BILL BERLAT has been a resident of our area for the last 55 years. we are pleased to have permission to publish his thoughts about the "State of Oro Valley".
I am not into the "blog" thing, but found it interesting.
The problem is that the "blogging," while allowing Oro Valley folks to "vent," cannot accomplish much more than such a release. The last vote proved that we are speaking to the mentally infirm.
The present Oro Valley Council only serves to confirm why I was against its incorporation way back when, as I was against Marana. These incorporations lead to one thing, and one thing only. An opportunity for those who seek power to achieve it. The old saying that, "power corrupts," is not more evident than what we experience in our community.
What was once a rural and beautiful place to live has become just another adjunct to an already defiled desert city. With a Mayor and council that has never seen fit to preserve what "we" had, and continues on that same course, it can only get worse.
Splendido, that tenement in the desert is only a marked example of community leaders being fed by developers.
But what is worse, here and in Marana, is continuing to allow the "profit is virtue" crowd to line their pockets while they destroy what is left of our beautiful Sonoran desert. Subdivision after subdivision with no regard for our natural setting. Scrape the ground clean and build.
And all this is reveled in by the people who come from tenement cities to move to the "west" only to want the west to become the populace infested, cement and asphalt world they left.
And Oro Valley is lost. And how could this have been controlled? Easily. By people with a vision for what this could have been. By people not so over come with greed and others so politically corrupt that they have destroyed what God and nature gave us. Loomis looms large, and in my mind, is largely responsible for this tragedy we continue to call a community.
From Splendido to a crematorium, to higher taxes, to more scraping, to more building, to more destruction.
Those responsible for those zoning decisions should be charged with gross malfeasance in office, and given a room in the state pen in Florence. I would have no objection to testing the new crematorium on those who approved it. Talk about black smoke.
But they keep getting re elected. Has the mentality of those who vote in Oro Valley become so morally, ethically, and aesthetically corrupt that they just don’t care? Or are they just wishing they could have Chicago here?
Bill Berlat
3 comments:
Bill, I, too, share your sentiment. I've seen Oro Valley grow from an nice place to live north of Tucson to a city bent at growing with no regard to the quality of life. And with it comes higher taxes to support an ever growing appetite for growth.
A good first step: Amend the town by-law to reduce the size of the Council from seven to five. Amend it such that the only those outside the town government can sit on the Council That would eliminate the Mayor and Vice Mayor, both of whom have a vested interest in building power, from the Council. It would give it back to the people.
What say all?
Well, your Uncle Phil Richardson has a few thousand words to share. If Oro Valley has designs on your neighborhood for annexation, don't wait for them to send in the police to gather signatures. That is, if you don't want to pay the cost for new shopping centers and infrastructure in many square miles of desert for developers to gobble up at the greatest bargain since the Dutch bought Manhattan.
Five years ago, as President of our half-century old HOA, I welcomed their Town Manager and Staff to our annual meeting. I remember telling how Oro Valley is the prettiest town in the world, with the best sign ordinance I've ever seen; a place where my children, grand children and great-grand children all lived - in the cleanest neighborhood on earth, with a great shopping center when we bought nearly everything - I could go on and on.
Oro Valley used a lot of dirty tricks to take over our half-century old, blue-and-white-collar neighborhood so that they could maneuver within the law that restricts annexation of "commercial strips" - in this case, North Oracle, south of Magee. (An annexing body cannot annex an area with one dimension greater than twice that of the other dimension - i.e., it cannot be more than twice as "long" as it is "wide.")
We did not know it, but the plans for Oracle Crossing were already in OV Town offices long before the annexation of our area was begun. They either took us in or they couldn't take the swath of North Oracle south of Magee.
In subsequent "chapters" I will tell of the "mistakes" Oro Valley admitted to in court and describe the damage they have done to we homeowners since the annexation of 2003.
How many old, built-up neighborhoods are left on one acre lots? Would you believe that OV has granted a construction permit for a stand alone "storage shed" that's as great or greater than the home occupied by the family that owns both; a storage shed with a basement that awaits an occupant - perhaps another family.
Have you driven east on Magee to just beyond the Catholic shools lately? Omaho Beach looked better three days after the invasion.
What we have received in return is a little bit of tar dribbled into the cracks of the broken down streets - that gives them a nice, corduroy affect.
We can't wait until Golder Ranch Fire District gives us another big boost in our Fire Coverage costs - since they have a monopoly in Oro Valley.
We also look forward to the tax on utilities.
We really want to remain in our modest home ($22,500) on a lovely tree covered acre, but either change must be brought about at Town Hall, with a subsequent move toward killing a giant amoeba with an insatiable and expensive appetite, or we cannot continue to afford to.
I am amazed how many lights and bright the parking area around Splendido is.
I thought Pima County had an ordinance regarding a dark sky?
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