County may acquire rural K9 Ranch Road

Pima County supervisors Tuesday put off for three months a property owner’s plan to give up a private road in exchange for better driving and maintenance.

There were some who didn’t like the idea, pleading that giving up private property for road improvements and speed limits diminished the ambience of the rural area.

The road is K9 Ranch road, a 3.8 mile unpaved extension of Old Spanish Trail in Supervisor Ray Carroll’s District No. 4.

Carroll urged the county supervisors take action now, given all the energy and time spent by the property owners along the road.

Opponents to county ownership said it will mean the road could become like a raceway. Bumpy dirt roads make safer drivers, they argued.

Supervisor Sharon Bronson, whose District No. 3 includes Arivaca and the twisty, risky road that leads to it, said, “Arivaca Road has a million dollar exposure,” citing the county’s liability there.

A report by Ben Goff, deputy director of county transportation, was directed to come back in 30 days to argue for it again.

Karen Hartwell operates Rincon Water, a private utility, that owns the road that’s used as right-of-way for her pipes.

In short testimony, she said she’d keep paying the road maintenance, “until the money runs out.”

In other action, the supervisors dealt a set back to Tucson softball players and fans when the supervisors agreed to take over operation of Sports Park on Interstate 10 north of town.

The operators have yielded their contract to operate the park, which consists of at least six softball fields.

The county is bound by codes to comply with dark-skies programs, reducing some forms of light at night lest it interfere with astronomical observations abound Tucson.

Also at the supervisors’ meeting, the town of Sahuarita and six other law enforcement and fire fighting units agreed to join a county-operated SWAT team.

And in the final action by the supervisors Tuesday, they proclaimed April 30, 2008, to be “Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik Day.”

Dupnik has been a Tucson policeman before being appointed sheriff.

The sheriff wasn’t present to hear the proclamation approved.

He has been a law-enforcement officer for 50 years.

jlamb@vnews.com | 547-9749