TWO-TERM DEMOCRAT Raul Grijalva has made a lot of enemies--mostly in the development community--since his election in 1988. Privately, some developers have said they are going to delight in trying to unseat Grijalva, who has pushed harder than any supervisor to limit sprawl and impose impact fees on developers. District 5, which stretches across Tucson's west and south sides, is safe ground for a Democrat. Nearly 57 percent of the voters are registered Dems, while just 25 percent identify themselves as Republicans. So it's no surprise that Grijalva is facing a challenge only in the Democratic primary. His opponent, Susan Chambers Casteloes, is a born-again Democrat who was registered as a Republican until May 31 of this year, just before she began gathering signatures for her run. Casteloes insists she's been a Demo in the past and she only joined the GOP because she was disgusted by Jimmy Carter. She says she's also disgusted with Tucson these days. She's horrified by the uncontrolled growth and the escalating crime problem--positions that sound eeriely similar to Grijalva's. If Casteloes is co-opting Grijalva's buzzwords about rampant growth, she hasn't quite mastered the intracacies of the issue. Putting it kindly, Casteloes still hasn't staked out firm positions on many of the problems Pima County is facing. For example, she thinks a $1,500 impact fee won't raise enough revenue, but wavers when asked if it should be higher; perhaps, she muses, it should be scrapped altogether. She says she would have voted against the $25 million ballpark the supervisors approved earlier this year, but she "doesn't want to be quoted on that, because it's just emotional." Reminded that the money from the ballpark came from taxes on hotel beds and rental cars, Casteloes reverses herself and says she probably would have approved the project. "I don't have all the answers," Casteloes says. But, if elected, she promises to surround herself with "experts" who will direct her policies. Although she doesn't take issue with any specific votes that Grijalva has cast, Casteloes charges that the incumbent should go because he can't get along with his fellow board members. She adds that she's very close to Tucson's Hispanic community and that "they are very unhappy with Raul. He's set himself up above them." "Well, I don't think so," Grijalva replies. "I think I've carried those issues most of my public career and I don't feel I'm above the issue." Grijalva points out that Casteloes told the Arizona Women's Political Caucus that he should go because he only represents the southside. "On one hand, I'm too Latino," Grijalva says. "On the other, I'm above it all. So it doesn't make any sense. I anticipate that the tactics in this campaign are going to be those kind of Republican wedge-type issues."

 
 

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth