January 17
Courtesy Preserve Our Preserve
By Howard Myers
NoDDC and Protect Our Preserve Launch Signature Gathering Campaign
As you may know, the city wants to build a large tourist attraction in the Preserve called the Desert Edge (DE), formally the Desert Discovery Center (DDC). The claim is that it will educate both residents and visitors about the desert and also provide labs for ASU to conduct research from. They want to put it in the Preserve at the most popular trail head, the Gateway off Thompson Peak Parkway, which is already experiencing overcrowding. Current projected cost to build it is $68 Million and even with very optimistic projections of attendance it is going to lose over $1.5 Million a year. If located in the Preserve the city must take on all the financial responsibility for both constructing it and covering any operational overruns. It will also violate many of the Preserve rules and restrictions that were established back in 2000 to protect the Preserve and prevent it from being morphed into just another park.
A lot of public opposition has formed mainly because it will be built in the Preserve, that citizens formed and taxed themselves to buy in order to preserve the land and keep development off it. To make matters worse, this would all be done without any public input or vote, but rather decided by 4 members of the city council. This alone has angered even more residents. Others oppose it because of the huge tax burden it will put on the city and us, the taxpayers, again without any public vote. The one thing most residents have in common is the lack of a public vote to determine if this is built in the Preserve and also if it is allowed to use Preserve funds to pay for it. Citizens had to vote to tax themselves to buy the Preserve, they voted for a preserve not a city park, therefore they deserve a vote if something other than preservation is going to be done with it.
As a result, multiple groups have formed to oppose the DE and two of them, Protect Our Preserve and NoDDC, have banned together to fight it through legal action. In addition to legal action, they have now formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) called the Protect Our Preserve PAC to do a citizen ballot initiative to put a change to the city charter on the 2018 ballot. The charter change would require a public vote to build anything more in the Preserve and also require a public vote to use any Preserve funds for anything other than land acquisition and finishing the existing trails and trail heads.
To get this question on the ballot, the PAC must get over 24,000 valid signatures from registered Scottsdale voters by July 1st. A huge undertaking but the Protect Our Preserve organization has raised over $100,000 to legally challenge the city and also run this ballot initiative process. In addition, there are over 150 volunteers already collecting signatures with more being added every day. Both good indications of the level of public opposition to putting this project in the Preserve. Despite this good start we can always use more volunteers and definitely need signatures from registered Scottsdale voters, so I am writing you to let you know what is going on and also to ask if any of you wants to either volunteer to collect signatures or sign the petition or both. To collect signatures you have to be a resident of Arizona and to sign it you need to be a registered voter in the city of Scottsdale.
This issue has really woken up the residents in this city because it is just another example of the current city council ignoring the will of residents and doing whatever they want to do despite public opposition and the impact of their decisions on the residents of this city and their quality of life.
You can learn more by going to the Protect Our Preserve (POP) web site at: protectourpreserve.org and to the PAC (POP PAC) web site at: protectourpreserePAC.com. The POP web site has loads of information about both the Preserve and the DE/DDC and the POP PAC web site contains information about the ballot initiative.
Many of us who have worked on the Preserve over the past 20+ years are involved with this effort because of the precedent it would set if development like this is allowed in the Preserve, especially without a public vote. The Preserve was formed specifically to prevent development on that land and it belongs to all of us that paid for it through our sales tax.
This is a big issue for us because that preserve really belongs to us residents not to 4 members of the city council, so we should at least have input into what is done with it or to it.
Please feel free to pass this message along to anyone else you know, especially if they are a Scottsdale voter.
As always, thanks for your support of our desert and quality of life that we all moved here to enjoy.
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