After running the State Land Department for more than three years, Maria Baier will take over the reins of a Tucson conservation group that has spent most of its 21 years trying to reform the laws governing state land.
Land Commissioner Baier, who has worked inside and outside government at various high-profile jobs for a quarter-century in Phoenix, will become CEO of the Sonoran Institute, the group announced this week.
Baier, who is 51, leaves her state job, which pays about $135,000 annually, on Friday. Starting Dec. 3, Baier replaces Luther Propst, the Sonoran Institute's founder and CEO for 21 years. She says she will earn about the same salary at the institute, working four days a week here and one day in Phoenix.
The institute has a staff of 50, an annual $5.2 million budget and seven offices in the western U.S. and Sonora. It has built its reputation primarily as an organization that works with disparate interest groups including builders, ranchers, conservative and liberal legislators, developers and other conservationists.
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It's had a string of successes here and elsewhere, including creation of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area southeast of Tucson.
But Propst has made no secret of his frustration at the inability of the institute and numerous other parties to secure an overhaul of state land laws, in part to make it a lot easier to conserve some state land that today must be sold for its maximum value to benefit public schools. Most often, that has meant selling for development. To succeed, the reform movement must get the state constitution amended.
Here is a Q&A with Baier about her plans for tackling the state land issue:
Q. Why has the state land reform effort flopped so many times over the years? There has been at least one initiative and two legislative referenda to try to make it easier for the Land Department to conserve some of its nine million acres.
A. The challenge with state trust land reform has been the desire to bring together so many diverse interests in order to garner broader support, (to the point) that it includes too many provisions for the voters to digest at one time. The effort to please all interested constituencies ends up, I think, creating a weight that is too heavy for a ballot proposition to bear. That comprehensiveness causes concern and confusion. Voters who are concerned and confused about constitutional changes most often vote no.
Q. What do you propose to do about this?
A. The art of getting state trust land reform approved by the voters is going to be a more judicious selection of provisions. … I think we've learned that it may need to be done incrementally.
Q. There has often been a split between environmental groups and other interests such as ranchers and developers over how much state land should be conserved. How can that dispute be resolved?
A. Three years ago, there was an effort led by the governor's office on this, but it ended up there were too many provisions. It collapsed of its own weight. Having said that, there were five or six pieces that were 85 to 90 percent resolved and one was a compromise conservation piece. I think everyone was pretty much in agreement on a package of lands that could be conserved across the state.
Q. How soon would you like to get this issue back on the ballot?
A. I feel pretty confident that we can get something of substance done in the next few years. I feel that way because of the success of Proposition 119, approved in November, which would legalize exchanges of state land under certain conditions for the first time in many years. It was a breakthrough moment in terms of a reform that had been singled out for so many years as being unacceptable to voters (similar measures were killed seven times). And then boom, this time, the margin was north of 60 percent in favor.
Maria Baier background:
• State land commissioner since June 2009.
• Phoenix city councilwoman, January 2008-June 2009.
• President, MBC Inc., March 2007-June 2009, mainly as a consultant on sustainable practices and governmental affairs for SunCor Development Co.
• CEO and president, Valley Partnership, March 2004-March 2007. The group represents the commercial and master-planned real estate development industries, advocating for what it sees as responsible development.
• Director, Arizona office, Trust for Public land, January 2002-March 2004.
• Senior policy adviser on criminal justice, environment and smart growth, to Govs. Fife Symington and Jane Hull, August 1992-January 2002.
• Public information officer, state Attorney General's Office, November 1987-August 1989.
Contact reporter TonyDavis at tdavis@azstarnet.com or 806-7746.
