Saturday, July 12, 2008

Still No Satisfactory Answer From Oro Valley On $420,000 Expenditure

Our readers may recall on July 2, the Oro Valley Council voted to approve an emergency expenditure to spend $420,000 to reconfigure the fourth fairway of the Hilton's El Conquistador Country Club golf course.

Bill Garner, Salette Latas & Paula Abbott fell one vote short, as the motion passed 4-3.

The question we asked was simple enough. Although we acknowledge the town would have some liability as a result of the widening of La Canada Dr.----why is Oro Valley paying the total amount & the Hilton is paying zero?

The town acknowledges that on May 16, 2007 the previous council passed a resolution approving a Memorandum of Understanding between the Town & the Hilton El Conquistador to fund the design fees to reconfigure the fourth fairway. Additionally, it is the mutual understanding that the fees will be paid by the Town since the endeavor of reconfiguring the golf course fourth fairway stemmed from the La Canada widening.
(The above is an excerpt from the OV Council packet of July 2.)

We put our question through to Pat Klein, OV Constituent Services. Ms. Klein responded in part by saying:

"The best I can offer is that during negotiations with the Hilton, this is what was agreed to after a series of discussions. I could not tell you how that decision was arrived at."

Keep in mind, Ms. Klein relies on staff to supply the information she passes on. The reply did not address my query, and I am awaiting an answer to my subsequent request---Why are we paying the total amount and who negotiated this one sided settlement?

We'll let you know what, if anything, we find out.

We do wonder---- although the majority of 4 on the council approved this expenditure, do any of our readers share our concerns as to WHY?


3 comments:

mscoyote said...

Of course we are concerned and of course people deserve an answer.

If we can't get a "real " answer then how does this town expect people to trust them with bond money to build the theme park?


I just read something about the state of Arizona making available all budget expendiutres on line.
And it seemed like they meant in detail. I don't know the details maybe somebody else on here will.

I think that would be a good idea for OV

Zev Cywan said...

Just drove by the Westin La Paloma golf course off Skyline today; the proximity of the course to the road doesn't seem to be an issue there - so what IS the real truth?

Fear the Turtle said...

The real truth is complete and utter ignorance on the part of certain members of our Town Council and certain town employees when it comes to liability issues.
You can't have town council members serve our town in a proper and prudent manner if they live in fear of being sued. Are there that many exclusions in our town's liability policy?
Also by pointing out the fault with this golf course only opens up the town for more lawsuits.