The Board of Supervisors yesterday accepted a $250,000 bond posted by Assessor Alan Lang, the Democrat several supervisors wanted to force from office.
Supervisors also voted 3-2 to approve a $121,000-a-year contract with Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry. Republicans Ed Moore and Paul Marsh voted against the contract.
While there was no dissent on the Lang vote, Democratic Supervisor Dan Eckstrom abstained and also did not participate in the secret discussion the board had with special counsel S.L. Schorr before voting.
Eckstrom refused to join the board's unprecedented hearings into Lang's operation of the Assessor's Office.
Those hearings concluded Feb. 10, when the board's Republican majority demanded that Lang post an additional $150,000 bond that Republican supervisors said was needed to cover potential costs of claims arising from Lang's personnel management.
Supervisor Raul Grijalva, the Democrat who participated in the hearings but voted against the higher bond, joined the Republicans yesterday.
Moore prodded the board's probe of Lang. He used a territorial law that gives supervisors the right to force the county's other elected officials to make a report. But that report was blown into six days of hearings.
Critics said it was a waste of money. Taxpayers will pay Schorr's firm, Lewis and Roca, about $100,000 and Lang's lawyer, Stanton Bloom, about $35,000.
Taxpayers also pay the $1,500 premium for Lang's new bond, which was meant to supplement the $100,000 bond he had since taking office last year.
Moore said repeatedly that he was "trying to protect taxpayers" with the investigation of Lang and the order for an additional bond. But he also was seeking to use the maneuver to oust Lang if Lang failed to come up with the bond. And Republican board Chairman Mike Boyd also said the investigation was intended to force Lang out of office.
Both Moore and Lang are targets of a recall drive that has less than a month to produce the required petitions.
"I guess they think that it was worth it," Bloom said after the vote. "After all that, they put their tail between their legs and voted 4-0."
Huckelberry, a 20-year county executive, waited a week to have his contract approved, but became the highest-paid chief administrative officer for Pima County. Marsh and Moore wanted to limit Huckelberry to $105,000 a year, which is what Manoj Vyas was paid until he was removed in December. Former County Manager Enrique Serna, ousted by the Republican majority in January 1993, received $113,000 a year.
Huckelberry oversees 6,000 workers and a $606 million budget. City Manager Mike Brown, who is paid $120,000 annually, oversees 4,800 employees and a $530 million budget.
Moore and Marsh complained yesterday that Huckelberry's contract was one-sided.
Moore's proposal would have given Huckelberry a bonus if he devised budget cuts or a property tax cut. But the proposal was so vague that Huckelberry could get a bonus if his tax cut left the county with a deficit.
In other matters during the seven-hour meeting, supervisors:
* Voted 3-2, with Boyd and Grijalva dissenting, to preserve three buildings at Agua Caliente Regional Park. The vote saves the main house, workers' cottage and bunkhouse.
* Approved a law aimed at reducing false alarms. Sheriff's Capt. Martha Cramer said that false alarms account for one in 10 calls to the Sheriff's Department. False alarms cost the county more than $170,000 last year, and of 10,251 alarm calls in 1992, 10,027 were false. Causes, Cramer said, include pets, wind, relatives or workers and mechanical problems.
Fines can be imposed on those who have at least five false alarms in a year.
* Rejected on a 4-1 vote two sets of animal control laws that were proposed to reduce dog and cat overpopulation and to tighten regulations on at-large dogs and cleanup of dog waste. Only Grijalva supported the laws, which Republicans derided as government overkill.
* Sent back a proposed law that would allow importation of waste from other counties. Although county landfills receive garbage from communities in Pinal and Cochise counties, supervisors last year voted to ban any imported waste.
