Alia Beard Rau

The Republic | azcentral.com

Forget plastic grocery bags. The first target in the effort by state lawmakers to tamp down on municipal authority is marijuana.

Rep. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, filed an official complaint Thursday with the Arizona Attorney General's Office alleging the town of Snowflake violated several state laws in issuing a permit to a medical-marijuana-cultivation facility. Boyer has been among the state's most vocal critics of marijuana legalization.

This is the first official complaint filed under Senate Bill 1487, which allows any state lawmaker to direct the attorney general to investigate any allegation that a city or town violated state law. If the attorney general finds the community in violation and it is not remedied, the state treasurer could withhold state-shared monies until the issue is resolved. For most communities, state shared revenue makes up about half of their operating budgets.

Snowflake allegations

Boyer alleges Snowflake violated state open-meeting laws, notice requirements for zoning-law changes, zoning-contract regulations, the right of referendum and access to public records during the process of issuing a use permit to Copperstate Farms. Fife Symington IV, the son of the former governor with the same name, is behind the project.

According to a letter from Boyer to the Attorney General's Office, he alleges that the Snowflake mayor, town manager and members of the council may have violated the state open-meeting law by meeting with Copperstate Farms officials and discussing a deal. He alleges the town failed to provide adequate advanced notice for public hearings regarding the permit. He alleges the town may have violated state law by entering into "quid pro quo arrangement" that involved the farm giving the town up to $800,000 a year in exchange for the permit.

Arizona to vote on marijuana legalization in November

Boyer also alleged the town violated residents' right to refer the permit issue to the ballot by refusing to approve minutes of the meeting in which the permit was approved. Referendum paperwork requires the minutes be attached.

The allegations mirror allegations made in a lawsuit residents filed against Snowflake and Copperstate Farms in Navajo County Superior Court.

Snowflake Town Manager Brian Richards did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Doug Cole, with Highground Consulting, is working with Copperstate Farms on the project. He said the city is in the process of redoing the permits. The Planning and Zoning Commission was scheduled to re-hear the permit proposal Thursday night, and the town council is scheduled to re-vote Friday.

"Residents raised some issues, so they're all being redone," Cole said.

The Attorney General's Office has 30 days to investigate Boyer's complaint. If Snowflake is found to be in violation, it has 30 days to resolve the issue. If the issue is not resolved, the Attorney General's Office notifies the Treasurer's Office to withhold state-shared revenue.

Medical-marijuana study soon will seek Arizona veterans with PTSD

Targeting plastic bags

Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, sent a letter Monday to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich stating that she has heard concerns from constituents about a Bisbee ordinance regulating plastic bags. She sought more information about the new state law, but didn't go so far as to file an official request for investigation.

VALDEZ: Will red tape save Bisbee's anti-bag brigade?

The Legislature this session passed nearly a dozen laws asserting its authority over issues ranging from requiring cities to allow short-term rentals to forbidding them from regulating guns. House Bill 2131 prevented cities from banning or regulating plastic grocery bags.

Griffin in her letter said she'd heard that some believed the 2012 Bisbee ordinance ithat requires stores to charge a 5 cent fee to get a disposable bag is not subject to SB 1487 because the ordinance passed before the state law did.

Attorney General's Office Chief Counsel Paul Watkins responded via letter Wednesday that the new law has no exceptions, not even for ordinances enacted before it took effect. But he said his office would not begin a formal investigation until it received a formal investigative-request form.

Griffin did not respond to The Arizona Republic's request for comment on whether she plans to file a formal complaint.

State senator goes after Bisbee's plastic-bags ordinance

Cities' rights

The League of Arizona Cities and Towns' executive director, Ken Strobeck, unsuccessfully lobbied with cities against the new law, and the group is working with cities on complaints. He said the penalty "is pretty much devastating."

"It's the elimination of state-shared revenue, which is pretty close to half of your operating budget," he said.

Strobeck said the law substitutes the judgment of a single legislator for the votes of a city's elected representatives and short-circuits the legal process. "It is putting the attorney general in the position of being the court, the finder of fact and the imposer of the penalty," he said.

Boyer's letter — written on House letterhead — appears to be copied and pasted from a letter from someone else. It states that the letter is "on behalf of Ken Krieger, whom our firm represents" in opposing the town of Snowflake. Boyer is a teacher, not an attorney. Krieger is a former Peoria City Council candidate. Attorney Kory Langhoffer is the one who filed the lawsuit against Snowflake.

Strobeck said the letter is an example of how the law "can be abused and misused to have a Phoenix-area legislator trying to tell a small town in northeast Arizona how to take care of their own business."

"He's just cut and pasted the letter from an attorney onto his letterhead and is using the power of his office for fulfilling the request of a private form," Strobeck said.

Boyer said he worked with an attorney on the language, but the complaint ultimately comes from him.

"I'm working 24/7 to defeat marijuana legislation and now this facility for the residents of Snowflake on my own time," he said.

Legislature keeps its thumb on Arizona cities

In the case of Bisbee, he said Bisbee is a charter city, meaning it has authority under the Arizona Constitution to set its own local ordinances.

"They believe they have the authority to enact local ordinances in a local matter," he said. "This is an extreme overreach of injecting state legislators as individuals into city business."

Bisbee, three Tempe City Council members and several cities are already in the midst of a lawsuit against the state over whether the state has the authority to usurp charter cities' authority in other areas, particularly paid-employee sick leave.