On Monday, August 22, Pima County Superior Court Judge Catherine Woods will hear oral arguments on Pima County’s motion to dismiss the case brought by the Goldwater Institute in the World View deal.
According to Goldwater attorney Jim Manley, the judge could rule as early as Monday’s hearing about whether the lawsuit will move forward in her court, or if the case will be immediately appealed.
The hearing is scheduled to last for one hour beginning at 2:30 p.m. in Pima County Superior Court, Division 17, 110 West Congress, in Tucson.
A recap of the Institute’s case reads:
After six months of secret negotiations (under the codename “Project Curvature”), Pima County officials signed off on a deal to build a headquarters and high-altitude balloon pad for a private company called World View Enterprises. The deal puts government-owned buildings up for collateral, and devotes the money to building a 135,000 square-foot headquarters and 700-foot diameter balloon pad that the company will use for its high-altitude balloon launching business. World View will charge $75,000 to each tourist it sends up for a balloon ride—assuming it ever begins operation. Since the company has not successfully launched passengers, however, that remains speculative, and if World View defaults on its lease, County taxpayers will be left with a bill for $15 million. In exchange for all this, World View has agreed to make deeply discounted rent payments and is supposed to provide a certain number of jobs in Pima County—but the agreement provides no realistic way of enforcing the promise of more jobs.
The agreement violates the Arizona Constitution’s Gift Clause, which forbids government from giving or lending money to private enterprises. That rule—which the Institute has successfully enforced in previous cases—protects taxpayers against special-interest deal-making by government officials and prevents foolhardy “development” projects that leave the government deeper in debt if they fail.
The agreement also violates Arizona laws that require competitive bidding for private contracts and forbid counties from leasing land without auctioning it to the highest bidder. Instead of following these rules, county officials consulted in secret with construction and design companies for months before seeking official approval to do so—and then awarded the balloon facility design and construction contracts to those companies. The County claimed there was no time to follow the competitive bidding rules. In reality, County officials had already agreed to an expedited deadline for construction, and then used that deadline as justification to avoid competitive bidding.
Subsidies and loans of taxpayer money to private enterprises hurt taxpayers by betting their money on development schemes that are usually too risky to attract enough private investors. Consumers—not bureaucrats armed with government power and taxpayers’ wallets—should make decisions about what businesses should operate where.