‘Let’s talk this over before enacting HB 2385,’ opponents to incorporation vote plead
Now that legislation that would ease the way for residents of San Tan Valley to hold a vote on incorporating as a city has begun advancing through the Arizona House of Representatives, opponents are asking that the issue regress back to the discussion stage.
A bill (HB 2385) was approved on Feb. 24 by the House Judiciary Committee on a unanimous 6-0 vote and now awaits hearings in the House Rules Committee before being sent for a vote by the full House. The measure would eliminate the “six-mile rule” in Pinal County that allows an incorporated city or town within six miles of a community seeking to incorporate to block a vote in that community if it feels the newly incorporated town would have a detrimental impact on the existing city. Since 2011 Pinal has been the only county in Arizona where the “six-mile rule” is still in effect.
The “six-mile rule” was used by the Florence Town Council in 2010 to block a vote on San Tan Valley incorporation. The following year, the Arizona state legislature enacted a measure that would have originally eliminated the rule for all counties, but that Pinal County was removed from coverage in a deal to get the measure passed for the benefit of the other counties.
HB 2385 still contains some limitations on communities seeking to incorporate. Existing incorporated towns can still block a neighboring communities’ incorporation vote if the population of the community is less than 65% of the existing town. Thus, Eloy could still block an incorporation vote in Arizona City. However, no neighboring town could block its incorporation vote in San Tan Valley as its population is currently larger than any other town in Pinal County.
While prior to 2001 San Tan Valley was entirely farm land, development of subdivisions was so rapid that the community was large enough to select its own name by 2008, and be listed in the 2010 U.S. Census as having 81,000 residents. San Tan Valley is currently estimated to have between 88,000 and 100,000 residents, and is large enough to have been issued three ZIP Codes by the U.S. Postal Service.
If incorporated, San Tan Valley would immediately become the 11th largest city in Arizona, according to Tom Belshie, an administrator with the League of Arizona Cities and Towns (LACT).
Rather than see the Arizona House vote on HB 2385, officials in Florence have asked chief sponsor State Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R-Gilbert) to put the measure on the back burner and enter a discussion that would lead to a fair solution. Farnsworth has not responded to this request.
“Florence would prefer a meeting of stakeholders that would include the county, as well as the cities and towns in Pinal County, as well as members of the San Tan Valley incorporation steering committee, and others that might be deemed stakeholders,” Jess Knudson, Florence assistant town manager, told the Southeast Valley Ledger. “A meeting needs to take place so we can sit down and identify some middle ground on San Tan Valley incorporation.”
According to Knudson, Florence has asked State Rep. Doug Coleman (R-Apache Junction) to help organize a stakeholders meeting.
Florence opposed a San Tan Valley incorporation vote in 2010 it was at the height of the Great Recession and would have lost $900,000 annually in state shared revenues had a new city of 80,000 claimed a share of these revenues, Knudson said. However, Knudson added that Florence is not currently opposed to efforts to incorporate San Tan Valley.
This differed from Florence’s position in 2014 when the town objected to the boundaries of the proposed San Tan Valley Fire and Medical District as it claimed as a municipal planning area San Tan Valley south of Combs Road and east of Gary Road.
What scares nearby towns in Pinal County is the sheer size of San Tan Valley, said LACT’s Belshie. The community stands to become the largest population ever to seek incorporation, and if it becomes a city it will cause a huge shift in how state revenue is shared in Pinal County. Residents of San Tan Valley will benefit from a larger sum of revenues while other towns would get less.
LACT thus opposed HB 2385 as it believes a slower, more thoughtful path to incorporation is required to make things less financially painful for other Pinal towns, he said.
In addition to Florence, Apache Junction and Maricopa are reportedly opposed to HB 2385. Maricopa is the most recent Pinal County town to incorporate back in 2003.
LACT believes that a too soon incorporation of San Tan Valley could have disastrous consequences, Belshie said. Besides state revenue sharing, Arizona towns get much of their revenue from a local addition to the state Transaction Privilege Tax (known elsewhere as a sales tax). But San Tan Valley grew faster than its retail community. Much of the current retail community is located along Hunt Highway, especially at the intersections with Gary Road and Belle Vista Road. Retail also is sprouting along Ironwood/Gantzel Roads from just north of Ocotillo Road to south of Combs Road. But the number and variety of stores is still small with most San Tan Valley residents still driving into Queen Creek in Maricopa County to shop at the myriad stores in its two shopping centers. Thus the sales tax might not contribute the volume of revenues needed to support a city as populous as San Tan Valley.
The current sales tax in San Tan Valley is 6.7% while most incorporated towns in Pinal County add 2% on top of the state and county portion (total 8.7%). A few cash-strapped towns like Mammoth and Superior have 10.7% sales tax rates.
LACT offers to help San Tan Valley prepare for an incorporation. This includes drafting an ordinance creating the town government, complete with the size and composition of an elected town council, and creation of town departments headed by a town manager, town clerk, financial director and a director of parks and recreation. Initially the town could contract out for police, fire and road repair, but could eventually create their own in-house departments, Belshie said.
Overall taxes would likely be raised to pay town officer salaries and things like liability insurance, he added.
“It take a lot of planning to create a city,” Belshie explained.
Worries that San Tan Valley might move for incorporation as soon as HB2385 is enacted may be premature. San Tan Valley Chamber of Commerce Chairman Wayne Bachmann said chamber members have not discussed incorporation much, and he knows of no other local group pushing for it at present.
And any resident who receives water and/or sewer service from Johnson Utilities has received many warnings about incorporation bringing higher taxes in the firm’s newsletter tucked in with the monthly bill.
Still others seem to want San Tan Valley to become its own entity.
“It would be nice for San Tan Valley to become a city and offer the same services as other towns,” said B.J. Young, a resident of the Wayne Ranch subdivision.
“We should be able to chart our own future as our own city. That is why I favor incorporation. We can figure out where the downtown is to eventually locate the town hall later,” said Vic Jansen, a resident of the Pecan Creek subdivision.
A Facebook page called San Tan Valley’s Right to Vote has been created to promote passage of HB 2385 and offers daily reasons why passage would benefit residents.