One of the most persistent urban fantasies the corrupt, incompetent, and bloated Pima County Administration gets a free ride on, re: Tucson’s 1.1M population Metro, is like the old auto-dealers’ fib, “Cars are like eggs, they’re cheaper in the County”. (so we should live in the County, huh?)
Tucson’s Metro is nearly ~40% unincorporated (Metro Phoenix = 3%), into some 13 non-municipal CDPs (i.e. Census Designated Places), of whom six adjacent ones could now be combined into 3 standalone cities of ~100,000+ people apiece (2023).
Arguably, the biggest running joke with the notorious Grijalva Gang which controls Pima County, is how incredibly stupid all the local out-of-state newbies, guilt-ridden association elitists, retiree socialites, UA academics, and Hard-Lefties in Tucson really are.
And absolutely obvious to everyone else they’ve tried to recruit & keep, i.e. IBM, Burr-Brown, Texas Instruments, Raytheon, et al. Yet somehow Tucsonans over the decades have swallowed this insidious, political control-paradigm lie, whole-hog.
It’s also right up there with the City of Tucson’s blatantly crooked 1929 “at-large” City Council voting scheme (another damning management pathology); and their hometown ‘boo-hoo’, Woke compassion fantasy. One routinely pushed for decades by the local news rag until recently (given their subsequent beheading last month).
Yep, a City Council & Mayor of complete Grijalva idiots; but they’re “compassionate”. A lot of good that’s done. All these people and their accomplices on the Tucson Left, are willfully culpable in the enormous human suffering their looney-tune, failed policies have engendered.
Tucson’s economy and social structure is hollowing out; just last week up the road, the greater Pinal-Maricopa economic development authorities reported some 60+ site visits AND tours there, from miscellaneous semiconductor, advanced automotive, and tech materials companies worldwide; all occurring over the past 12 calendar months. It’s amazing. Metro Tucson can’t beg, borrow, or steal a new recruitment.
Meanwhile Tucsonans have been brainwashed to cheer on another fast-food joint, thrift store opening, UA pre-felon athlete/coach, newly funded (Cry-me-a-river) charitable org, or neo-druid enviro shakedown. B-F-D.
What normal kid, with talent-ambition-smarts, with a UA or PCC tech, or near-tech degree (the rest are generally worthless)…wants to hang around Tucson? ANSWER: THEY DON’T, and their parents know it; all will feel the family separations for decades to come. Even Tucson’s anemic arts scene is feeling the economic fallout from a leaderless, ideologically-contrived Metro so poorly constructed, advised and managed.
As for PimaCo, it’s a morbidly obese employment scheme allowing this vast 9200 square mile county administration to masquerade as a genuine municipal management enterprise. PimaCo should be divided into 2 counties pronto, and our Eastern side needs 7 BOS Sups (not 5) to minimize the Grijalvas’ tentacles. A bill to do this very thing was introduced in the AZ Legislature 3 years back, until it mysteriously and quietly died. Go figure.
Honestly, I see some serious karmic baggage for those culpable in this dystopic passion play. End of rant.
Sellers is a Southpark Republican living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization