Guest View: Mike Zinkin - What Happened To Oversight?

What happened to oversight?
Oro Valley is not governed by the elected officials but by the Town staff. There hasn’t been any oversight over staff functions since the Hiremath regime.

Council authorized town manager to sign for El Conquistador Country Club without due diligence
A perfect example of this is the Purchase and Sales Agreement (PSA) executed between HSL and the Town. That agreement culminated with the Town owning the Community Center, 45 holes of golf, 2 swimming pools, and numerous tennis courts. The motion that allowed for this purchase was to instruct the Town Manager to negotiate and execute the agreement.

Council never reviewed the agreement

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Prior to a vote on the motion to allow for this, a couple of Council members asked that the Council be allowed to review the agreement prior to it being signed. The Hiremath people were aghast with this proposal. After all, they argued, we hire the Town Manager and staff to do this kind of work…they are educated in this...they know more than we do. In other words, we, the elected officials, are delegating our authority to you, the town employees, to enter into this agreement.

The Council is accountable to the People, the staff is not
Why would council delegate, without oversight, something as important as this? We all can now see the results of the PSA. No elected official has signed the PSA. It was signed by the Town Manager and the Town’s Legal Services Director. I doubt that any elected official has even read the PSA.

Any legal document that binds the Town should be signed by the Mayor
The latest agreement between the town and HSL, the one that leases the Pusch Ridge 9-hole course back to HSL, is going to be signed by the town manager (see MOU above).

I wonder…Do the current council members know the “details” of this lease agreement? The lease agreement itself has not details at all.  Is HSL going to be responsible to make the Pusch Ridge pro shop ADA compliant of is this the town’s problem? Is HSL going to get reduced water rates for the potable water being used on the golf course? Is HSL paying $10,000/yr. to lease the course? How many years is the lease valid? The contract is misdated!

Return this power where it belongs, to the elected officials 
My message to council is simple: Do your job. Get in the “weeds.” Stop delegating your authority. The People trusted you to do a job on their behalf. They did not entrust an employee of the town to do that.