Local Opinion: The more things change

When a reporter from the Tucson Sentinel called me out of the blue on a Monday afternoon before the first Board of Supervisors meeting in April, his questions rattled me significantly.

He asked me if I was aware that Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry had “retired” as county administrator and had triggered his contract clause allowing him to become a “contractor” while still drawing his county administrator’s pay and his retirement as well. All of this, the reporter said, went into effect as of July 4, 2021, a full three months before Huckelberry’s horrific bicycle accident.

I responded with a shocked, “I had no idea.”

Immediately, damage control was deployed by certain county administrators, a couple of my board colleagues, along with friends and attorneys of Huckelberry. All were practically falling over each other to make sure that the “public understood” that what Huckelberry had done was perfectly legal. It was time to move on, they said.

It is not hard to fathom, that given these sets of circumstances regarding Huckelberry’s actions, that any sound thinking individual would understandably suspect that something is amiss here, something is not right.

Now we come to the April 19 Board of Supervisors meeting. I placed on the agenda an item requesting a thorough discussion of the events and details surrounding Huckelberry’s retirement and all documentation related to it. The only individual who made herself available was the new county administrator, Jan Lesher. I questioned her for a good half-hour. I asked what she knew of Huckelberry’s retirement plans, when she knew them and who else knew as well. Lesher responded with a lot of “I don’t knows” or “I don’t recalls.”

Meanwhile, my colleagues on the board said and asked nothing meaningful to the investigation or discussion. These same supervisors initially expressed outrage at Huckelberry for so egregiously compromising the public’s trust and money. Yet, they all sat there together in a stony silence that was only broken by one reiterating the legality of Huckelberry’s actions and another trotting out the tired trope of this being a “learning opportunity.”

The most troubling takeaway from that meeting is that the saga of Huckelberry will forever be shadowed by black clouds of suspicion, mistrust and conspiracy. The issues and controversies of his pay plan, benefits, retirement, resignation and termination will be all that will be remembered.

He’s not alone in this matter.

The Board of Supervisors will rightfully receive justified blame for not keeping better control of their “general manager” — for decades. A complicit and disinterested press (for the most part) will be guilty of not serving the public interest, protecting the public trust or holding elected officials accountable. County staff will shoulder the burden of blindly following orders, circling the wagons and keeping public information hidden in order to protect their bosses and careers.

Finally, the new county administrator will be unable to sever her connections to the previous administration as merely being . Huckelberry’s No. 2 and right hand. She was aboard the same ship for years with Huckelberry and to think she had no real-time knowledge of this saga’s events, as she has publicly stated repeatedly, is beyond comprehension. Lesher’s tenure is off to a rocky start, marked by an inability to step out of the previous administrator’s shadow to chart her own course, and clouded by the suspicion of her being a willing participant. She will be duty bound to carry on Huckelberry’s policies, procedures and managerial style.

Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.