Vail residents to vote on becoming a town

Vail residents will vote on whether to become a town after the group aiming to incorporate the area southeast of Tucson collected enough signatures to call an election.

Incorporate Vail Arizona, the group behind the incorporation effort, submitted 2,058 valid signatures to the Pima County Recorder’s Office, surpassing the minimum 1,537 needed to go to the ballot. The election is set for Nov. 7.

The petitioners had to obtain signatures from 10% of the area’s registered voters and submit them by Aug. 8 to allow time for the incorporation question to be placed on the November ballot. The Pima County Board of Supervisors gave backers the go-ahead to begin collecting signatures on July 11, leaving a little more than a month for the petition drive.

The board will vote Monday on calling the incorporation election. The board’s actions, however, are strictly ministerial. If processes outlined in state statutes are followed, the supervisors have to vote to give the go-ahead.

Vail residents are largely divided on whether to incorporate into a town. While the group pushing for incorporation has hailed the effort as a way for the historically rural area to gain local control and prevent future annexation efforts by Tucson, many dissenters have aired concerns about higher taxes and uncontrolled growth.

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The incorporation group submitted 2,542 signatures, but the recorder’s office found 484 signatures were invalid due to missing voter registrations, signees with voter registrations outside of Vail and missing information required by petition signers.

The Incorporate Vail group has spent the last two years working on the effort and held several signature-gathering events to place the question on the ballot.

“Vail is a unique and special community. We are pleased that as residents of Vail, we will have the opportunity to vote on incorporation and to create our own future and destiny,” Incorporate Vail Arizona President David Hook said in a news release.

Pima County will cover the cost of the election with an estimated price tag of $11,528.