The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to disregard the wishes of residents, risk lawsuits by the Goldwater Institute, and violate the State’s Gift Clause, when they decided to continue to give public monies to private non-profits and charities.
District 1 Supervisor, Ally Miller made a motion to stop the practice of individual supervisors from spending monies out of their office budgets on their pet charities. Supervisors Carroll, Elias, Bronson and Valadez refused to second the motion. Immediately offered was a substitute motion to guarantee that the apparently illegal practice could continue.
The issue first came before the Board last month after Miller discovered that her fellow supervisors were using public monies to donate to various organizations.
During the Call to the Audience portion of Tuesday’s meeting, Pima County resident Christopher Cole admonished Board Chair Sharon Bronson for her behavior at last week’s meeting. On Tuesday, Bronson was forced to write an apology in the Arizona Daily Star for her decision to deny the public an opportunity to address the Board. The non-apology, filled with ugly jabs at Miller has only earned Bronson more scorn.
“As far as last week’s debacle,” said Cole referring to the speaker forms the public is required to fill out in order to speak at meetings, “those people did not know that they had to fill out two forms. You need to put up information so that they do know.”
“Mr. Straub, I read your opinion on the bus as I was riding home, you appear to say statute gives authority to individual supervisors, not as a body,” said Cole referring to the county’s attorneys memo in which he claimed that the gifts of tens of thousands of dollars were too small to matter. Cole argued that by giving the public’s money away as individuals amounted to the individual supervisors “in essence stealing the authority of the Board of Supervisors. I assert that you did not issue an opinion in the best interest of your client; the Board of Supervisors. In so far as the supervisors are taking that authority way from the Board of Supervisors, you are acting against interest of your client.”
Only Supervisor Miller has been responsive to the public outcry to date. Last week, she pleaded with her fellow supervisors to allow the public to share their concerns only to be met with more vitriol from Bronson in the Star.
When Pima County resident, Keith Van Heyningen, began to address the supervisors by asking if they could not see the pain that they were causing their constituents, Bronson ironically told him that he was being uncivil. A collective audible gasp could be heard in the chambers in response to Bronson’s attempt to shift blame for the incivility to the public.
In his address, one man asked the supervisors why the deputies in the room moved close to the members of the public who were addressing the Board, “When you are afraid of the people you represent, you are no longer fit to represent them.”
The Goldwater Institute advised the Board that if they did not change their policy within 30 days to conform with State statute, they would begin legal proceedings.
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