The first meeting of the new Pima County Board of Supervisors ended in, you guessed it, a slobbering lovefest for the king of cronyism, the master of malfeasance, the wizard of wastefulness himself, Chuck Huckelberry. With the Democratic majority on the Board maintained, a renewed contract for Chuck was assured; the only matter up for debate on the dais was for how long Supervisors Elias and Valadez would lavish Chuck Huckelberry with false praise for his long and fetid record.
Supervisor Miller delivered a considered, detailed, reasoned accounting of the decades of Chuck’s contrivances to the detriment of the county. Without error or dubious statement, Miller offered more than sufficient cause to terminate the Administrator’s contract. In a pleasant surprise, freshly-sworn Supervisor Christy also recounted failings and issues with Huckelberry’s leadership, sealing the indictment against the man who has dictated County policy and spending for nearly a quarter of a century.
Neither Supervisor needed to utter a word, however: During the call to the audience, many of the speakers addressed the contract proposal and every one of them called for a vote against the contract. Numerous speakers trotted out the tired Monsanto trope, and several of them called for the county not to extend a new offer to Huckelberry. Amidst calls to stop bullying of conservatives, multiple right-leaning individuals stepped to the microphone and asked the Board to end Huckelberry’s tenure. Had three votes not been assured, Huckelberry should have been sweating bullets.
Alas, the County Administrator was able to remain cool and collected. Chair Bronson was an assured vote. Supervisors Elias and Valadez were as well. Through backhanded praise, both Elias and Valadez acclaimed the reigning Chuck and his benevolent policies–benevolent, of course, to his closest friends and campaign donors, but not to Pima County taxpayers.
Supervisor Elias called Huckelberry a “highly-paid professional, but also a high-function professional”. The Pima County taxpayer has yet to reap the benefit from that level of function. He then changed from flowery words of praise for his buddy Chuck to verbal daggers for those contemptuous, insubordinate taxpayers who dared question another term for Chuck.
In a rambling screed that must be excerpted and played ad-nauseam during his next election campaign, Supervisor Valadez deflected any possible criticism off Huckelberry and placed it squarely on the Board itself. Nothing bad that happens in Pima County is because of Chuck, he babbled, it’s all because of the Board.
Supervisor Elias then continued his pontificating and raised the whole matter to a vote with a thinly-veiled but paltry attempt at bullying Supervisor Miller. (This uncivilized behavior, of course, came after another Elias opus extolling a proclamation declaring every County building a safe space free from harassment.)
The palaver droned on far too long before Chair Bronson finally called for a vote and the party lines dictated the count.
$374,000 is the final tally, the tangible value of the approved compensation contract for appointee Chuck Huckelberry. The annual salary of the President of the United States, mind you, is $400,000. (If you compare these salaries accounting for cost of living in Tucson and in D.C., the $400,000 Obama has collected for the past eight years pales in comparison to Chuck’s equivalent of $608,498. One wonders if the two bureaucrats’ damaging impacts to their taxpayers have mirrored their pay scales.)
It’s a new year, and the three establishment puppets on the Board made good on their resolutions: to maintain the status quo. So what’s next, folks? A big tax break for Monsanto? An interstate freeway to nowhere? It’s only three days into a four-year contract. A lot could happen in four years.