By Nicole Ludden | Arizona Daily Star
When Patti Woodbury moved to Vail in 1984, the area had no traffic lights, one school and an abundance of open fields dotted with saguaros and native desert vegetation.
Now, the area once known as “the town between the tracks” has several housing developments, a Safeway and an award-winning school district. Thousands of people have moved to Vail since Woodbury settled there nearly 40 years ago, and now, some residents are trying to make the historically unincorporated area its own town.
A group called Incorporate Vail Arizona, or IVA, has been exploring what it would take to incorporate Vail and began holding meetings to gauge interest with the area’s businesses and residents since last fall. The group is in the process of following the statutory guidelinesto make Vail its own municipality, including submitting a notice to the Pima County Board of Supervisors of its intention to do so on Oct. 27.
But while the landscape and population of Vail have changed dramatically over time, Woodbury doesn’t want to see her home become part of a town.
She works as a volunteer with an opposing group, Inform Vail Arizona, that’s warning residents of the potential dangers of incorporation, including the added bureaucracy of an extra layer of government, more taxes and the potential loss of the rural nature Vail’s known for.
“(Incorporation is) gonna benefit businesses, it’s going to benefit developers. (IVA) has yet to show any concrete benefit to the homeowners of the area. They’ve only shown potential expense,” Woodbury said.
