beyond Oracle, apparently striking a chord among
far-flung residents in a jurisdiction stretching north from Catalina to
Apache Junction, and west to Casa Grande. "The people in Casa Grande, Florence,
Apache Junction, they all feel deluged," says petition organizer Darrell
Klesch. "Populations in those areas have doubled in 10 years. The point
is this: don't people in every one of those towns have the right to say
what kind of place they want to live in?"
