---
One of the things that our friend Art kept driving home before he "retired from active blog posting" was that the 2010 elected members to the Oro Valley Town Council were financially supported by special interest groups. Our definition of that is any group that can seek financial gain from the decisions of Council.
The special interests to which we refer are those in the Land, Development and Construction industries; but there are others.
We have not wanted to be precipitous in our judgement of the influence of special interests on any council member; so we have, for the past 17 months, "steered-clear" of drawing or publishing any such judgement.
One way to assess "influence" is to review the political contributions
to the campaigns of the then mayoral or Council Members. So, we have (painstakingly) gathered this information for you to see. It is located on a new tab on or blog, near the top entitled: "2010 Campaign Contributions."
We want you to be the judge of whether or not special interests have an influence.
Here's something for you to do.
Take a currently-pending decision, such as the requested General Plan Amendment request for parcel 7-I. List the interested parties. Then, look at the information provided in the "2010 Campaign Contributions" tab. Did any individuals from any of the interested parties (Venture West, Vistoso Partners) make contributions to candidates? If so, which candidates? Ask: Is it possible the highly unusual Town Council action of delaying a decision on property 7-I have anything to do with this influence?
So, please, do a little homework.
You be the judge.
---
