Thursday, June 30, 2022

Guest View-Diane Peters: Danny Sharp’s Claim Is Quite A Stretch

Mayoral Candidate Danny Sharp’s comment in the Explorer
In the June 22nd edition of the Explorer, Oro Valley mayoral candidate Danny Sharp continued his battle cry that the OVPD is understaffed, and then says, “I mean this town was founded on the premise of strong public safety. They [the Winfield council] are not attending to that strong public safety piece that the Founding Fathers of Oro Valley thought was important."

This is the first time I’ve heard that Oro Valley was founded on the premise of strong public safety. Every article I’ve read on this topic over the years has stated that Oro Valley was founded because residents didn’t want to be annexed into Tucson. They wanted to control their own destiny. They wanted to protect the desert landscape. The founders also promised that Oro Valley would never have a property tax. Now that the former chief of police is running for mayor, suddenly we’re told that Oro Valley was founded on the premise of strong public safety.

The Oro Valley Historical Society (OVHS) published an article on LOVE in April 2021 about Oro Valley Founding Father, Jim Kriegh. They listed all of the reasons that he wanted to incorporate Oro Valley. Strong public safety is not mentioned.

Here is what was mentioned in the OVHS article:

The Main Reason was to continue “Country Living”
When asked why he wanted to incorporate Oro Valley, Kriegh said the main reason was that he believed that Tucson was “going to spread to the North and Northwest, and there goes country living. Country living is why I am here.”

With that, Kriegh ensured that his core value of protecting the environment was encompassed in Oro Valley’s first General Plan which included the following objectives:

• Ensure that development is compatible with the area’s topography, natural landscape and resources

• Promote physical forms which are in harmony with the natural environment and reflect a design quality appropriate to the area

• Protect the natural beauty and qualities of the existing desert environment

• Encourage the preservation of the mountains, foothills, and hillsides

Police protection was barely a blip on Kriegh’s radar screen
In a video interview that Jim gave many years ago, he was asked why he wanted to form a separate town. In that interview he again spoke of land use issues and that the founders were not happy with the Planning and Zoning being approved by the Pima County Board of Supervisors and that the Board was not responding to their desires and requests. This was why the founders wanted to “gain control of our area.” He briefly mentioned that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was “spread too thin and just could not cover the area” and as such, he felt that our police protection could be better. But this comment was barely a blip on the radar screen and he never said that Oro Valley was founded on the premise of strong public safety.

The recurring theme in Jim Kriegh’s plan
As you can see, the recurring theme in Kriegh’s desire to incorporate was to preserve country living. Therefore, Sharp’s assertion that “this town was founded on the premise of strong public safety” is quite a stretch.

Our public safety is doing just fine under Mayor Winfield
In April of this year, the Town announced that, “OV was ranked the #1 safest place to live in Arizona for 2022 by Elite Personal Finance, using FBI statistics and crime scores.”

Additionally, as reported on LOVE on May 16th, during the May 2022 Budget Study Session, Chief Riley stated that she got everything she asked for in her $19.1M police budget request. (Town Manager’s Recommended Budget for FY 2022/23 which begins on July 1, 2022). You can read about it HERE. And on June 24th, the OVPD announced that they were hiring more lateral police officers.

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Diane Peters has lived in Oro Valley since 2003, moving here to escape the humidity of the East Coast. She’s been involved in OV politics and development issues since 2006, including organizing a citizens group in 2014 that spent 9 months negotiating a controversial 200-acre development project. In her past life, she worked in medical research at various University Hospitals in New England. Her interests include reading, writing, nature photography, travel, art galleries, museums, and politics.