Company in line for $850K to study Sun City tramway unlikely to get it following Republic report

An Indiana company expecting $850,000 in taxpayer money to fund a study of an aerial tramway in Sun City appears out of the running following an Arizona Republic article that raised questions about the firm's financial condition.

Anthony Buffa, CEO of Sunshine Transport Solutions Inc., said he hoped the study would lead to interest by private investors in building the tramway. But The Republic's reporting revealed Buffa's troubled financial history and that he recently told a lawyer he might use part of the Arizona grant to pay off a court judgment against him.

Following a meeting last week with Rep. Kevin Payne, R-Peoria, the lawmaker who put the funds in the latest state budget, the Maricopa Association of Governments plans to seek bids for companies to do the study with criteria that would seem to exclude Buffa's company.

Ed Zuercher, the executive director of the Maricopa Association of Governments, said Friday that the process will require "credentialed engineers and planners in the state of Arizona," which Sunshine Transport doesn't have, and will be scored on a scale that requires "financial stability and capability."

Zuercher added that MAG's vetting process will take into account Buffa's statement to a lawyer in a May deposition that he could use the $850,000 to pay a debt.

Court records show that Buffa has a history of dodging debts. Since rebuilding his company after a personal bankruptcy in 2013, he was sued successfully in 2019 by a Pennsylvania couple who complained they were defrauded by his investment firm, Endeavor Capital Management Holdings. He still owes $50,000 out of the $100,000 judgment in that case.

In 2021, Mexico-based company Plastic Omnium Auto Inergy Industrial, S.A. de C.V., won a $104,000 judgment against another of Buffa's companies. After avoiding the debt for two years, Buffa told Plastic Omnium's lawyer in the May deposition that he could pay off the amount with Arizona state budget money he "expects" to receive.

But Payne and lobbyist Mike Williams, who held talks with Sunshine Transport about their tramway concept, told The Republic they never promised the company's representatives they would receive the study funds.

'Better safeguards' in place for funding

Payne, now in his fourth term as a state lawmaker, said he always intended to have Sunshine Transport Solutions compete with other companies for the grant funds, which were part of Payne's allotted share of budget spending. He's long made it his goal to help Sun City, a senior-living community just west of Phoenix and Glendale, to obtain better public transportation options.

He said he found Buffa's statements in the deposition "appalling."

A line item in the state budget offered little detail about the project, stating only that it appropriated the $850,000 to give to MAG "for a Sun City transportation project study."

The Republic article "probably helped us to make sure we had some better safeguards in there," said Williams, who also attended the meeting with Zuercher.

Williams added that no company would obtain the grant funds unless it could "meet the bonding and licensing requirements to show the financial wherewithal to complete the project."

If the funds aren't used, they would revert back to the state's treasury.

Transportation options for Sun City will get studied

Zuercher said the study wasn't sought by MAG and was a "surprise to us when it showed up in the budget" as a MAG allocation, and he "understood the origin of it had to do with that tramway concept."

Following the "good" meeting with Payne and Williams, the study now won't focus on an aerial tramway as originally intended, Zuercher said. Instead, it will seek firms to bid on a Sun City transportation study that includes "fixed guideway" concepts, which could include light rail, street cars, monorail as well as the type of tramway Sunshine Transport wants to build.

Another change to the initial concept is that the system won't need to rely completely on solar power.

Asked why Arizona hasn't previously seen aerial tramways for public transportation if they were a viable option, Zuercher, previously Phoenix's city manager, said "The question kind of answers itself."

Still, because the tramway concept "was asked about specifically, we would have at least some assessment of the feasibility of that," he said.

Zuercher said light rail also isn't a good option for Sun City, an unincorporated community, that encompasses 14.5 square miles and has a population of about 40,000. Though MAG officials hope to expand light rail service under Proposition 400, a disputed plan to extend a transportation tax with voter approval, Sun City doesn't have the density or large-scale destinations that justify light rail, he said.

Although the new study plan has changed, Zuercher said he gives Payne "credit" for wanting to help his Sun City constituents' transportation needs. The community's "aging population is naturally going to need more options than the single-occupant car," he said.

MAG likely will publish the request for bids to conduct the feasibility study in late summer or early fall, Zuercher said.

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on Twitter @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: State money for Sun City transit study gets 'better safeguards'