Photo via City of Maricopa
By Pinal Central
MARICOPA — County Supervisor Rich Vitiello made an impassioned statement to the Maricopa City Council at the most recent meeting, warning of the threat to cities and towns posed by the stripping of power away from city authority through a variety of bipartisan bills over recent years.
His statements stemmed from an encounter Vitiello had during the most recent Arizona League of Cities and Towns meeting. He reportedly was speaking to six unidentified state representatives or staffers and began discussing how many of the bills in recent years, largely aimed at promoting better access to affordable housing, are essentially stripping away the power from local planning and zoning committees, taking the power away from the people who actually live in the communities and know the area in favor of giving it unilaterally to those who may not understand the area or its needs as well. Unfortunately, according to Vitiello, what started as a conversation devolved into five or six representatives verbally coming after him.
“I was just simply stating facts that you know you want to take away the power from the cities,” said Vitiello. “When you don’t want the federal government taking away your power, but then you want to take away the power of the cities. That doesn’t make any sense. And then what happens after the cities? They come after the counties.”
