Someone compared it to being nibbled to death by ducks.
At the time the Oro Valley Council enacted their little “franchise fee” that added $3.04 to our Comcast bills each month, (yours may vary slightly, according to the class of service provided by the cable company), OV executive Scott Nelson reportedly bragged to friends that “We finally got the camel’s nose under the tent,” an old Arabian saying that portends a small bite of mutton each month that we would hardly notice being taken, but once the tent stakes are pulled up one by one, we will have a voracious creature inside devouring our savings and taking a lot of pleasure out of living in the Prettiest Town in the West. Just how much are we willing to pay to enjoy those breathtaking mountain vistas?
After the pittance paid to Comcast came the infamous Oro Valley Utility Tax of 2 percent that is also not being paid by folks one foot outside the town boundaries. In my case this monthly tax payment added $1.32 to our bill from the power company, $6.22 to our gas bill and a picayune 10 cents to the phone bill.
This was followed in the cascade by an increase of $101.14 in fire protection for a total of $344, or an added $8.44 more per month—about 50 percent more than paid by others getting the identical service across the street, but outside the Oro Valley town limits.
Now comes a notice that we can expect a $2.90 per month “Stormwater Fee” for the Oro Valley Water Department come February. This despite the fact our neighborhood is 200 feet above the Canyon del Oro wash and none of our water is supplied by the Oro Valley water facility.
Most of the money is going to help rescue the hapless who build their California-tiled homes in areas where they really should not have been allowed to build. If hydrologists are correct, one day many of their dreams will be swept down to the Santa Cruz River five miles to the west. In the meantime, another $2 million bridge will need to be built to keep the commuters using La Cholla Boulevard across soggy bottom, where the value of mud is greatly appreciated every time we get a shower.
Enough? Oh, but we have just started compiling the cost of trying to keep what was once the “Florence Highway” from becoming the largest parking lot in Pima County. You are aware of the quickly approaching Naranja (Orange) Park vote in November, when we will be allowed to pick the amount of the property tax we wish to pay for the next 25 years.
I love parks. I personally chaired a bonding committee that built a dozen neighborhood “pocket parks” all across Pima County. Oro Valley needs a nice northside park. $48,000,000 should not be an onerous amount. The swimming pool and other exercise equipment at the YMCA on north Shannon and the courts at Arthur Pack Park on Thornydale are just too far away. Granted, Catalina State Park is within spitting distance, but it doesn’t offer anything but hiking and camping.
Naranja Park is also destined to become the new town governmental center. Do not be dismayed. Non-stop growth is the pyramidal premise upon which all governmental structures are based: It’s the nature of the beast. Demonstrate an excess of work and soon you can train a secretary and / or assistant so that they can begin building their own departments, replete with staff, computers and cars.
The thing I detest is the property tax that Oro Valley hopes we will be foolish enough to impose upon ourselves. But another $10 to $20 added to the $22 more per month being excised from my wallet now in order to take advantage of the new Wal-Mart will pale in comparison to the cost those of us in the older neighborhoods will be expected to shoulder in order to pay for the infrastructure needed for the inhabitation of 14 square miles Oro Valley hopes to acquire in the northside desert despoilation scheme.
Remember these two words: “Arroyo Grande” (“Big Ditch,” for those for whom English is a first and only language), for they will haunt the headlines and your worst nightmares in the months and years to come if plans to raze 14 square miles of pristine desert north of town for future developers is not contained and curtailed.
If I don’t like it, why don’t I just pick up and leave? That’s like Hitler asking the Poles to go elsewhere. We wuz here first! Since you drafted us into Oro Valley, we intend to be good citizens and participate fully in the democratic process.
In order to quit this tirade on a note of hope, the latest change next November of those occupying most of the seats on the Town Council promises a change of policies that will better control growth and hold out a little bit of hope for all of we desert creatures.
Phil Richardson
Oro Valley
2 comments:
Thanks for telling it like it is, Phil. Oro Valley Annexed our little neighborhood of Verde Catalina a few years back, with the promise of no taxes. I said at that time "just wait". Homeowners bought into it, thinking their home values would rise. How's that working?
Good job, Phil. We, too, were annexed by OV with the promise of no property tax.
How does that old saying go, "death by a thousand cuts"?
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