Today, the Pima County Board of Supervisors will meet in Executive Session to discuss the illegally assessed secondary property tax the County Assessor has been collecting from property owners in South Tucson since 2011. The Board will then come out of executive session and reconvene the public meeting for discussion and vote regarding what action, if any will be taken.
The matter was only placed on the agenda in response to a letter from the South Tucson’s City Manager Luis Gonzalez to the County in response to a Notice of Claim filed with the Pima County Board of Supervisors on October 14, 2014, by Paul Moore, Mooney Wright and Moore, LLC on behalf of claimants for the illegally collected monies.
It is illegal to secondary property tax assessment without the approval of the voters. In the case of South Tucson’s secondary property tax, it was passed in 2011 in a 5-2 vote by the City Council under the leadership of then-Mayor Jennifer Eckstrom.
Paul Diaz and Anita Romero, who were members of the council opposed to the tax and voted “nay.”
Now, Supervisor Ally Miller has raised the public’s attention to the matter. According to Miller, the County Finance director issued a memorandum, in which he claimed he was having difficulty locating the documents that authorized the assessor to collect the monies for FY 2011/12 and FY 2012/13. Only the document for the billing of the secondary property tax for FY 13/14 was provided to Miller via a memo from County Finance Director Tom Burke and Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.
The monies, collected at the request of the Eckstrom in those missing years appears to have been used for routine City operations and sales taxes collected were used to pay off a bond used to build the Eckstrom municipal complex.
In other words, the illegal secondary property tax monies were used for keeping the powers-that-be in power and living the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed according to multiple sources.
So it is understandable that County might have difficulty finding the authorizing documents since it is unlikely that they want to find them.
What many believe those documents would reveal is that the tax was quietly passed in violation of the law by the majority of the Dan Eckstrom controlled council, and neither the County Treasurer nor Assessor questioned whether the assessment was legal. As is widely understood, few in the County, until the arrival of Miller, publically questioned how something like this could have happened.
According to sources, Romero, Diaz and others did question the legality and they took their questions to the League of Cities and Towns. The League shared their concerns and in response questioned former South Tucson Finance Director Ruben Villa, and former City manager Enrique Serna.
Later, Villa offered a letter from the League as evidence of legality, to anyone who expressed concerns about the matter. Few bothered to read the letter. Had they taken the time; they would have discovered that the letter was in regards to a separate matter and said nothing about the appropriateness of South Tucson taxing process.
The City’s attorney, Patrick Moran advised anyone and everyone who inquired about the scheme, that the City leaders cleared up the concerns of the League, and besides that, he had crafted the language voted upon by the Council, and therefore it was legal.
After that, all questions were dismissed out of hand as the product of naiveté, paranoia, or sour grapes.
Although Dan Eckstrom’s grasp was loosened from the daily workings with the departure of Mayor Jennifer Eckstrom when she lost the majority in March, 2013, her father Dan’s machine still controls South Tucson’s fate through long standing relationships built within Pima County while Dan Eckstrom served as a Pima County supervisor.
While the relationship was built by her father, Jennifer’s employment, throughout her tenure as Mayor of South Tucson in the Pima County office of Ramon Valadez, secured those relationships.
Valadez was appointed to the Pima County Board of Supervisors by Jennifer’s father, and Jennifer is still employed as an Executive aide in Valadez’s office.
Valadez, and the County are heavily vested in protecting the Eckstroms and their cohorts by rationalizing, or hiding their past and current actions.
Despite the formidable opposition of a well-greased machine, when reformers like Romero, Diaz, who is now the mayor, and Gonzales saw their chance to end the illegal tax, they made their move to do so, and the Council voted to end it this year.
Now, the question remains regarding who bears the responsibility for collecting an illegal tax.
According to multiple sources, the Arizona Attorney Generals’ office and the FBI are currently investigating who did what and when. Many believe that there is a potential for criminal liability, if – and it is a big if – there is someone on the state or federal level who will actually have the will to conduct an honest and thorough investigation which will hold the perpetrators accountable.
In the letter sent by to the Pima County Board of Supervisors City Manager Gonzales wrote on behalf of the City:
“If ultimately it is found that the taxes identified on behalf of the claimants were in fact collected inappropriately and without legal authority, then it is the position of the City of South Tucson that Pima County bears responsibility for breaching its fiduciary duty to confirm that taxes which are requested by a municipality to be collected by the Pima County assessor on behalf of the municipality, are in fact in compliance with requirements of Arizona law.”