Although it is late and a large number of ballots have already been cast, developer Don Diamond is turning up the heat and turning on the financial spigot for Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson and against Supervisor Ally Miller.
Diamond has been the beneficiary of controversial land purchases by Pima County at the direction of County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and approved by Bronson and his other rubber stamp members of the Board of Supervisors. His independent expenditure organization is appropriately named “Our Southern Arizona.” Thanks to Supervisors Bronson, Richard Elias, Ramon Valadez, and Ray Carroll, southern Arizona has become Diamond’s domain.
According to the filing, Diamond is purchasing signs, mailers, and website services in his campaign against Miller and Bronson’s challenger, Kim DeMarco.
Bronson was expected to win easily in the democrat-controlled county, however her continued actions in service of the elite, while the average resident of the eighth poorest metropolitan area in the country scrambles to pay some of the highest property taxes in the state, have left her in danger of losing to DeMarco. For her part, DeMarco has won the support of republicans, independents, and a considerable number of disenfranchised democrats.
The filings show that Diamond is making a Hail Mary pass on behalf of Miller’s opponent, Brian Bickel, a democrat with little money and little chance of winning in Miller’s republican leaning district.
Campaign filings show that Bronson is being funded in large part by developers like Rusmar Development, Karber Holdings, Humberto Lopez’s HSL Properties, and from a number of corporate PACs. She received a large donation from the vice president of DKL Holdings who imposed a garbage dump on the rural community of Silverbell West. Bronson had initially questioned the landfill, built on land sold to DKL by then-Marana Vice Mayor Herb Kai, but soon fell into line.
Bronson is also out front championing the Sonoran Corridor, rejected by voters in last year’s bond election, which would give Diamond’s proposed 3000-acre Swan Southlands development a free access highway.
Bronson serves on the “Chairman’s Circle” of Sun Corridor, Inc. (formerly TREO) with fat cat banks and corporations. Sun Corridor has never explained where a $15,000 donation came from in its name which was initially exposed by KVOA’s NT4 Investigators. Follow up stories were squashed by management according to sources.
Sun Corridor receives over a half-million dollars in taxpayer funding by the BOS and use of that money for political campaigns is illegal. Sun Corridor’s lawyer, Larry Hecker, chaired the Pima County Bond Committee and is also a frequent contributor to Bronson’s campaigns.
Diamond generally supports Republican candidates and recently served on fellow real estate millionaire Wil Cardon’s failed campaign for Arizona Secretary of State. In a New York Times article looking at Diamond’s close relationship with Senator John McCain, he is described as “an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.”
Diamond is quoted saying, “’I want my money back, for Christ’s sake. Do you know how many cocktail parties I have to go to?’” While the number of parties Diamond must attend is unknown, what can be certain is that few of the taxpayers, whose meager pennies are collected to buy Diamond’s land, would have been invitees to those parties.