Anam Inc., a Canadian-based Corporation, and Elaine Helzer, the wife of an employee of the  Pinal County Planning & Development department, have filed a lawsuit against the Pinal County Elections Department.  The purpose of the lawsuit is invalidate nearly 6,000 signatures on a referendum that would allow voters to review the rezoning of over 7 square miles of Anam-owned land at the ballot box. 

       Alex Argueta, a principle of The Remington Group, and Elaine Helzer, an Oracle resident, filed the lawsuit July 25. The Remington Group is employed by Anam to develop the project.

       The lawsuit seeks to overturn the referendum as well as an award of costs incurred in bringing the action. 

       Helzer's husband, Elwin Helzer, works for the Pinal County Planning & Development Services Department as a zoning inspector in the Oracle area.

       Helzer has formed a group called Pinal Citizens for Positive Growth and Development supporting Anam's project. Helzer told The Arizona Daily Star that Anam and Robson Communities Inc. help fund her group.

       SaddleBrooke Ranch is a golf-oriented retirement community proposed to be built next to a radioactive/toxic waste dump by Robson Communities, Inc.  A successful referendum submitted by Pinal Citizens for Sustainable Communities (PCSC) in December of last year put the SaddleBrooke ranch on hold until the Nov. 2002 general election. 

       According to an advertisement the June 13 edition of The San Manuel Miner, the mission of Helzer's group, "is to encourage positive growth and development of our beautiful Southeast Pinal County, working in harmony with those people and/or organizations who can make it happen." 

       When asked by The Oracle about her role in the lawsuit, Helzer refused to comment saying, "I have no comments to make about that, if you need any information just call Snell & Wilmer."

       The law firm of Snell and Wilmer represent Helzer and Anam. According to their web site, Snell and Wilmer employees over 330 attorneys and has offices in Phoenix, Tucson, California, Utah, Colorado and Nevada.

       Anam is planning to build a large residential development of over 8,500 houses on their land situated 10 miles north of Oracle Junction as the first phase of the multiphase project called Willow Springs. The full Willow Springs project is planned to have around 34,000 homes spread over 26 square miles of land.

       On July 2, PCSC submitted over 5,800 signatures to allow Pinal voters to review the county supervisors rezoning that would allow construction of 8,516 houses in the first phase of Willow Springs. Without the zoning change, the landowner would be restricted to lot sizes no smaller than 1.25 acres, which would accommodate only 3,680 homes.

       In their lawsuit, Helzer and Anam allege the referendum signatures are invalid because the petitions were turned in 2 weeks too late. The lawsuit also alleges that, as a technical matter, PCSC was not incorporated with the specific intent to collect signatures for the Willow Springs referendum until June 19, making all citizen signatures gathered prior to that date invalid. 

       PCSC has collected about 20,000 signatures on three separate referendums in the last 25 months.

       Anam signaled that they were considering a lawsuit three days after PCSC submitted the Willow Springs petitions to Pinal County. 

       In a July 5, 2001 letter to County Elections Director Gilbert Hoyos from Snell & Wilmer, on behalf of Anam, alleged that the due date for filing referendum petitions should have been June 15, not July 2, 2001.  The letter also alleged that the materials attached to the petitions during circulation and at filing were incomplete because the 50 page Planned Area Development (PAD) document was not attached to each petition sheet. 

       After reading the Anam complaint, Pinal County Deputy County Attorney Bill McLean asked Anne Graham-Bergin, an attorney representing PCSC, for her comments.

       Bergin disputed Anam's claims in her response of July 12. Documents attached to Bergin's letter show that the Pinal County Elections Department set the due date at July 2 and that the County Attorney's office approved the material to be attached to the petitions. 

       After reviewing Bergin's letter and Anam's complaint, McLean advised the Pinal County Elections Department to accept the petitions.

       Helzer and Anam then filed their lawsuit. Anam's earlier claim that the PAD document should have been attached to all petitions is not mentioned in their complaint.