Guest View: Diane Peters ~ Wildlife Matters

 

Despite being involved in Oro Valley development issues for the past 15 years, reading Dr. Amy Eisenberg’s recent Guest View on LOVE about the devastation on the Kai-Silverhawke property was an eye-opener even for me. (Read it HERE)

The Town needs to implement a Wildlife Conservation Ordinance
After reading her Guest View and witnessing what Meritage Homes was allowed to do on the Silverhawke property -- completely leveling the land and all those beautiful rolling hills (wildlife habitat) -- it appears that the Town does not have any protocols in place for protecting wildlife. Therefore, we can expect the same devastation to occur on the remaining Kai property at First and Tangerine if and when it is ever developed.

Since tortoises are very slow moving and cannot outrun a bulldozer, I can surmise from reading Dr. Eisenberg's article that some of them were crushed to death or buried alive during the mass grading of Silverhawke. And apparently the Town does not care because they are not federally protected. Until recently, I had no idea that there were tortoises living on that parcel.

Our Town Council has an opportunity, from this point forward, to establish a preconstruction protocol to analyze, protect, and perhaps relocate indigenous species living in the construction area. In light of what these animals could face, this is the humane, compassionate, and civilized thing to do. What the Town is currently allowing is just plain cruel.

The Town should require a “Wildlife Assessment and Plan” to be submitted with every development proposal and rezoning.

A wildlife biologist should be consulted
If the Town can arrange to have all the saguaro cactus counted on a property and make arrangements for them to either be protected in place or carefully relocated, they can certainly do the same for wildlife...and not just the ones on the Endangered Species List. How do you think they became endangered in the first place? It was due to the thoughtless, selfish, greedy, and reckless behavior of man.

Rather than destroying wildlife habitats and killing the wildlife, then waiting for their numbers to decline so much that they are eventually placed on the Endangered Species list, and then we must wait years (if not decades) for their numbers to increase again, why not be proactive and have protocols that prevent this from happening in the first place? 

Demolished tortoise habitat (Photo from Dr. Eisenberg's Guest View)

Oro Valley - It's in our nature!

Is it? Or is that just a slogan?


The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan
I’ve wrongly assumed all these years that Oro Valley’s wildlife was being catalogued and protected due to The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan that has been in effect since 1998. According to their website, below is one of the components in the plan:

• Working with local jurisdictions such as the City of Tucson, Town of Marana, Town of Oro Valley, and Town of Sahuarita on regional habitat conservation planning and the development of their conservation policies and ordinances. We also continually monitor how these policies and ordinances are applied to specific development projects.

This did not appear to happen on the Silverhawke property. Is the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan just a guide without any actual requirements and enforcement?

A plea to our Mayor and Council
Impacts to wildlife habitat must be considered in all future General Plan amendments and rezonings. I call on our Town Council and Town Staff to immediately begin implementation of a wildlife conservation plan. And not just a guide that can be overlooked or modified when convenient, but an actual Town Code to prevent this travesty from ever happening again. We must stop allowing wildlife to be killed simply because developers deem them to be in the way and disposable. On the contrary, it’s us humans who are in their way!

And do it now because we are not likely to have a more environmentally friendly council than this to do it.
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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. In 2014, she organized a citizens group, who over a 9-month period, successfully negotiated 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.

Guest View: Jim Tripp ~ The Rest of the Iceberg. Part 1: Fear Mongering by Solomon and Rodman

One June 17th, LOVE published a Guest View by Jim Tripp entitled, “The Tip of the Iceberg.” It included a wealth of previously unknown information on the proposed annexation of State Land at Tangerine and Thornydale including the blatant conflict of interest of two people involved in the project. If you missed it, you can read it HERE

We now present “The Rest of the Iceberg”


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What’s the rest of the iceberg?

Fear Mongering
Take a look at this video of Rodman and this video of Solomon warning the Oro Valley Town Council to rezone the Trust Land at Tangerine and Thornydale to the State’s satisfaction, or suffer the consequences at the hands of the town of Marana.

