Comments from Douglas Wolf in support of the Union Pacific Rail Project in Red Rock
Chairman Miller, members of the board, citizens of Pinal County, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I rise in support of today’s resolution regarding the Union Pacific Classification Yard in Red Rock.
Taxes on real estate provide approximately 40% of the county budget yet 75% of the land in Pinal is non-taxable. This project would allow us to get more property onto the tax rolls and either increase revenue to the county, lower the tax burden on existing residents or a combination of both. Those benefits are on top of the high compensation jobs that Union Pacific would bring to our region.
Personally, I am very disappointed in what I hear from the State Department of Land. Their constitutional mandate is to seek the highest return on land for the trustees of each parcel. Yet, they seem to have an ulterior agenda and appear to be stonewalling this important and valuable project. They are going outside the scope of their mandate, which is to serve their trusties. They are trying to get involved in issues that Pinal County and other agencies are authorized to address and are better able to resolve.
The State Land Department has also erroneously claimed that an economically beneficial project like the Union Pacific Classification yard would lower the value of contiguous properties. It is the official opinion of the Pinal County Assessor’s Office that the values of adjacent land would INCREASE as a result of a strategic infrastructure project like the Union Pacific Classification Yard. They certainly would NOT go down in value, as the land department and their California based consultants have so speciously claimed.
I would also like to address the misguided Gruen study done by San Francisco based urban economists. This report concocts a litany of faults with Pinal County – many of which would be remedied or mitigated by the presence of a state of the art facility such as the Union Pacific project. They misguidedly try to claim a lack of jobs in Pinal County is justification from blocking new jobs in Pinal County. The Gruen report also states they consulted with local stake holders yet I cannot find anyone in Pinal County with which they spoke. They did not contact the Assessor’s Office, a serious omission because we are the local experts on property values.
I enthusiastically support today’s resolution and look forward to the synergistic economic benefits that this project will bring to our county. Further, I request that the Governor remind the State Land Department of their obligation to leverage market opportunities in order to maximize the financial benefit for the trustees. The jobs and future economic return that this project will provide to Pinal County and to Arizona are too valuable to delay any longer.
