House bill that could enable San Tan Valley to become Arizona’s 11th largest city advances
By James Hodl | Copper Area
‘Let’s talk this over before enacting HB 2385,’ opponents to incorporation vote plead
Now that legislation that would ease the way for residents of San Tan Valley to hold a vote on incorporating as a city has begun advancing through the Arizona House of Representatives, opponents are asking that the issue regress back to the discussion stage.
A bill (HB 2385) was approved on Feb. 24 by the House Judiciary Committee on a unanimous 6-0 vote and now awaits hearings in the House Rules Committee before being sent for a vote by the full House. The measure would eliminate the “six-mile rule” in Pinal County that allows an incorporated city or town within six miles of a community seeking to incorporate to block a vote in that community if it feels the newly incorporated town would have a detrimental impact on the existing city. Since 2011 Pinal has been the only county in Arizona where the “six-mile rule” is still in effect.
The “six-mile rule” was used by the Florence Town Council in 2010 to block a vote on San Tan Valley incorporation. The following year, the Arizona state legislature enacted a measure that would have originally eliminated the rule for all counties, but that Pinal County was removed from coverage in a deal to get the measure passed for the benefit of the other counties.
