While Chuck Huckelberry continues to feel the pressure of the Chuck Huckelberry investigation into the process that led to the World View building project, information regarding the questionable deal continues to emerge. In a recent interview, Goldwater Institute attorney James Manley discussed the backdoor politics that separate this deal from others around the state.
According to Manley, in an appearance on the James T. Harris radio show, the six month process that led to World View’s deal with Pima County happened out of the earshot and view of the taxpayers. The County administrator, Chuck Huckelberry, brought the deal to the Board of Supervisors without any public hearing at all by calling it an emergency situation. However, the only emergency was World View’s timetable to build their balloon pad.
“It is hard to know where to start with this deal because there is so much wrong with it,” Manley told Harris. “But this emergency excuse is something that bothers everybody when I talk to folks. Whether they like this idea of corporate welfare, or not, they hate the idea of the County doing deals behind their back, which is what they did here.”
“It is really shocking what their reasoning was here,” continued Manley. “They were negotiating this deal with World View for at least six months under a code name Project Curvature – I am not making this up. And five days before the County supervisors had to vote on it – it was a Thursday or a Friday -that they got some of the information about the deal and they have five days to look at it over the weekend and then they had to vote on it the next week. Their excuse to not put these out for competitive bidding was that there was an emergency and the only emergency was that World View wanted this project done by November.”
Code Name Project Curvature boggles the mind
“The thing that boggles the mind is that they were negotiating this deal for six months,” Manley stated. “So why, in all that time, was there not a bid put out to build this manufacturing building that World View wanted or this balloon pad? The County can’t answer those questions.”
The County can’t or won’t answer many questions. According to engineering experts, the process to prepare the World View site for construction would normally take about 6 months, including archaeological studies, surveys, soil studies, etc. Currently, in the case of the new Pima County Animal Control building, which was approved by voters in 2014, construction has been held up due to archaeological work. In the case of World View, the only thing that appears to be held up are the responses to the ADI’s records requests including one for any archaeological studies conducted on the property.
The construction is moving at a break neck speed, and appears to be nearing completion. Fortunately for Pima County residents who support the Goldwater lawsuit, Manley stated that the status of the building would not, and should not, affect the judge’s decision as to whether or not the County violated Arizona law.
“It shouldn’t affect the judge’s ruling because even if the County builds this building, courts have time and again said that taxpayers can challenge situations like this where the County ignores competitive bidding laws even if the contract has already been paid out. The court will issue a ruling anyway in order to guide the County’s future actions. Frankly whether the County builds this building or not is secondary to the question of when they go to lease the building to World View, does the taxpayer get a good deal? And the answer to that is emphatically no. The taxpayer is getting a terrible deal. So whether they build the building, or not we still have the court get rid of this current deal and have the County go back to the drawing board and negotiate a deal that is legal and it gives taxpayers a fair return.”
Pima County residents start asking questions
“We started getting calls from taxpayers in Pima County who were upset with what is going on out there and that is why we turned our attention to Pima County,” said Manley. He explained that Huckelberry and some of his cronies had pointed out some of the deals that occurred in Arizona communities and questioned why Goldwater had not challenged those. “The County Economic Development Department actually gave us the Scottsdale deal and let us take a look at it since we hadn’t received any complaints about it. So I started flipping through it and it is shocking to me that in every particular, the Scottsdale deal is protective of taxpayers where the Pima County deal falls short.”
Manley stated with emphasis, “And here is a big one that will resonate with you I know. The Scottsdale deal had a public comment period. So the public was actually invited to review the deal and weigh in and this was after there was public bidding for this project. So this lease of this space, this airport hangar, which is very similar to the building that the County is building for World View, there was a public auction to decide who would lease it, and at what price.” Manley reported that the “lease rate in the Scottsdale deal is almost three times what the World View deal starts at.”
Not to be intimidated
Harris asked Manley about the recent efforts by a handful of Chuck’s cronies who tried to stop the Goldwater lawsuit. The letter, signed by Joe Snell, who is the head of TREO; a County beneficiary and leaders of southern Arizona’s struggling chambers of commerce claimed that Goldwater must immediately withdraw its lawsuit because the “future of Arizona’s economic competitiveness is at stake.”
Harris asked: “There was a lot of people upset that Goldwater got involved and I am aware that one business man here said he was going to tell his wife to cut off donations to the institute over the World View deal. That would never affect the institute would it?”
Manley responded: “Oh no, and we got threats when we tried to protect taxpayers in Glendale when the Coyotes tried to take them for a ride and build them a new stadium at taxpayer expense. We received many hand written notes from Pima County taxpayers thanking us for coming down there and protecting them. So we are not concerned that a few people are trying to throw around their weight. It is not going to affect what we do in representing our clients or protecting Pima County taxpayers.”
“What we can do and what we aim to do…”
Harris asked Manley what so many have wondered: why didn’t the Institute file an injunction to stop the building? Manley explained that the main focus of the lawsuit for Goldwater is not the building itself but rather the lease and public bidding parts of the deal.
“At the end of the day the problems with this deal are the lease and the public bidding aspects of it and we can solve those problems even if the building goes up. We can put this out to bid and maybe these are the companies that should do it but we won’t know that until the bid happens,” said Manley referring to the construction company currently building the World View facility.
“What we can do, and what we aim to do is to make sure that the lease deal protects taxpayers,” Manley concluded. “That is how taxpayers are going be protected here: if they have a lease where the tenant puts some skin in the game, where the tenant pays a market rate for this building and that is going to protect taxpayers’ investment and prevent them from subsidizing this private company.project.”