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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHistorical Records - Incorporation (41) TOWN OF ORO VALLEY --Questions and Answers QUESTION: At present I am part of Pima County. What is good about incorporating and becoming the little town of Oro Valley? ANSWER: You will have complete control of your zoning and the other things important to the way you like to live--for one, less sound pollu- tion. And you will not be annexed by Tucson. For you know how this area has grown in the past few years. In 1970 the Tucson mayor threatening an annexation drive against Tucson' s peripheral areas vowed to "drag them in kicking and screaming if necessary. " If you prefer to keep things as they are, you probably don't want to become part of a big city. And of course city annexation means appraisers arrive with new city taxes on pour house and property.- QUES: roperty.QUES: Yes, I prefer a small town to big city politics. BUT I DON'T WANT MORE TAXES. ANS. : Incorporation does NOT change your taxes. You continue paying county taxes, the same you have been paying. QUES: Then how does my town of Oro Valley pay its bills? ANS: Every city and town in Arizona receives REVENUE SHARING. This money comes from various sources. For example : Twenty-five percent of the sales tax the state receives it PAYS BACK to cities and towns. This big revenue "Die" is sliced in portions. The. size of the portion depends on the 2221112.12 (not the wealth) of the .city or tnwr _, Wher thP tnwp ef Oro Valley another slice is cut into the pie and sent to Oro Valley. QUES: What other money will my town receive? TAINS: Fifteen percent of state income tax .becomes another revenue "pie" to be sliced according to population among cities and towns. Also 25 percent of th 7¢ gasoline tax goes back to cities and towns to be spent only on road maintenance. Also each utility company that operates in your town must pay you back a set percent of the money it takes in in your town. This includes telephone company, gas & electric, water companies. Also your town gets back a portion of the auto license charges and of the vehicle license tax. It receives money from all building permits and from building supply contracters; There is also Federal revenue sharing. QUES: Now I see where my town will get its money (and one reason why the city and county is loathe to see us incorporate) . But how will my town handle the services that are now provided by the county? Such services as roads --fairly good in most places at present ; police.=sparse at present, and fire--none really at present. ANS : The same moneys that the county at present is supposed to ear- mark for our roads will now be paid to us directly. And we won't 7 any r The work � 1 �contracted have to buy big equipment. The will �e con tr acted publicly or privately. QTJES: What about police protection? Willit be any better than it is at present? ANS: In the first year or so of our town we will have a volunteer - marshall (we have had several volunteer already) , assi sted by 'men contracted from the sheriff'-s office.- As to the, effectiveness of small town police, you'll be - • interested to hear that . small town Paradise Valley has the lowest. per capita burglary rate in the state. Fire protection, garbage, sewage will remain. the same. QUES: What about schools? ANS: Schools are completely separate entity and in no way affected. QUES: Who will run our town? ANS: An elected five-man town council (one of whom is mayor) ; appointed town clerk, marshall, engineer. All are unpaid -volunteers pP didbelow) . for first three years as Paradise Valley (see elow) . Very important: Our town will becone a member with equal ear and vote on the Pima Association of Governments which at present has only three members--South ucson, Tucson, Pima C•unty.. QUES : Will a lot of other towns in the county incorporate if we incorporate? ANS: No. We and only three others (Catalina, Green Valley, • Marana) are the six-mile distance required to incorporate from the boundaries of Tucson. . QUES : Has any other little area like ours incorporated--and liked i t? ANS: `Yes. Similar to us is Paradise Valle:„, in Phoenix area. Twelve years ago Paradise 'Valley' s 700 eople inCorporated. (We - had 611/1 when we _ first petitioned. ) Para=dise Valley covered 2.65 square miles; we are about 2.58 square miles. Paradise Valley now has 81500 people; we now have about 1000-1200. Paradise Valley in its 12-year history has NEVER • LEVIED ONE PENNY TAX ON ITS FE07-7-77 Yet this year Paradise Valley has er_o u h cash to build $500,000 town hall. It has 14-man police force, nine trained resprves. is never more than a five-minute(There L note tzme lag on any emergency call and when residents are out of town, the police "door knob" • t he it house twice each da_-,. ) - Paradise Valley has absolutely no industry. It is a "green belt", - a bedroom community. Its people are .preser: ng the life they moved there for --and with no tax levies. How does Paradise Valley do it? • "We 're no bureauracy, " townspeople tell us. "We 're lean and efficient and economical and small. We 're what America is all about. It's the greatest thing that can hap :en--running a town as its people want it run. You can do it too. " --2-- clues : Tell me a little of the bacground of town of Oro Valley incorporation. . ANS: Four years ago people in this area became tired ofoin en mass g g downtown to the zoning board about every other week to try to stop a change in zoning. (Always the change was toward higher r density). . We wanted to keep things as they were. We. talked to Paradise Valley (a small area like us that had incorporated in' 1961) and were encouraged. We met the "rules" for incorporating in Arizona. (You have to be minimum of six miles from city limits. You have to have minimum of 500 people --since then raised to 1500. You have to have petition signed by 67 percent of these people. With signed petitions we asked Board of Su ervisors (county) to -incorporate us. The board said, no. Then with Lawyer Sid Felker pleading our case, we went before Judge MahonVey in .Pinal County, December, 1972. J uage Mahoney ruled in. our favor, ordering supervisors to allow town of Oro Valley to incorporate. This was called a "minute" decision because the judge had not yet signed i t. He had a heart attack and could not sign it until the following July. - In that little meantime, the city of Tucson annexed one-half block to bring it closer than six miles to boundary of Town of Oro Valley. And with that annexation the city of Tucson and the county took the case to- Appellate Cout. The court reversed Judge Mahoney. Our Lawyer Felker .took our case oil-to -the state Supreme Court. The . five judges UNANIMOUSLY mauled the _supervisors must i_ ncorporate the town of Oro Valley--- that on every point of law the town met the requirements. But yesterday (Feb.11, 1974) the city and county asked state Supreme Court to rehear case, Their final move .could be U.S. Supreme court. For many reasons which you can easily understand if - you take their . - point of view, the city and county will continue to fight our in- Corporation n- corporation in the courts and .in the media. Nor can you blame them if they recruit certain people in our area whom they knew to help them in their fight. There are always two sides to every state of life. But most of- us moved to this 7.-u±± h area because this is the life we love--away from noise and speeding and crowded ugly buildings and stores and unsightly signs and congestion. And so we 've chosen the small town route rather than the alterna- tive of constant zoning battles and eventual. big city annexation. If you have any questions or hear anything on the tube or elsewhere -about this that bothers you, PLEASE PHONE�ANY OF THE PEOPLE L.�!- '1' y � ! HERE: RE.. Royal Bouschor Steve Engle Jim Kreigh Lauren Rhude 297-0100 297-2351 297-2369 - 297-4703 Roy Mattson George Faccio Jack Spaulding , Al Thorell p � _ 297-4002 297-3166 297-3465 297-3 ,73 Jay Wilson Ron Sl ter Vic Frizzell Arthur Barry 297-4609 297-3602 297-4243 297-2863 e";y alessen - Loon -Whatley . Elbert Montgomery