In a phone call today, Pinal County Elections department told representatives of Pinal Citizens for Sustainable Communities (PCSC)  that citizens opposing a rezoning decision by the Pinal County supervisors submitted 150% more signatures than were required to take the issue to the ballot box.

Citizens from throughout the county helped gather signatures to refer the supervisors' decision to a vote on the Nov. 2002 ballot.

This is the third successful referendum action in 25 months to allow voters to decide on rezoning decisions taken by the Pinal County Supervisors.

The landowner, Anam Inc. has 10 days to examine the petitions and decide if they want to challenge the petitions in court.

Should Anam decide to press the matter they would have to sue Pinal County.

After Pinal County supervisors approved the landowners request to rezone over 7 square miles of Pinal County for the first phase of a city that is proposed to house over 80,000 people and sprawl over 26 square miles, PCSC mounted a referendum effort to allow voters to review the supervisors decision in the voting booth.

The objections to the supervisors approval of the rezoning were wide and varied, covering concern for dwindling water supplies to alleged violations of the Pinal Zoning Ordinance. 

Opponents accused the Pinal County Supervisors with approving the rezoning in the face of at least 13 alleged violations of the Pinal County Zoning ordinance by the landowner. 

Opponents maintain the Pinal County Supervisors increased the potential for Anam to profit from the sale of their land after it was rezoned by approving of Anam's request to rezone  4,600 acres without requiring Anam to submit a Codes, Covenants and Restrictions document (CCRs) as mandated by the Pinal County Zoning Ordinance.

In an advertisement promoting the project, Supervisor Lionel Ruiz said that the Pinal County Attorneys Office had been "involved in the development since the beginning," but had not alerted the supervisors to any violations.  Ruiz paid for the ad out of his own pocket.

When asked about violations, Supervisor Sandie Smith told The Apache Junction News that the Pinal County Attorneys Office was researching the issue.  "As far as I know, we have done nothing wrong," Smith said.

Opponents were left to wonder why the Pinal County Attorneys Office would have to research the alleged violations, if they had been involved in the development since the beginning.

Supervisor Jimmie B. Kerr has remained quiet on the controversy.

On the water issue, opponents were left wondering why the landowner, proposing to build a city to house over 20,000 people, claimed that drilling a single exploratory well to see if there was enough water at the site to sustain the proposed city "was too expensive."

After opponents turned in almost 6,000 signatures, Anam Inc. filed a formal complaint with the county alleging that the petitions were turned in 2 weeks late and that the each petition sheet should have had the 45 page Planned Area Development document stapled to it.  A petition sheet contains space for only 15 signatures.

The attorney representing PCSC answered the charges saying that the date for submitting the petitions was set by the Pinal County Elections department and that the material to be attached to each petition was approved by the Pinal County Attorneys Office.

After consulting with attorneys representing Anam and PCSC,  the Pinal County Attorneys Office advised the Pinal Elections department to accept the petitions.