The TEP has the “go-ahead” with the choice of installing large power electric poles. ALl along Silverbell Road through a widening project. The TEP asked the Board of Adjustment to grant a variance due to the city ordinance that needed utilities to bury in all the scenic corridors.

Silverbell Road had been all along the border of the Tucson Mountains. Which is a considerable scenic corridor. This was then known by the ordinance. The attorney Howard Baldwin had something to say. “Neither the county nor the city are paying any attention to the ordinances and the politicians are just sitting there with a blind eye.” Denise Baldwin, known well as a vice president of the Tucson Mountains Association shown a protection of the quality of life and scenic treasures in her defenses of the scenic routes. “When we have the opportunity for undergrounding, that’s what would happen. We lost that opportunity today.”

It was pretty said that Electric Poles From Tucson Had To Bother the Scenery

There have been many warnings. Including from that of Ward 6 Tucson City Council member Steve Kozachik “Look, if this is the way you’re going to be treating us as a partner at the table, we might have a tendency to dig in our heels even more firmly when we’re defending our other gateways ad scenic corridors.

Kozachik still affirms likely workarounds.

“On Silverbell, there are significant archeological artifacts that people want protected and I would count myself as one of them. But they’re still going to have to mitigate on archeology whether they go above ground or below ground.”