Gila County Board of Supervisors last week agreed to pay fines over its opposition to Prop. 127, the “Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona” ballot initiative that was defeated by a large margin in November 2018.

Facing fines that could have included $5,000 per supervisor and reimbursing the county for costs associated with passing Resolution No. 18-06-03 in June 2018, board members instead agreed to pay $225 each. The fines will be paid to Gila County with personal funds from each supervisor.

The resolution came to the board from Gila County Manager James Menlove, who voiced concerns about the effect Prop. 127 could potentially have on Arizona’s economy should it be adopted.

“On the surface, that may sound like it’s a really good thing,” Menlove said at the June 19, 2018 meeting. “In essence, it’s putting handcuffs on Arizona to be required to do things that may not be in the best interest of Arizona.”

In the ensuing discussion, District 1 Supervisor Tommie Martin said she opposed the proposition because “there’s a billionaire in California that is actively working at getting the youth — for want of a better word — to the polls this year.”

“On the one hand it’s very straightforward,” Martin said. “On the other hand, it’s a very backdoor effort of influencing, at least, Arizona’s election with trying to get quite a youthful population to the polls.”

Martin went on to say that aside from the political reasons to oppose it, there were environmental reasons.

“At a certain point and at a certain size, any bird, much less a flock of birds, on their annual trek cannot fly over [a solar panel] array,” she said.

“They are incinerated in the solar and fall to the ground,” she concluded. “You have to take another look at what in the world are we doing here: We’re doing it — again in my opinion — for a political reason, not a sound process reason.”

District 3 Supervisor Woody Cline said that solar energy is “nice, but it’s expensive.”

“I think what gets started in California needs to stay in California,” he concluded.

District 2 Supervisor Tim Humphrey did not comment as the resolution passed by a 3-0 vote.

On Oct. 25, 2018, the Board of Supervisors was contacted by the Arizona Attorney General’s office over concerns Resolution No. 18-06-03 may have violated Arizona Revised Statute § 11-410, which states, in part, “A county shall not spend or use its resources, including the use or expenditure of monies, accounts, credit, facilities, vehicles, postage, telecommunications, computer hardware and software, web pages, personnel, equipment, materials, buildings or any other thing of value, for the purpose of influencing the outcomes of elections.”

Subsequently, the board repealed 18-06-03 with Resolution 18-10-05 on Oct. 31, 2018.

Proposition 127

Prop. 127 was funded in large part by Tom Steyer, a wealthy California businessman, whose NextGen America seeks to get young voters involved in the political process and funds progressive political actions throughout the country.

According to the Arizona Voters’ Guide for the 2018 general election, Prop. 127 would have amended the state Constitution, requiring Arizona to produce half of its energy from renewable resources — defined as solar, wind, biomass, hydropower, geothermal and landfill gas energies — by the year 2030. The proposition excluded nuclear fuel, which led to fears that the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station would be forced to shut down, costing about 3,000 jobs.

Ballot arguments in favor of the proposition based on analysis commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council stated, “electricity bills would be 3 percent cheaper in 2030 under the renewable energy future compared with the currently-planned gas-fired future.”

NRDC also stated, “the cost of solar power has fallen 86 percent over the past eight years, and cost of wind power has fallen 67 percent. The cost of energy storage has fallen 79 percent since 2010.”

“We need to compete with our neighboring states, which are building clean energy economies quickly. Over the last five years, solar energy-related jobs grew nine times faster than the overall economy, but Arizona actually lost solar jobs,” the ballot argument concluded.

Arguments against the initiative from the W.P. Carey School of Business — funded by Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) — concluded, in a “non-peer-reviewed study using a model not available for independent analysis,” that the state would lose about $3 billion in state and local taxes, as well as “7,000 jobs by 2060,” assuming the closure of Palo Verde.

Further, the argument states, “This Amendment will increase the cost of doing business in Arizona by increasing the cost of energy. Wind and solar power are much more expensive than conventional power. The latest data show wind power is 50 percent more expensive than conventional power, and solar power is triple the cost of conventional power.”

“The 2030 deadline is much too short for such a major change,” the argument concluded. “A hastened implementation of the referendum would lead to chaos in providing necessary energy for Arizona.”

Local renewable energy

In the absence of direction from the state, renewable energy has become part of the conversation of the Globe-Miami area’s future.

The City of Globe’s Economic Development Department (EDD) is in the process of creating a community economic plan through a 3-year grant from the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) (See “Housing study part of larger strategy for City of Globe,” March 6, 2019 edition of the Silver Belt).

One of seven strategies that came out of a series of meetings in 2018 was to explore the feasibility of increasing renewable energy generation, with the possibility of a solar array somewhere in the Globe-Miami area.

A group of local individuals is working with BHP and the Rocky Mountain Institute, an organization dedicated to increasing the use of renewable energy throughout the world, to study the possibility of using the Solitude Tailings as a base for a large solar project.

“We’re still in the research stage, but knowledge is power,” said Globe resident Adrea Ricke, who is involved with the working group. “What have other cities and communities done? The first component is education.”

Although a solar project is likely far in the future, the City’s support of any potential alternative energy project is one of the first steps to seeing it come to fruition in order to lead the way to create economic and community partnerships.

On March 12, Civil Bureau Chief, Gila County Attorney Jefferson Dalton penned a letter to the AG’s office acknowledging the supervisors’ acceptance of the resolution proposed by the state.

“The Gila County Board of Supervisors has directed that I inform you that it has agreed to accept your offer to resolve its alleged violation of A.R.S. s 11-410 by having its members who voted in favor of Resolution No. 18-06-03, Tim R. Humphrey, Woody Cline, and Tommie C. Martin each pay a penalty of $225 directly to Gila County,” the letter states. “Each payment will come from the member’s personal funds and not from county funds or insurance funds. We will send evidence of the payments as soon as received.”

In response to a request for comment from the Silver Belt last week, Humphrey expressed support for alternative forms of energy, as long as they are economically feasible.

“I support green energy and will be in support of green energy, but not at any cost,” Humphrey wrote in an email last week. “If we put a percentage and a deadline on completion, that would be an open checkbook to construction and I’m not for opening the checkbook not knowing the cost.”