Pinal County Paralyzed?

Right now Pinal County has no strategy to deal with the complex of issues coming our way.

Evidence is accumulating from around the USA regarding dangers to health, safety and community viability posed by massive data centers. Meanwhile Pinal County leadership stands idly by while fixers flush with cash (Rose Law) slyly suggest construction of guardrails is consorting with our (Chinese) enemies.

Guardrails to protect us from perverse outcomes are non-existent. Residents all over the county are demanding time to study up on the fire hose of schemes and their consequences before irrevocable decisions are made. That’s the least our elected leaders in Florence can do for us.

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When it comes to other big issues like water, hyper development, and mining schemes, so far we have also been cut out of the political calculus.

The bright (mostly new) stars demanding accountability from county leadership are exposing what’s really happening. All are unpaid citizens doing their own painstaking research while our politicians resolutely bury their heads in the sand (heaped over top by fixers, flacks and legal eagles for hire to the highest bidder).

“Pinal Code Watchers”, “No To Faraday” and “Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance” are exemplars of active citizens targetting pressing issues for no remuneration beyond cheers from lots of folks like us. All over the county residents are asking hard questions. Meanwhile our five supervisors pull down large salaries, secure fat pensions while failing to support the very folks they’re elected to represent.

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It’s a familiar story for those of us in Oracle with historical memory. In the mid 1980’s Pinal County was swamped by mega development proposals. With no comprehensive plan in place the county declared itself “wide open” to any and all dreams and schemes … to developers (and land speculators) hoping to rush through their schemes before a new state law impacting development took effect.

We in Oracle would have none of it, fearing exactly what would in fact happen in places like Maricopa where a small town was consumed by explosive growth. We leveraged our political voice to demand a moratorium on big developments.

We learned what “wide open” meant. It was ugly. Now we are relearning some of the same lessons decades later as feeding frenzies accelerate around the county, redefining county issues and political arrangements.

In Oracle we pushed for and won a county land use plan that slowed the juggernot. Over the squeals of land speculators we forced Pinal County to slow the development deals down, buying time to ratchet up our own know-how and alliances. In the process Oracle built a reputation as savvy fighters that we’ve since built on with myriad battles most of which Oracle has won (see earlier episodes of this substack for details).

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From our experience we know how hard it is for resisters to stay focussed and do the work of challenging the powers that be. This hard road is always a David and Goliath story with the odds stacked in Goliath’s favor. Sometimes it amounts to a full time job for the deeply commited. Worth it though because the alternative is ugly and community destroying.