Rodman video at 31 seconds in:

“We should consider the fact that if we don’t do it, Marana will.  I mean, we’ve heard those words directly.”

Note his stress on the word directly.

Solomon video at 5 seconds in:

“This land will be developed, and the odds are if it’s developed outside of Oro Valley, it’s gonna be at a higher intensity, with less restrictions than what Oro Valley would have, and all that development is going to have an impact on Oro Valley...”

What facts does Solomon have to back up this opinion?

No Need to Fear: Marana Can’t Deliver Water
In a nutshell, I had two lengthy phone conversations with Marana Town Mayor Ed Honea to fact-check Marana’s interest in the Tangerine and Thornydale annexation. Honea said that Marana has no interest whatsoever in the land because Marana cannot deliver an adequate water supply. In contrast, Oro Valley can easily deliver water via two, 12” potable water mains. Honea told Satish Hiremath long ago that Oro Valley was welcome to annex the State Land.

Please visit this facebook post of mine to learn more.

Marana Town Finance Director, Yiannis Kalaitzidis, approached me as I was leaving a Marana Town meeting. He asked what had prompted me to ask a question related to K-12 population projections for Marana. I said that it was in connection with the proposed annexation at Tangerine & Thornydale. During the course of the conversation, he reiterated what Ed Honea had said: only Oro Valley can deliver water to the annex, and if Oro Valley doesn’t annex, it will be decades before Marana can get enough water there to make development economically possible.

So who are the powerful people in Marana who have said directly that Marana will snap up the land and intensely develop it, if Oro Valley doesn’t?

Please visit this facebook post as well.

No Need to Fear: Mayor Honea Respects the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan
During the May 14, 2019 study session on the Marana 2040 General Plan, Mayor Honea fought hard for “low density 2-RAC” (no more than 2 residences per acre) in environmentally sensitive areas like Tangerine from I-10 to Twin Peaks. In defense of continuing the extensive use of “2-RAC” from the 2010 General Plan, rather than pitching it in the 2040 Plan, Honea said:

“When we developed the low density 2-RAC, we had buy-in from the Sonoran Desert Conservation Group, Carolyn Campbell, [and others]; they helped approve that. And you know why, when we developed everything along Twin Peaks, and we did 2-RAC, and we didn’t have the environmental community down our necks, is because they were involved in the process, for the 2-RAC...when you take that away, I can assure you, they will be back.”

You can watch it HERE (Time mark 51:23 on the video)

The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan was a landmark achievement for Northwest Tucson. When was the last time you heard an Oro Valley Mayor or Council Person worry about the consequences of not honoring that plan? Does anyone in Oro Valley remember that plan? It was never mentioned in any of the meetings I’ve been to in Oro Valley. Ed Honea remembers, and he got the message the first time: don’t antagonize Dove Mountain area citizens with high intensity development.

Dove Mountain Marana citizens are environmentally conscious. In Sky Ranch and at The Preserve, we are fiercely protective of the low-density nature preserves on which we live. We love watching the bobcats, javelinas, coyotes, hawks, and owls that patrol the open spaces beyond our backyards, and we will fight to protect them.

Supply and Demand: Marana Has Plenty of Annex Opportunities Other Than This One
Figure 4, page 2-7 (below) of the current Marana 2040 General Plan shows an ocean of grey shaded land, especially adjacent to I-10 in the North. That’s all vacant and undeveloped land. Marana will have no need, for many decades to come, to force high intensity development at Tangerine and Thornydale.

You can view the Marana 2040 General Plan HERE

Oro Valley has the only game in town when it comes to annexation of the State Trust Land at Tangerine and Thornydale. There is no reason to fear competition from Marana.

Part 2 will be published next Monday.
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Jim Tripp has a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Oregon State University. Prior to retirement, he was employed as a Federal Regulations Analyst for Wisconsin Power and Light and as a Research Scientist at UC Santa Cruz and Berkeley National Labs. He has over 30 scientific publications to his credit.