Oro Valley Voters Tell Mother Nature To Go To Hell. By Margaret Regan ON TUESDAY, HONEY Bee Canyon lost its last chance to be protected from development. By a wide margin, the voters of the upscale Town of Oro Valley turned down a hotly contested proposal to buy up 51 acres on the eastern ridge of the canyon, a Class 1 riparian habitat where water flows year round and which a wide variety of wildlife uses as a nesting and travel corridor. The unofficial early tally was 3,254 no votes to 1,940 yes, or 61 percent to 36 percent. The vote clears the way for Vistoso Partners to sell off 36 lots for luxury houses to be built some 300 feet from the centerline of the shallow canyon. Had it passed, the $3.1 million bond proposal would have authorized the town to negotiate to buy the eastern ridge outright and preserve it as a buffer. "Our plans are to continue forward with the master plan," said Richard Maes, project manager for Rancho Vistoso, the development that Honey Bee intersects. Rancho Vistoso has already won zoning approval for some 128 houses on the eastern ridge. The 36-lot buffer would have reduced that number to 92 and put the closest eastside houses some 900 feet from the canyon centerline. (Sales of the 44 lots on the western ridge, some of them just 150 feet from the centerline, are already underway.) Maes pledged that the whole development, some 172 houses around the fragile canyon, will be sensitive to the natural environment. "The canyon is protected no matter what," he said. "It's not being jeopardized by homes being built in it. The canyon bottom will be dedicated to Oro Valley." Nancy Young Wright, president of the Oro Valley Neighborhood Coalition, which fought hard to get the Honey Bee buffer passed, disagreed vehemently that the saguaro-studded canyon and its wildlife will fare well with houses on both ridges. "It means the end for the mule deer," she said. "Our mule deer expert said we have to choose between wildlife and development. The mule deer will go the way of the bighorn sheep on Pusch Ridge." Four other bond proposals aimed at acquiring parks, trails and open space for the rapidly growing town also went down in defeat, though not by such a large margin as the Honey Bee measure. Town attorney Tobin Sidles said the unusually high turnout of 5,300, or 42 percent, of the 12,414 registered voters, indicated great interest in the issues. "It's a sad commentary on the town that they don't care enough for the kids," said Wright, attributing the bond defeats to "dirty politics. (Council candidate) Matthew Moutafis ran a smear campaign. He focused on Honey Bee and slammed it the hardest." Moutafis, chair of the town's Development Review Board, said he agrees the town needs parks but argues the bond proposals were the wrong way to get them. Honey Bee was a "dead issue that never should have been on the ballot," he said. "As a town we should not be in the business of buying lots in a development...Tax and spend is getting old for our community." Moutafis, along with the five other council candidates, will have to run again in a May 21 election, since none earned the required 50 percent of the votes plus one to win office. Wright took some comfort in the fact that irate townspeople managed to get Rancho Vistoso's original proposal of 164 houses on Honey Bee's eastern ridge down to the now-approved 128. And while the most sensitive mile of Honey Bee, the part where the water flows and where the animals go, will now be ringed by houses, the coalition has plans to work to protect the three or four miles of the canyon that wend their way north of Rancho Vistoso up to the Tortolita Mountains. "We're gonna work with the county and the state to get some buffer north," she said. Reflecting on the campaign, she added, "We were underfunded. We were like George Washington and his barefooted troops fighting against the British Army...Somebody 50 years from now will read the yellowed clips and know we tried." The other bond votes were: • Acquiring parks and recreation land, 2,767 no votes; 2,436 yes. • Preserving Sonoran Desert, 3,132 no; 2,069 yes. • Acquiring bike paths, 3,203 no; 1,007 yes. • Acquiring trailheads and trails, 3,643 no; 1,531 yes. Editor's note: Wayne Pearce took the Honey Bee Canyon photograph that appeared in our last issue.

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