Senate panel OKs audit of Pima's bond spending

Rep. Terri Proud, R-Tucson, said there are many discrepancies between what the county claims to have built with the bond funds voters authorized and what actually exists. That's because, Proud contends, "there's some bullying going around with (County Administrator) Chuck Huckelberry."

To address that, the measure she pushed through the Senate Committee on Government Reform calls not only for a forensic audit of where the 1997, 2004 and 2006 bonds were spent, but also whether the county changed the timing or amount of projects "to reward or to punish an entity, party or official who stood to benefit from or be affected by the project."

Proud is not alone in the push. The town of Marana is lobbying for the examination, too.

"If the county has nothing to hide, if they think they've got everything in order, and it's an equitable system, I think they'll be fine," said Gilbert Davidson, the town manager.

But Davidson contends there have been multiple instances of voters not getting what they were promised.

County lobbyist Michael Racy told lawmakers they are free to spend state resources to put the auditor general to work. And he said they also are legally entitled to force the county to spend the money to respond to each request.

But he said HB 2408 amounts to using "public money for what is more of a McCarthyesque witch hunt."

Martin Willett, the chief deputy county administrator, called Proud's proposal "a political vendetta." Willett rejected Proud's contention there are disparities between the county's claim of what has been done and what actually has been built. He said there are tens of thousands of pages of documents that are available.

"I'm not surprised she's confused that something doesn't seem to reconcile," Willett said.

But just because Proud doesn't understand how to read them doesn't mean they can't be reconciled, he said. He offered to have county officials sit with her to go through the documents.

But Proud said she wants a review done by the experts at the Auditor General's Office.

"I think there are businesses that are being threatened to have their permits taken away if they don't jump when Huckelberry says when to jump," she said. Proud declined to provide any specifics, however, saying much of what she was told was in confidence.

"And there are definitely towns who are scared, that cannot survive on their own," Proud continued. "So nobody wants to go up against him because of those fears."

Huckelberry called her claims "more of the same old nonsense," insisting the county has a very cooperative relationship with many elements in the community.

"It's all a figment of the representative's imagination," he said.

Davidson, however, said there have been problems.

He said the 2004 bond issue included $800,000 for an affordable-housing project in Marana, which the town hoped to use to leverage a federal grant.

"Because Mr. Huckelberry held up the process, the award of it, we lost the grant," Davidson said. "So $2.1 million was lost because of games that Mr. Huckelberry plays with the bond dollars."

Huckelberry said he could not release the bond proceeds, which he said were actually about $600,000, because there wasn't enough capacity in the sewage-treatment plant to handle the additional load. He said the money remains available if Marana, which got possession of the plant last year after a protracted legal fight with the county, pays for the upgrades.

Davidson said these are "two different issues."

Huckelberry said this bill - and another one Proud sponsored to impede the county's bonding ability - can be traced to the fight over control of the sewage treatment plant, which Marana obtained after losing several court battles before finally getting the Legislature to force the county to hand it over.

Huckelberry said Marana still owes Pima County nearly $200,000 in legal fees.

"So I would presume they're motivated to spew pure nonsense," he said.

"I don't see it that way," Proud responded. "I don't see it as being vengeful," she continued. "I see it as doing the right thing."

Wednesday's committee approval of HB 2408 comes just a day after Proud backed off a separate demand to create a new bond-oversight committee for Pima County - and only Pima County - which would have given three smaller incorporated municipalities the ability to veto bond plans for the entire county.

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