The movement to incorporate Vail has started again. It was defeated a few years ago for very good reasons. But now that they are collecting donations, at least one of them being “generous,” they say, they may be planning to mount an aggressive campaign again. They wouldn’t be doing this “mission” to “explore interest and viability“ unless they were interested in getting it passed this time. We residents of Vail are entitled to know why this time is different. Why do those previous reasons no longer apply? What has changed? There are some major issues the proponents need to address for us. Let’s look at what happened last time. We need to understand why they believe this time is so different.
The last time the proponents argued that incorporation would:
1) Qualify Vail for $3.6 million of state money. “Why should we leave that on the table,” they said.
2) Give us “a seat at the table” when the state or county makes decisions affecting us. You’re either sitting at the table or you’re on the menu, as the saying goes…
3) Allow us to get some important road repairs done in Vail. These road repairs had been needed for some time. The county had prepared a plan for the repairs, but had not done them. If it’s under our control, we can get it done, can’t we?
Major problems with these issues, point by point, which the proponents did not address, or even mention, in their publicity:
1) Vail qualifies for county support if it is not incorporated. If incorporated, then at that time the county would no longer cover more than $5 million of our expenses. Police protection alone, just that one item, was around 2/3 of their entire state funding, the $3.6 million, at the time. Not to mention a lot of other expenses, which came to over $5 million. All lost if we had incorporated.
Why would it be to our benefit to pick up $3.6 million from the state and lose out on more than $5 million from the county? How would we make up that shortfall? More than that, they wanted to add costs. They wanted to build a City Hall, hire a mayor, and hire some staff. None of which would we need if we stayed the way we are now. And what about those famous road repairs that were a major issue for them? Where would the funds for all that come from?
2) Several of us went to talk to the county Supervisor more than once. He sat at the same table as us and listened for more than an hour each time. We had no problem sitting at his table and he listened to what we were talking about. What the county did for Vail later might partly have been a consequence of our meetings, and those of others. Even without incorporation the county listened.
3) About the road repairs, and what we might learn from that issue: after the incorporation was defeated, the county did $7 million of road repairs in Vail at their expense. How were the incorporators going to get $7 million for these road repairs on a budget of $3.6 million a year? That state revenue didn’t even cover their City of Vail, much less that much for the road repairs that they told us we would never get unless we incorporated. I don’t know what the new group is going to promise as a benefit, but this experience says we don’t necessarily need to incorporate for the county to work for us.
They also told us about other benefits of incorporation. Maybe in the future we could even get a library for our City… Hmm. I see a library now on Mary Ann Cleveland, which somehow came even without incorporation. Where would that have fit in their budget?
At one point they published a budget. When we asked them where the funding for all that would come from they told us that what they had written was not actually their real budget. That’s fine, but they ignored our requests to see this real budget. They never produced one that I saw. This is an issue I hope won’t be repeated.
After this experience we need to understand what benefits are being proposed now, and how they will be paid for.
I think the citizens of Vail who would fall under this proposed incorporation have a right to ask to see a complete real budget with revenue and expenses clearly laid out and explained. What are the numbers they are talking about in 2022? Where is the money going to come from? How much? How much county support do we lose with incorporation? Is there any shortfall from losing this county support? If so, how do they make it up? Will they have to increase our property taxes just to get us back to where we are now? Will they have to borrow from Tucson, and, if so, how do they propose to pay it back? Or will that just give Tucson an excuse to annex Vail if we can’t pay that debt?
In summary, why should we want incorporation?
As a citizen of Vail, I request answers.
George Yost has lived in Vail with his wife since 2004. They have lived in several different parts of the country, most recently Austin, Texas. They have two grown daughters. Retired, he has worked in several different occupations.
