SCC attorney blasts use of 2007 memo to justify light plan

Public Works Director Scott Altherr used a two-year-old memo from the county attorney’s office “out of context” to justify turning off 879 streetlights.

The county should stop using federal Highway Users Revenue Fund monies to pay for more than 75 percent of the 1,164 rural streetlights because it’s not legal, Altherr wrote to County Manager Greg Lucero on Sept. 16.

Leslie Spira, senior deputy county attorney, said, “I think he (Altherr) used my (2007) memo out of context. I was not addressing the legal question of do we need to shut down the lights.”

Altherr cited a 2005 opinion from Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and the memo from Spira to support his proposal, which would save the county an estimated $100,000.

His plan did not come to the public’s attention until Supervisor John Maynard placed the item on the board’s Sept. 16 meeting. Maynard then asked to move the agenda item to the meeting scheduled tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.

In 2007, after she studied other legal opinions, Spira wrote: “Money for streetlights can fall under the uses of HURF funds by virtue of the Attorney General opinions. If the lights are part of a safety program, a safety study should be conducted by the county to establish the need for the lights.”

Early this year, Altherr ordered an inventory and analysis of all county streetlights to determine which ones were eligible for HURF dollars, he said. But Spira said on Friday, “The inventory is not a safety study.

“When staff identifies an area that needs to be brought into compliance, we are charged with doing that immediately by taking corrective action,” Altherr wrote in an e-mail to the Nogales International on Sept. 15. “Compliance with state statutes does not require a public hearing or board action.”

In a telephone interview on Monday, Silva disagreed. Shutting off the lights is “a policy decision to be made by the board of supervisors and the county manager,” he said. “Common sense says you would reach out to the supervisors before you take such a drastic action.”

People are pointing fingers and “they’re trying to say I’m telling the county and board of supervisors to turn off the lights,” Silva said. “That has nothing to do with the opinion we gave (in 2007).”

Now the public is upset and “it’s a huge issue,” Silva said. He anticipated a large turnout at tomorrow’s meeting.

Silva agreed with Altherr the county had to make sure the lights served a safety purpose. He urged the county to go ahead with a safety study.

Also interviewed on Monday, Lucero said, “We haven’t turned off any lights.” The county will conduct the safety study first, he said.

Lucero found out about the lights issue last summer during the budget process. Altherr met with each supervisor regarding the streetlights, “so it’s not like it was in the dark,” Lucero said.

Maynard asked if the county could use other funds for the lights, but this happened after the county had adopted the budget, Lucero said. “That requires board action, so we put it on the agenda.”

On Wednesday, the supervisors will also consider whether to “abandon” about 26 miles of back roads in Rio Rico the county no longer maintains.