Should Vail incorporate? Effort to collect signatures is under way in Pima County community
A rural unincorporated Pima County community 24 miles southeast of Tucson will again consider becoming its own municipality.
Incorporate Vail Arizona, a group of Vail business owners and residents, want to bring incorporation to a vote. Their community of 20,000 people, known as being a family-friendly suburb with wide open space and its proximity to Colossal Cave, is growing, and they want a say in how the community is run.
The Board of Supervisors passed a measure Tuesday allowing Incorporate Vail to circulate a petition for signatures, despite pushback on the idea from many Vail residents.
“With municipal government, water usage can be better managed … incorporation levels the playing field and looks strategically at the future,” wrote Incorporate Vail in an article in the Vail Voice.
The group said incorporation as a town would allow Vail residents also to better shape growth and development and have more say in their governance. The municipality could be funded primarily through state shared revenue and county revenue, and not raise property taxes, the group said.
This is the third time people in the community have tried to incorporate, with the most recent effort in 2013, according to a county memo. Voters rejected the idea, with 55% opposed and 44% in favor.
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The Tucson City Council passed a resolution May 9 allowing the incorporation, as required by state law. The incorporation excludes three parcels of state land located between Houghton and Colossal Cave roads, which are part of a planned area development project known as H2K. These areas are to be annexed by Tucson after approval by the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
If incorporated, Pima County would no longer be required to provide services and could contract out services including law enforcement, transportation, development services and elections, to the community.
To incorporate, petitioners must either collect signatures from two-thirds of registered voters residing in the boundary for incorporation without an election, or collect the signatures of 1,537, or 10% of registered voters within the incorporation boundary within 180 days to trigger an election.
Many residents have spoken at Pima County Board of Supervisors meetings and in front of the Tucson City Council opposing incorporation, with many concerned it will change their way of life.
“We moved there 29 years ago … to raise our six kids in a rural community where we could raise animals, my kids could ride their bikes, I could ride my horse outside the gate, and just to be away from the traffic and nonsense that goes on in the large cities," said Dianne Smith during the Tuesday county board meeting, wearing a white shirt with the words Incorporate Vail AZ inside the red prohibition circle with a line through it.
She was concerned incorporation would increase property taxes, sales taxes and increase bureaucracy, Smith said.
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Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com. The Republic’s coverage of southern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. Support Arizona news coverage with a tax deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Vail, a community southeast of Tucson, is considering incorporation
