By Anne Gibson
Incorporate Vail Arizona (?) (IVA) has continued to pursue every avenue to assure to receive input from as many segments of the greater Vail area in order to add valuable data to our feasibility study, said IVA President David Hook.
In addition to being the president of the IVA, Hook serves as chair of the Pima County Planning and Zoning Commission and is Pastor of Christ Lutheran Vail Church. Before moving to the Vail area, he was employed as a traffic and transportation engineer in the private sector.
As we have gotten to know the residents we have discovered there are many people living in the greater Vail area with a vast wealth of knowledge and helpful information. To best use some of these people the Board of Directors decided to add a new committee to the organization named the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). TAC is comprised of locals with expertise in certain areas of importance to the IVA such as public safety, utilities, parks and recreation, to name a few. Rob Samuelsen, who has been serving as an advisor to the board of directors since our inception, has been appointed by the board of directors to chair the committee, President Hook said.
Prior to his retirement, for the past 14 years Rob has served as the Chief Financial Officer for the Pima Association of Governments and the Regional Transportation Authority of Pima County. Before that, he has a long history of private sector experience working for NYSE companies including NCR Corporation, AT&T, and Roper Industries as well of many entrepreneurial ventures. He is currently President/CEO of SmallStart Ventures and continues to be active in the greater Vail community.
The Technical Advisory Committee chairman is appointed by the IVA (?)’s board of the directors. The chair is will select the TAC committee which will be ratified by the board of directors. The chair will also provide the board with periodic progress reports on the efforts committee and the final findings of the committee. All committee members serve as community volunteers. The focus of the recommendations from the advisory committee are to prepare the Board of Directors for the feasibility of incorporating Vail, Arizona as an Arizona city or town, said Rob Samuelsen.
“Fundamental to any effort to incorporate Vail, we must understand the feasibility of a self-sustaining city in Arizona. In my role as Chair of TAC we will put together projections to advise the IVA (?) Board of Directors in their decision making process. If the Board proposes to move forward with incorporation, the Technical Advisory Committee will continue to support the effort with our technical analysis,” said Samuelsen.
“We are most appreciative to have the expertise of a professional as Rob and the professional team he is developing to assist us with their recommendations as we make our way through all the aspects of these complex issues especially if the board decision is to go further into the campaign phase.” said IVA President Hook.
