Arizona voters face an IQ test on public lands

Arizona voters face two land-related ballot measures this November, and together, they reveal not just the state’s split personality but that of the West as well. You can think of Proposition 119 as a respectable Dr. Jekyll, a 19th century gentleman who wants the state and federal government to exchange land to improve management and to protect the “mission readiness” of the state’s military bases. By carefully consolidating state and federal land, Prop. 119 would also promote solar energy while protecting public lands for conservation and public use. The measure requires an extraordinary degree of openness, including a requirement that the voters must specifically approve future land exchanges. Proposition 120, however, can be thought of as Robert Louis Stevenson’s sinister character, Mr. Hyde. This measure authorizes Arizona to seize federal lands in the state, excluding Indian reservations and “land for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings,” quoting the U.S. Constitution. And where are these dockyards in Arizona?  Arizona already struggles to manage 9.3 million acres of state trust land ––  12.7 percent of the state. That land’s management is a tribute to the Herculean efforts of Land Commissioner Maria Baier and her recently slashed staff. The Arizona Legislature cut the Land Department’s annual general fund appropriation from $29 million in 2006, to $1.2 million in 2012. That’s not a typo. Appropriations dropped from $3.13 per acre in 2006, to 13 cents per acre today.  Compare that to the Bureau of Land Management, which spends somewhere around $3.79 per acre, and the National Park Service, which spends more than $20 per acre. And Prop. 120 would put the Legislature in charge of the Grand Canyon!...more