Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (April 8

Skinny THE BATTLE TO KEEP OUR TOWN BUTT-UGLY CONTINUES APACE: "All of my billboards are permitted and legal," pronounced Karl Eller at the February 17 House Natural Resources Committee hearing on yet another billboard protection act, House Bill 2671. Unfortunately for Eller, the Arizona courts simply don't agree.
Days later, the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld a Pima County Superior Court judge's ruling that 11 Tucson billboards are illegal and must come down. Issues concerning the remaining billboards in the case were remanded to Superior Court for further review.
While Eller testified before the Legislature that all his boards are legal, that's not what the court found. The judge ruled one of Eller's boards never had a permit, and seven others were unlawfully relocated or changed out, again without permits.
This ruling comes on top of recent actions by the Arizona Supreme Court upholding City of Tucson regulations on billboard lighting and "cut-out and extensions" (those protrusions past the edge of the billboard).
These adverse court rulings are the real reason Eller has gone to the Legislature. After years of avoidance through protracted litigation, disingenuous "settlement" negotiations, broken promises and distorting the local political process, his industry is finally being held accountable for flagrant disregard of local code provisions. HB 2671 is specifically tailored to give legal blessing to 135 billboards with primary violations, which were found after the City of Tucson conducted a long overdue inventory in 1995. As an added bonus for Eller, the bill would allow lawful billboards that do not conform to today's standards to be rebuilt rather than removed when they wear out.
In order to push its agenda in the Legislature, the billboard industry and its lobbyists have mounted a disinformation campaign of epic proportions. First, attempting to play on the sympathies of property rights advocates, they claim that if Tucson wants to remove billboards, it should pay just compensation for them. In fact, municipalities and state agencies already pay such compensation when road widenings and other public projects remove lawful billboards. There is no basis in law or policy, however, to pay for the removal of illegally erected signs.
The industry has framed the bill as a response to a "problem" in Tucson, trying to divide us from our counterparts in other parts of the state. They fail to note, however, that other communities have had the same code compliance problems that Tucson has, as evidenced by Tempe's current suit to remove a billboard unlawfully replaced without a permit. These other communities would be dramatically affected by this bill, and Mesa's vice-mayor and Phoenix's assistant planning director spoke against the bill at a recent Senate Committee hearing.
The voters of this community supported a near ban of billboards by a 2-1 margin in 1985 with the clear expectation that the number of then-existing billboards would dwindle over time as land use changed, leases expired and the structures simply wore out. The billboard industry has repeatedly attempted to circumvent this community decision by defying local code provisions. That HB 2671 would give legal sanction to such conduct is unconscionable. Legislators should kill this bill.
THE WEST OF THE STORY: The state Supreme Court is taking its time ruling on the claim that GOP Corporation Commissioner Tony West was elected improperly last November. It's alleged West violated state law by holding a securities license at the time of his election to the office that regulates that same license.
Courts are usually careful in overturning an election, and we suspect the lack of a quick call doesn't bode well for West, who has often played politics fast and loose. You may recall that he set a new low for pols when, as state treasurer, he figured out how to resign the office and start drawing the pension, and then get sworn in for the next term and simultaneously draw the salary.
Once upon a time voters would've rejected a scammer who double-dips like that, but a higher tolerance level for bullshit combined with a lazy media allowed West to get away with it and win the Corp Commission seat. Maybe....
Or maybe not. If the Court does kick him out of office, Gov. Jane Dee Hull will have the job of appointing his successor. We hear Pima County GOP Supervisor Mike Boyd is lobbying for the job.
Boyd has let everybody know that coming into the office one or two days a week as a county supe is too much work for the paltry $52,000 a year he currently receives. He'd like the higher-paying Corp Commish job held by West, which looks like even less work. Boyd has already announced he won't run for re-election to the Board in 2000, and that he'll seek the seat of retiring Corp Commish Carl Kunasek, who'll be term-limited out.
Why Hull would appoint Boyd is another question. One popular theory: It would clear the way for Boyd to be replaced by his current aide, the popular and clearly more effective Toni Hellon, who played a key role in Hull's campaign last year.
HALF-SENSE: Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry has announced he has instructed the county's lobbyist in Phoenix to attempt to change the 1990 state law that gave the county the authority to levy a half-cent sales tax if approved by a unanimous vote of the five-member Board of Supervisors. Buried under at least $45 million in debt, HuckyChuck and four supervisors want to get around District 4 Republican Sugar Ray Carroll, who has angered Huckelberry, fellow supes and The Arizona Daily Star editorial board because he won't piss backwards on his pledge to not levy the tax. Huckelberry has even become a horse trader and will trade repeal of the unpopular RV tax for legislative action on the sales tax.
Huckelberry, for all of his charm and ability and power, is an unelected bureaucrat. For years poli-sci gurus and policy wonks, who support a more powerful bureaucracy and diminished involvement by elected officials in day-to-day governmental functions, have prattled that the role of the elected officials is to "make policy," while it is the duty of the Huckelberrys of the world simply to implement it.
Regardless of whether you want a new sales tax, that's a policy decision. It's not Huckelberry's role to propose changing state law on an issue of this magnitude without a vote of the Board of Supervisors.
Or so we thought. But remember: Huckelberry is not stupid. A clear majority of supervisors is telling Huckelberry that they want a half-cent sales tax. He is doing what his majority is too scared to do.
And, as it turns out, the Board, in its haste for anti-meddling reform back in the late '80s, gave the Administrator all kinds of policy power. Ordinance 2.12.070, which the Administrator was quick to point out last week, gives The Huck the power to initiate legislative activity.
But that doesn't make it better--it makes it worse. Because we obviously have a bunch of gutless malfeasants sitting on this Board of Supes who think it's OK to allow the bureaucracy to make backdoor policy decisions without having to formally recognize it. It's government by a nod and a wink, and it stinks. It is especially galling to have Democrat Raul Grijalva, a key architect of the county's burgeoning debt, complain about state law that gives Carroll the sales tax veto. Grijalva would be wailing if Huckelberry were directing lobbyists to change state law to reduce county zoning power--including softening the super-majority rule that requires approval by four of five supervisors if neighborhood opposition is sufficient.

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