Park talks could make Marana council member 'barf'

On July 28 Councilwoman Roxanne Ziegler sent Town Councilmen David Bowen, Herb Kai and Jon Post an email titled “Marana Heritage Park — STOP THE MADNESS.”

The council has seven members, so a discussion between four of them constitutes a quorum, which makes it a public meeting that requires public notice.

“Per Dave’s call to all of us last week, it looks like we agree the Heritage Farm discussions need to stop for now,” Ziegler’s email said. “As Jon and I agree, if we see or hear one more presentation on the park, I will barf and Jon is going to manhandle someone!! No one needs to see this.”

Ziegler did not return emails to her personal and town email addresses last week, so it’s unclear whether “this” refers to her email or a presentation about the park.

Although the town provides council members with government email accounts, Ziegler sent the email from her private Yahoo email account to the private email accounts of the other members. She signed the email with X’s and O’s.

The town released the email Friday in the name of disclosure ahead of Tuesday’s council study session on the 163-acre Marana Heritage River Park project. Private emails sent by officials doing public business are public record.

“We want to make sure we’re transparent and complying with the expectation of an open government,” Town Manager Gilbert Davidson said.

After one of the council members sent the email to the town attorney over concerns that it violated the state’s Open Meetings Law, the town hired Susan Goodwin, a Phoenix attorney who is an expert in that law, to review the email to ensure an unbiased review, Davidson said.

Goodwin interviewed the council members and concluded the email was in violation of the law because it proposed action on the project. Separately, she found that Bowen violated the law when he talked one-on-one with four other council members about the project.

The council will get an update on the Marana Heritage River Park project Tuesday.

Plans call for gardens, a performing-arts amphitheater, ball fields, a farm-themed splash park and a rodeo arena. Demonstration gardens and community gardens are in place, and parking for the gardens is scheduled to begin next month, to be done in time for a new community event, the Marana Harvest Festival. Design of the splash park is underway, and construction is planned for next year.

How to pay for future phases of the park is still to be determined and completely up to the council, Davidson said. Options include allocating sales tax revenue or money from a landfill contract, or spending money from the town’s savings. The town also applied for $20 million to be part of a future Pima County bond issue.

The email also reveals behind-the-scenes politicking.

“Our plan (is) to get the park paid for through bond money from the county in the next bond election, be it 2015, 2016 or whenever,” Ziegler said in the email. “When the time is right, we may make a trip downtown and talk to (County Administrator Chuck) Huckelberry and (County Supervisor) Sharon Bronson and tell them we will support the bond effort if they will support our park.”