From tip@mercury.aichem.arizona.eduSun Mar 10 14:31:06 1996 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 04:11:36 0400 From: tip To: shmit@meathook.intac.com Subject: Marana, Az You mention the band Spork, whihc can be seen in Marana. Have you ever been to Marana? I used to live 1/8'th mile from Marana. And Senator, you aren't Marana... Marana is an excuse. It is a plot to subvert the zoning regulations of the county. Maran is the 3'rd largest city in Arizona by square miles, but one of the smallest in terms of population. It takes you almost 30 minutes to drive from the North end of Marana to the South end ON THE FREEWAY. Marana starts at the county line... it would have annexed further, but the state won't allow that. It goes all the way to Tucson. It butts up against Oro valley to the east, and peters out into land so far away from anything that no-body wants it, in the west. Yet Marana has a voting population of about 2000. Yes, thousand, not tenthousands. Marana has been growing by gobbling up vacent land, and land that only has businesses on it. This gives it a lot of freedom to change zoning, since those nasty residents who might care, don't exist. This is why Marana has some odd jerrymandering. For example, it has extended a long tendril around a populated part of Pima county to enclose priceclub, Kmart, and target. Nice income from sales tax, but count the voters.... none. Doesn't threaten Mayor Harn's "old X club". Mayor Harn is known as Mammie Yokum in the local papers... she has about as much sense as Mammy Yokum, and all the polish. the only politicians of lower stature in Marana are the creatures who sit on the planning board. These people don't simply ignore Roberts Rules of Order, they purposefully hunt out ways where no desecration has gone before. Moving public meetings 1 minute before the meeting starts, ignoring published agendas, giving industrial representatives unlimited speaking time while giving citizens 3 minutes, violating state laws on open meetings, taking money from developers to pay a lawyer to sue their own citizens, etc... The citizens put out a petition to block a development... the petition gathered the required signatures, BUT the city had an answer... Since the petition had been printed with 12 point text (as per the law), but since the photocopier reduced the text by 1/72'd in the horizontal direction, the text was below the legal size limit and thus the petition was declared invalid! When the petitioners asked for state help, the state attorny general declared that since this was a voting matter in Marana, the Marana city attorney should represent the citizens... apparently he forgot that the city attorney was also representing the defendant? Eventually the supreme court overruled the "too small" order, and allowed the petition. Marana...