In a recent Explorer article dated June 22, 2022, entitled “Former OV Police Chief Seeking Mayor’s Office,” Sharp is quoted as saying:
Sharp has rewritten history.“I wish that the council would make [public safety] the priority that it always has been. I mean, this town was founded on the premise of strong public safety. They are not attending to that strong public safety piece that the Founding Fathers of Oro Valley thought was important.”
The reason Oro Valley was incorporated in 1974 was to avoid a property tax as the City of Tucson continued to look towards annexations to the North.
Do we really want Danny Sharp to meddle with Chief Kara Riley’s leadership, a chief who won public acclaim for her sound managerial expertise two years in a row?
Danny Sharp is Oro Valley’s “one trick pony”
There is no mention of public safety or police and fire in the original town documents when the Town incorporated in 1974. Therefore, while it may serve Sharp’s story to allege Oro Valley was founded on issues of safety, it is just patently false.
(Oro Valley’s Founding Fathers could not afford their own police and fire department. They contracted these services through Rural Metro. That company provided private police and fire coverage until 1975. That is when private police departments were banned by the State.)
Danny Sharp wants you to think that Oro Valley is unsafe so that he can ride in to save the day!
In that same article, Sharp is quoted multiple times claiming that the Oro Valley Police Department is understaffed, which he alleges is affecting the number of officers who are in the high schools and on traffic patrol:
Danny Sharp wants you to think that we are doomed without him in power
"It concerns me that I drive up and down Oracle Road, Tangerine Road, La Cholla and I don’t see any police cars”.
This very subjective statement is meant to suggest that the policing numbers and leadership is so lacking that your safety is in jeopardy. At various times during the June 28 Greater Oro Valley Candidate Forum, Sharp made statements about how bad public safety is in Oro Valley, However, he did not back up his observations with data. This is because there is no data to support his ramblings.
“Frankly the police department just does not have the staff, the personnel to be able to do these things.”
Sharp’s game plan is to tell you that Oro Valley is not a safe place since he retired a little over two years ago.
Take a close look at all the interviews and statements made by Sharp to date and you will find a very common theme: Pictures of him in his Oro Valley police uniform, displaying the embroidered Oro Valley police logo—which he knows is a violation of Town code—while making statements about understaffed officers, increased speeding, red-light running, crashes, and graffiti.Danny Sharp wants you to think that we are doomed without him in power
"It concerns me that I drive up and down Oracle Road, Tangerine Road, La Cholla and I don’t see any police cars”.
This very subjective statement is meant to suggest that the policing numbers and leadership is so lacking that your safety is in jeopardy. At various times during the June 28 Greater Oro Valley Candidate Forum, Sharp made statements about how bad public safety is in Oro Valley, However, he did not back up his observations with data. This is because there is no data to support his ramblings.
Sharp described crimes that he felt have increased, like a theft of a catalytic converter from cars or items stolen from cars. He is equating these incidences with a community that is unsafe, in spite of the fact that recent FBI statistics on crime have deemed Oro Valley one of the safest communities in Arizona.
Danny Sharp will meddle in Oro Valley Police Department Operations
But the most disturbing comment from this forum came at the end when he made the following comment:
This is yet another interesting comment considering that during my tenure on Town Council, I got nothing but pushback—and later payback—from this very individual because I dared to question even one thing about the police department. Now, as Mayor, he will use his position on council to “influence” the direction of the police department.“We will see safety in this community if I am elected Mayor in four years because I am going to attend to that.”
Do we really want Danny Sharp to meddle with Chief Kara Riley’s leadership, a chief who won public acclaim for her sound managerial expertise two years in a row?
Danny Sharp is Oro Valley’s “one trick pony”
All he knows is his style of policing and he wants to intimidate and instill a sense of fear that without him in power Oro Valley is doomed. He suggests that our current Mayor and our very able current Police Chief are incompetent. What he is really doing is projecting his own incompetence on two very capable, successful public servants.
I watched Sharp in action during my eight years on the Oro Valley Town Council.
I can emphatically state that we are better off without him.
If you—like me—are happy with the current direction of our town and the police department, ignore Sharp’s overblown rhetoric.
We really do not need this “one trick pony” to perform any more stunts for the residents of Oro Valley
Bill Garner
Oro Valley Town Council Member, 2008-2016
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