Inform Vail AZ (Inform) has never claimed or acted as a legal representative of any area or neighborhood. We simply are here to inform our community and give a voice to those that are being ignored by those that want to change Vail into a commercially controlled community.
A Board of Supervisors Memo was released with the agenda for the July 11th meeting. It was written by Pima County (PC) Administrator Jan Lesher. Included in the documentation is the official incorporation map Incorporate Vail Arizona (IVA) is using for their incorporation push. We are glad to see that Academy Village and Rincon Desert Estates are not included in the map. However, included in their map is the rural community who came together to request the same.
While reading this column, keep in mind that on May 9th, the IVA President assured a member of Inform that IVA was tracking opt-out request’s neighborhood by neighborhood. IVA claims they “used consistent methodology for evaluating each request”.
For the two HOA controlled communities that were granted exclusion:
- “The Academy Village HOA Board of Directors submitted a formal request to IVA and provided a survey from a majority response from a survey of its residents. This request was accepted.”
- “The Rincon Desert Estates HOA requested exclusion from the area of incorporation and submitted a poll taken from owners of only six of the twenty-seven residences in the neighborhood. Despite lacking verification that a majority of the residents oppose incorporation, IVA honored our commitment and excluded this neighborhood from the proposed incorporation area.” For full disclosure, the RDE HOA submitted their request to Inform. They used the same form everyone received in the mail and then returned the complete form to Inform. As we did will all forms, we forwarded this form/request to IVA and PC.
The following is the explanation given for not honoring their word for the rural community. The bold lettering indicates the false information presented by IVA.
“Inform Vail submitted a request to exclude an area from incorporation that lies between Rocking K to the north and Del Lago to the south and is bounded on the west by Tewa Trails and on the east by First Mesa Trail. While there are several residents in this area that have individually requested exclusion, none of the neighborhoods in this area submitted a formal request for exclusion. Inform Vail is an informal community organization and does not have the legal standing to represent this area or its neighborhoods. Furthermore, Inform Vail has not presented IVA with any resident surveys or other documentation that indicates the majority of residents in the area want to be excluded.”
Inform Vail submitted – This request was submitted by a private rural resident, done as requested by IVA directly through the Contact Us page on their website. The private resident submitted the request twice to IVA as the first was never confirmed, nor was the second. Like the RDE HOA request that was also presented, we merely forwarded the request to PC personnel also including IVA’s President on the email.
Several residents – Nearly 150 properties in this rural community submitted their signed requests for exclusion from incorporation.
None of the neighborhoods in this area submitted a formal request for exclusion – There are no active HOAs in this community. The property owners speak for themselves. A majority from this area submitted written requests to be excluded. These requests were submitted to IVA and PC, each of these submissions was confirmed received by IVA.
Inform Vail has not presented IVA with any resident survey or other documentation that indicates the majority of residents in the area want to be excluded – Every form received was submitted. IVA admitted they received 951 individual letters. We have the evidence on our website which includes a photo showing the nearly 150 submitted forms that IVA received from this one community (on top is a confirmation receipt from IVA). Visit Https://informvailaz.com/rural to see our documented proof.
Several volunteers from Inform logged on to attend the recent Southeast Regional Council (SERC) meeting to ask IVA’s president questions. When asked about the rural community exclusion request, the IVA president stated “we did not believe that it would be good for the town of Vail to exclude those properties and for a number of reasons we kept that particular group of properties in our boundary.” After comparing IVA’s letter written by the IVA president to the Pima County Elections Director and his response at the SERC meeting, it is obvious he is not being truthful with our community.
How many chances do we give IVA? IVA’s pursuit to change our community from a residential based community into a commercially controlled “economic powerhouse” will come at great costs to all residents if incorporation is successful.
IVA seemingly reached out to the HOAs for further information about their exclusion requests. Inform asked the resident who submitted the rural exclusion request if they were contacted by IVA. IVA did not reach out to them for further information. Academy Village’s exclusion was granted with an anonymous online survey. Rincon Desert Estate’s was granted by polling merely six of the 27 properties. The long-time rural Vail residents who went door to door and provided IVA with signed forms from every single residence requesting exclusion were denied. This rural community seemingly provided more documentation than the two HOA controlled communities.
Does this seem like IVA used consistent methodology for evaluating each request?
More importantly, is this a sign of things to come for non-HOA neighborhoods if Vail incorporates?
Whether you support or oppose incorporation, for factual information visit www.informvailaz.com. If you feel that incorporation is not best for you and your family, when asked to sign a petition, just say No!
-Inform Vail AZ
