Did y’all know that Rhonda has a blog now?
She noted yesterday that Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll was experiencing some heartburn over the idea of appointing Randy Graf to the Senate seat recently surrendered by Republican Jonathan Paton, who is off and running against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Turns out that Graf is working for the Canadian company that wants to build the open-pit Rosemont Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains—a project opposed by the Board of Supervisors, Paton and Giffords, along with most other politicos in these parts.
We’re told that last July, Graf tried to convince the Greater Green Valley Chamber of Commerce to pass a resolution supporting the mine, but never mentioned that he was on their payroll. Not very open, Randy, but more than a little transparent…
UPDATE: We’ve talked with Randy and he let us know that he only started working for Rosemont in the last few months and he was not working for them when he was pushing the resolution at the Greater Green Valley Chamber of Commerce in July. He’s been a supporter of the mine, he tells us, since he first heard of it.
He also tells us that if the Pima County Supervisors appoint Rep. Frank Antenori to the vacant District 30 Senate seat, he might be interested putting his name forward for appointment to a vacant House seat, although he says he has no plans to run for either seat later this year.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2010.
Jim,
My number is in the phone book if you would like to put on that “investigative reporter hat” and get the facts straight. The Green Valley News and Sun, and now the Weekly, both comment on Mr. Carroll’s angst with me and the Rosemont Copper project.
The last paragraph in your little story here is ripe for correction. Sensationalizing a “conflict of interest” scenario where none exists and making claims that are just plain wrong makes me think that Mr. Ray Carroll himself wrote the article. Would you like to come clean on that?
Randy Graf
P.S.
And I commend Rhonda Bodfield of the Daily Star for her article. She called me to get my comments on the issue in a measure of fairness!
Randy Graf
I can assure everyone that Supervisor Ray Carroll is not a ghost-writer for the Tucson Weekly, the Arizona Daily Star, or any other newspaper – (would if we could!) We can’t even get our guest editorials printed at times.
Perhaps if Mr. Graf is really upset with the type of coverage he receives in the local media he should look closer to home for the cause, and not be pointing fingers elsewhere. His employment for the Augusta Corporation in promoting a proposed open pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains — against the wishes of most people in the region and virtually every governmental jurisdiction in Southern Arizona – is and was his own decision.
Scott Egan
Executive Assistant to Ray Carroll
District 4