By Mark Cowling | Florence Reminder
Pinal County will sell $63 million in bonds to fund construction of new county facilities while looking for savings in its budget to pay for another $15 million in renovations to existing buildings in the next few years.
The Pinal County Board of Supervisors narrowly approved the funding Wednesday. Supervisor Pete Rios, D-Dudleyville, made a motion to vote on a new $20 million County Attorney’s Office building separately, but the motion died for lack of a second. The $63 million in bonds were approved over the “no” votes of Rios and Steve Miller, R-Casa Grande. Rios predicted citizens won’t react well to seeing a multistory “Taj Mahal” being built for the county attorney.
“In my opinion, it’s not a Taj Mahal,” Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer told the supervisors. He said the five-story building would not be a “behemoth” but a fraction of the size of the nearby courthouse. He said the 10,000-square-foot building would improve his office’s operational efficiency by putting all the prosecutors and victim services in the same building. The office is currently spread out in three places in Florence, with nowhere large enough for the whole office to meet, Volkmer said.
