Oro Valley Stops Retail "Giveaways"----At Least For Now

On Aug 14, in our posting, "Dankwerth Is Disingenuous," we noted that the Oro Valley Town Council voted to put a stop,(at least until the next time they vote), to retail incentives.

In the Aug 22nd Explorer, reporter Patrick McNamara expounds on this issue in a front page story.

A couple of quotes caught our eye. Once again Dankwerth is in the forefront with her quote: "It's long overdue."

Yeah! We know it's long overdue, but if Dankwerth would not have voted against this measure in December of 2004, it could have been "less, long overdue" by almost three years. That's one reason to believe she is being disingenuous.

It was good to see our Economic Development Administrator, David Welsh, note: "I've never been in favor of these incentive deals for retail." Too bad, his predecessor, Jeff Weir wasn't smart enough to realize that!

In the article Scott Krugman, a spokesperson for the National Retail Federation has an interesting comment. He says: "Many times large retailers are the first to come into economically challenged areas that towns and cities want to improve."

Well---that sure explains why our government felt compelled to give away almost $50,000,000 of our future sales tax revenues to the retail developers. We must be "economically challenged!"

What do you think?

Click here to read the Explorer article.

Oro Valley Resident Endorses General Plan Amendment

Oro Valley resident David Allen writes in his letter to The Explorer of Aug 22nd: "Let’s hope that logic prevails when considering a change to the Oro Valley General Plan."

Our readers should know the issue he refers to is a "land swap" requested by the developer in the Innovation Park Industrial area. You should also know, the Planning and Zoning Commission recently approved this "swap" by a 6-1 vote. Read it here. It will come up for a town council vote shortly.

The question might be somewhat involved, but, then again, perhaps not. Should Oro Valley amend the General Plan at a developers request, if it may-----or may not benefit the town of Oro Valley? We'll see what our council thinks soon enough.

Here's the text of David's letter.

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Plan amendment good for OV

Let’s hope that logic prevails when considering a change to the Oro Valley General Plan. In other words, what has taken us so long to get this figured out?

Thanks to the efforts of a number of people, including David Welsh, our town economic development administrator, we have an opportunity to “master plan” the acreage adjacent to Ventana Medical Systems and the Oro Valley Medical Center. These two entities are some of the crown jewels of our community. We have an opportunity to attract more high-quality companies such as Ventana and to build much needed infrastructure surrounding the hospital. And we’re not talking strip malls! What we are talking about is more high-paying jobs and a broadening of our tax base.

Come on folks, this is a no brainer! Please, go to the Town of Oro Valley website and e-mail the town council. Let them know you support this amendment!

David. L. Allen
Oro Valley