Pima County economic plan lacks necessary maps

Pima County has just released its economic development plan for 2015-2017. The biggest item is $600 million for the “Sonoran Corridor” a complex system of new roads and highways to interconnect I-10 with I-19 and mitigate potential expansion of the Raytheon plant.

The plan has 92 pages of words but not one map.

In my opinion, maps of the proposed projects are necessary to help taxpayers visualize the extent of the proposed work and be better able to spot potential conflicts as well as alternatives. Apparently I’m not alone in that view. A letter to the editor asking the same thing appeared in Friday’s Star.

Pima County has a very good Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department that could easily put together explanatory maps for the proposed project, but so far, the powers that be have not chosen to use that department. I wonder why?

According to the Arizona Daily Star, funding will be from a combination of State and Federal grants as well as from County bonds. I think county taxpayers need to see much more detail before supporting the plan. The County should start by publishing maps of the projects.

You can read the plan by chapter or in full from this County site:

http://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=183160

You can also offer comments to the County until March 20 from that website. Ask them for maps.

I found the chapter on mining somewhat amusingly schizophrenic. They are invoking the Conservation Lands System of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan which has yet to be approved by the U.S. Fish&Wildlife Service, even though that plan was originated in 1998.

For more on that, see https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/11/26/32372/