When the Town Council backed away from considering a proposal to impose a public safety fee, the majority said they did so because they felt they were being threatened with legal action from State Representative John Kavanagh.

Kavanagh, however, told The Times he was “just trying to be helpful.”

Mayor Ginny Dickey said she believes Kavanagh, in an email to the Town, was clearly suggesting he would invoke state statute as it relates to the environmental fee.

The statute, passed in 2016 as SB1487, states that “at the request of one or more members of the legislature, the attorney general shall investigate any ordinance, regulation, order or other official action adopted or taken by the governing body of a county, city or town that the member alleges violates state law or the Constitution of Arizona.”

Sanctions for violation of the law could include loss of state shared revenues to the town.

Kavanagh, a state senator at the time, was a key sponsor of the bill.

Councilman Mike Scharnow noted that a panelist at a recent convention of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns described SB1487 law as “the ‘mother’ of all preemption bills in the country intent on eroding local control by city and town councils.”

“This law puts local democracy at risk by virtually wiping out due process should a ruling come down from the attorney general against a city or town,” Scharnow said. “One legislator and one attorney general can strangle attempts by municipalities to serve their own constituents.”

Kavanagh said he believes he was looking after the interests of his constituents when he approached the Arizona Legislative Council concerning the environmental and safety fees.

The original email sent to council by Kavanagh on July 15, stated that “the recent publicity surrounding the expansion of the environmental fee into other areas prompted some constituents to question me about its legality based on their belief it is a property tax, which requires voter approval.”

Kavanagh later told The Times, “I’m surprised that a personal ‘heads up’ was viewed as a threat. I was trying to be helpful and asked for a legal opinion.”

The initial opinion Kavanagh received was from the Arizona Legislative Council, which stated it believed the town had overstepped its authority with the environmental fee. He said he had made an inquiry of the Attorney General’s Office, but had not yet received an opinion.

The environmental fee was passed in late 2014 and was implemented the first of the year in 2016, before the legislature had enacted SB1487. Kavanagh said he did not give the $36 annual fee for environmental services and permits a second thought, until he began getting questions from residents about the expanded public safety fee.

Scharnow said Kavanagh intimated in his email that he would invoke SB1487 should an expansion be done of the environmental fee, specifically the public safety fee being considered.

“I have to question the timing of this,” Scharnow said. “Why alert us now to the possibility of this not conforming to Arizona law when the environmental fee has been around several years already?

“Is it because we had a different council and mayor at the time? I’ll let citizens draw their own conclusions.”

The council first discussed the possibility of a public safety fee as early as 2014. However, it was not pushed forward until after voters rejected a proposal for a primary property tax.

The passage of a property tax would have resulted in the rescinding of the environmental fee. In April this year, when the council voted to have staff put together the public safety fee proposal and bring it forward, the motion included a suspension of the environmental fee.

Dickey said the proposal for the public safety fee had all $185 deposited into a segregated public safety fund with an annual audit and the opportunity to rescind the fee in 2021. It also included a hardship accommodation.

Dickey said she and Town Attorney Aaron Arnson both believe the fee to be legal but the council chose not to challenge.

“Some of us decided to put the community first rather than ourselves. Months of distraction and divisiveness would not be productive even if ultimately we prevailed,” Dickey said.

“It was obvious (Representative Kavanagh’s) intention was to file a SB1487, if we passed the public safety fee,” Councilman David Spelich said. “I was also told by numerous residents in town that Representative Kavanagh expressed to them the fee was illegal to collect. As a council we had to take this into consideration and not open the town up for a costly legal battle.”