The Pima County Bond Advisory Committee will give consideration to $640 million bond package next month after months of wrangling over the details with County officials and municipalities within the County.
While the proposal, stood at over $800 million before this month’s vote to trim it down to $640, many of the items included remain shrouded in mystery or lacking in detail. According to County sources, the mystery is intentional.
Carolyn Campbell, a member of the Committee and open space environmental activist, explained to Bond Advisory Committee members that the lands for which the County has sent aside $95 million remain unidentified despite the urgency to purchase some of those lands due to their “valuable nature.” Sources say that Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry’s position is that the monies should be approved by voters on blind trust.
Voters will also be asked to allot another $5 million in the bond package for the purchase of land within the Davis-Monthan boundaries.
According to Huckelberry, “Today, there are 99 acres of private property inside the boundary of DMAFB that are leased on an annual basis to the USAF. In addition, there are approximately 133 acres of State Trust land within the boundary of DMAFB. The annual cost of these leases to the USAF exceeds $380,000. Both of these properties should be purchased and leased at no cost to DMAFB to continue their operations.”
After revelations about the lack of new missions coming to Davis-Monthan, and the Bond committee’s cuts from the bond package of much needed projects like flood control in South Tucson, questions about the Air Force property were raised.
For nearly a year, experts have warned that the planned demise of the A-10 stationed at Davis Monthan would doom the base to BRAC (base closing). AMARC, which many claimed would keep some remnant of the Air Force in Tucson indefinitely, has seen a steady decline in new aircraft this past year. In fact, according to sources, AMARC, the “bone yard,” has lost planes to other storage units in the country.
In fact, the Air Force’s leases on the 99 acres of private property expire in 2016. Until then, the properties sit vacant surrounded by Federal. State, and City of Tucson property. The properties are nestled between the shrinking “boneyard” on the Davis-Monthan side of the chain link fence, and homeless camps on the other side.
In his Economic Development Plan, updated in 2015, Huckelberry claims that “Although the voters of Arizona approved an exchange mechanism to protect millions of dollars in military installations” the process is entirely “too cumbersome.”
As a result the rural/unsubdivided private properties and State lands were tucked into the bond package at a cost of $21,500 per acre. last year, the county used Military Installation Funds to purchase land in the name of Davis Monthan in a planned business park for approximately $23,000 per acre.
Initial attempts to identify the properties in question were thwarted by the County. Eventually the ADI was able to obtain the list of properties.
| 99 ACRES | LAND OWNERS | ACRES |
| TRACT 504 | Marilyn Anne McGourty | 28.79 |
| TRACT 505 | ZMP Partnership (Robert Zimmerman) | 21.15 |
| TRACT 515 | Kolb Road Partnership c/o Michael Farley | 1.46 |
| TRACT 516 | Kolb Road Partnership c/o Michael Farley | 8.73 |
| TRACT 517 | Norma Sherman Vogel | 7.08 |
| TRACT 518 | Michael Vogel | 8.89 |
| TRACT 519 | Vivian Teller, et al | 9.87 |
| TRACT 520 | Richard Rosenberg | 10 |
| TRACT 521 | Sara Cohen, Naomi Karp | 2.48 |
| TRACT 522 | Allan Stephan Goodman | .69 |
Related article:
Pima County to use Arizona Military Installation funds to buy open space