Meeting schedule delays public comment on county planning for adequate water supply 
By J.C. Huntington
Posted to PoisonedWells.com September 3, 2001

Dennis Cady, Pinal County Planning and Development Director

Dennis Cady, Director of Pinal's Planning and Development department, has apparently structured the content of the draft Pinal Comprehensive Plan and scheduled the meetings so that public input to the Pinal Comprehensive Plan on the critical  issue of water resource planning will be delayed at by a month and possibly more.

State law requires that the Pinal Comprehensive Plan address water resource planning¹.

Cady told The Florence Reminder that the main concern of residents attending previous Pinal Planning and Development meetings on the Comprehensive Plan is "whether the water is available for the developments."

However, the copy of the draft Pinal Comprehensive Plan that was made available to SaddleBrooke Residents August 29, completely fails to address water resource planning.  That copy does not even have a placeholder indicating that the Water Resources Element of the Pinal Comprehensive Plan will be supplied later.

To date, copies of the plan are made available only at meetings called by Cady, there is no public notice indicating when a new version of the plan  is available.

According to The Florence Reminder, residents have only two opportunities to comment on the text of the proposed Comprehensive Plan at a public meeting before the plan goes for final approval before the Pinal Board of Supervisors at a public hearing. 

The last  meeting  before the public hearing by the Board of Supervisors will be in a meeting  scheduled for October 11 in Florence.

For the residents of SaddleBrooke, the first opportunity see the draft plan occurred at the meeting of August 29, where copies of the plan were available.  The draft plan will be available to Oracle residents at a meeting planned for next Wednesday, September 5.

The next opportunity to comment on the Comprehensive Plan will be October 11, during a two-hour meeting in Florence.  This two-hour meeting will cover the entire plan, and is expected to have attendees from all parts of the county.

Assuming that the Pinal Planning and Development department completes the Water Resources Element of the Pinal Comprehensive Plan and makes it available to residents at the Oct. 11 meeting, residents will be able to obtain a copy at that time. 

The draft Pinal Comprehensive Plan says  that "[T]he planning process is structured to emphasize public involvement and incorporate comments, ideas, and direction of the public into the plan."³

Cady is predicting that the final hearing by the Pinal Board of Supervisors will occur December 19, during the holiday season.

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1: Section 2.1 of the draft Comprehensive Plan states:

According to Title 11, Section 821 the Comprehensive Plan shall include . .  [a] Land Use Element. . . [a] Transportation/Circulation Element . . . [and a] Water Resources Element.

2: More meetings set to discuss county plan, by Alan Levine, The Florence Reminder, August 29, 2001
3: Section 1.0 Overview, page 4