Now that we have had a few days to reflect, rejoice or be disappointed in the results of the Naranja Bond Issue, I guess the big question is, "Now what?"
It seems the existing town council will have to decide if, when and what to offer the citizens of Oro Valley as it concerns this parcel of land.
We don't have any inside information, but based on their support, it seems evident that Mayor Loomis, Council Members Kunisch, Gillaspie & Abbott were disappointed that the park measure was defeated, whereas Council Members Carter, Garner & Latas have indicated they were against a property tax on the citizens in order to subsidize this park.
So----Where does that leave us?
That certainly is a legitimate question the proponents & opponents of the park want answered.
From our standpoint, the answer is not as straight forward as it may appear on the surface. While a "curtailed" plan might be the prudent approach, there may be other issues that need to be addressed first.
First of all, we probably all recall the Tucson Museum of Art had expressed an interest in relocating to Oro Valley and one of the sites considered was the Naranja Park. Now that the voters have spoken, might it not be wise to see if the museum is in fact interested in coming to our community, and if so, we could work with them and give them the "pick of the litter" as to a specific site at Naranja.
If that should materialize, we would then work with the museum representatives in determining the "how & where" the sports facilities should be located, and to what extent.
If the museum opts out, we still have a viable, less costly option available to us. In our previous posting on the election results, our neighbor "Fear the Turtle" suggested funding the park with both private & public funds----certainly not a new or novel idea, but one that should be considered. After all, although we don't have a wealth of corporations based in Oro Valley, we do have some rather large organizations that may want to help better our community with their financial support.
That way, we may be able to avoid asking the citizens to fund a property tax over the next 25 years, which I'm sure was the main reason the bond question was defeated.
Although I'd like to take credit for the next idea, the credit must go to our good friends, Council Members KC Carter & Bill Garner.
For those who may not be familiar with KC's background, he owned his own construction firm back in Iowa. KC has made it known that he would be willing, (as he always is) to serve the town, and could work with the town public works department to get some of the necessary infrastructure in place at a tremendous cost savings to the town.
Bill has advised this approach falls in line with his belief that the town should be "fiscally responsible."
As we see it, this makes total sense. Although we were outspoken critics of the previous council putting this $48.6 bond issue to the voters, we also indicated we supported ball fields and courts for our youth---but in reasonable numbers.
The question of "what is reasonable in terms of numbers and costs," could be ascertained with constructive dialog between town staff, town council & town citizens.
Surely, now that the voters have spoken, we must appreciate more than 7500 of our fellow citizens voted "yes.
Let's see if we can't all agree to get going on a plan that the vast majority can, and will support.
That will serve us all well!
We'd appreciate the thoughts of our readers.
