But, according to Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller, an inappropriate economic spending course is what Pima County has been on for years, so there is little surprise that Huckleberry and Supervisor Valadez have proposed that the County purchase land for $8.75 million dollars to build more soccer fields in the vicinity of Kino Stadium; the site of the last broken promise of private, for-profit sports pay-off for taxpayers.
This past year, the Pima County Board of Supervisors moved to dedicate the Kino Sports complex to soccer. The County built additional fields, according to Miller, “increasing maintenance costs to the taxpayers because this complex isn’t sustainable without taxpayer subsidies.”
Huckleberry claims that the 167 acre parcel located on the opposite side of I-10 from the Kino Sports Complex, owned by Stardust-Reif, a Scottsdale based company, is needed to support an “unmet demand for 80 additional soccer fields in the area.”
Contrary to the claim of an unmet demand, Miller says her office has been “unable to find data that supports this level of demand for soccer in Pima County.” As evidence, Miller points to the fact that the current Pima County soccer venues are not filled for even highly publicized tournaments.
The “build it and they will come” gamble works in the movies, but is unlikely to work in the economically depressed Pima County. Still, Huckelberry is proposing that taxpayers make a $1.75 million down payment and “5 subsequent payments on this property to come from the General Fund which means cutting services or increasing taxes for future payments in the coming years,” according to Miller.
The County is already $1.4 billion in debt, and has more than 2.5 times the debt of all other counties in Arizona, according to Miller. Despite this, Huckelberry wrote in his memo that the County “re-approached Stardust, who is now a willing seller” at a “total purchase price of $8.75 million,” with the “balance of $7 million (after the down payment) will be paid in five equal installments in the amount of $1,661,774.80 at an interest rate of six percent.”
According to Huckelberry’s memo, in 2012, when the County was planning soccer expansion at Kino, “an attempt was made to purchase property from Landmark Title Assurance Agency of Arizona, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company under Trust 18344-T (trust beneficiary is Stardust-REIF No. 3, L.L.C. “Stardust”). Our attempt in 2012 was rebuffed by Stardust, who claimed the entire property, including the commercial parcels, was worth more than $ 20 million. Stardust has subdivided the property for intense residential development of up to 755 units, as well as several commercial sites.
Huckelberry must know that there is little support for his proposed November 2015 bond program. As a result, even though the bond proposal includes “a land acquisition component for park facilities in this general area was included in the proposed bond” package, he argues that the property can be through the General Fund.
Huckleberry urges the supervisors to buy the property quickly. He writes, “The most important aspect of this proposed project is to secure the land and purchase the property that has now been made available to the County by a willing seller.”
To which Miller responds in her newsletter, “Reading the memorandum regarding what seems to be an almost urgent need for the Board to approve this purchase led me to reflect back to the creation and subsequent challenges the County has continued to face from the $38 million completion of Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium. Kino stadium was constructed and opened in 1997; and we are still footing the bill on this property. We still owe $10 million dollars on this underutilized stadium. When the County lost the Spring Training baseball teams, Pima County taxpayers were left holding the burden of annual maintenance and bond payments. As noted in the 2014/15 proposed budget, we are still allocating more monies for Kino Stadium because district revenues have decreased over 23% over the last six fiscal years.”