Tucson Weekly: Green Scheme (October 22

Seems Like The Slick Growth Lobby That's Backing Prop 303 Is Indeed Growing Smarter.
By Molly McKasson
A GRASSY MEADOW awash with sunflowers lapping at the base of a purple mountain's majesty; four men on horseback dressed, it appears, in cavalry uniforms, nobly silhouetted on horseback against a beautiful sunset. How could you say no to these images?
Since I don't watch much television, I've missed the slick ads that Prop 303 supporters have been running for some time now. But I'm momentarily enthralled by the words on the glossy flier that came to my house last month. Under the silhouetted riders is one elegant sentence: "The soul of Arizona lives in its magnificent landscape."
Currents Wait a minute. These are State Trust Lands. We own them. We the people have a right to decide how we want elected officials to preserve them. Prop 303 did not grow out of desire to conserve Trust Lands. It was crafted to stop the Citizen's Growth Management Act, a Sierra Club initiative which didn't make the ballot. It's so deceptive and confusing, it makes me angry. It's not just a weak conservation effort, or developer-influenced legislation-as-usual. Prop 303, as a piece of the already enacted Growing Smarter Act, is an attempt to buy us off. To silence serious environmental concerns from zoning to pollution, with thin strips of open space. It is a corruption of our democracy.
If you are undecided about Prop 303, I hope the following six observations will convince you that it bodes a new and insidious twist on bad government--call it Trojan Horse Government--that comes bearing gifts in order to distract folks while special interests make off with the common wealth. Consider:
1) Steve Betts, Don Diamond's attorney, and several other real estate lawyers helped Governor Hull draft the Growing Smarter Act which includes Prop 303.
2) Growing Smarter and Prop 303 came about last spring in order to kill the Citizen's Growth Management Act (as is actually stated as such in Sections 1 and 3 of the proposition).
3) The promised allocation for conservation and open space preservation of State Trust Lands--$20 million annually for 11 years--is an appropriation, not an authorization. The Legislature is not legally bound to spend any of this general fund money;
4) But if they do, the law allows for them to give it to developers and ranchers, without contributing to the public good at all.
5) Prop 303 sets a precedent whereby the state will never be able to mandate growth boundaries, pollution controls, growth paying its fair share--all of which puts the kibosh on regional planning, which is the only effective way to deal with sprawl. The opportunity for citizens to vote on development plans is also eliminated.
6) The Growing Smarter Commission, which is mandated in the Act, consists of a real estate appraiser, a real estate agent, a farmer or rancher, a real estate lawyer, a lessee of state land, an education executive, and one member of a conservation group. That's six members who profit from unlimited growth. What interest will they have in changing the status quo?
Last and most disappointingly, even folks who don't like Prop 303 claim there's no alternative. But there is. While the press continues to make this a non-race, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Johnson has a solid plan to address growth which would reinstitute counties' ability to create protective overlays, make developers pay their fair share, restrict wildcat subdividing, earmark State Land Department revenues for smaller classes and increased teacher pay, and set aside 10 percent of all State Trust Land for conservation and urban open space.
No matter who you support for governor, a "yes" vote for 303 is a vote for unbridled development.
Even those planners, lawyers, and conservationists who support Prop 303 publicly, like Luther Propst, do not like the way the Growing Smarter Act came about.
"It's a tough call...The process I think is unfortunate," says Propst, the director of the Rincon Institute, a conservation non-profit set up by Don Diamond. "Unfortunately, it's how a state like Arizona ever makes progress on conservation...."
Dennis McLaughlin in the City Attorney's office expressed a sentiment that was shared by several lawyers: "My understanding of the whole Growing Smarter Act (including Prop 303) is that it was a political response to the Citizens Growth Management Act being on the ballot. Now that it's not on the ballot, what are they banning here? Any growth management plan? Prop 303 says that the state will not stop cities and towns from planning, but in Growing Smarter, they essentially do stop people from planning because they can't do it regionally. If 303 passes, would the Legislature think about going back and making it even harder for local jurisdictions to pass good growth management plans?"
Prop 303 is a byzantine piece of legislation. Supporters and non-supporters have no idea where it's going. Arizona's citizens deserve a lot better. No matter how much we love our environment, no one should be asking us to trade our democratic rights to preserve it. It should be hugely defeated. Send a message: "The soul of Arizona lives within the free hearts and minds of its magnificent people."

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