Arizona appears set to add a new town. Unofficial results from Tuesday's election in Pinal County show San Tan Valley residents support incorporation by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.
Of the more than 12,000 ballots counted so far, the "yes" side is winning with about 66% of the vote.
The Pinal County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to canvas the results of the vote on Proposition 495 on Aug. 18. If the results hold, the county says San Tan Valley — with around 100,000 residents — will officially become a town on July 1, 2026.
Tyler Hudgins is with Incorporate San Tan Valley, the organization that pushed for the community’s independence from Pinal County control.
"In our view, being unincorporated is the most wasteful and inefficient use of taxpayer money. Residents currently pay millions of dollars every year that goes in the state shared revenue system, and it goes to the other cities and towns in the state," Hudgins said.
He says there have been multiple attempts to incorporate the community, but this is the first time the issue has made its way to voters.
“It goes back all the way to 2009 and then there's been multiple attempts. I think we're either the fourth or fifth,” Hudgins said.
Hudgins joined The Show to talk more about the effort.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Tyler, welcome back. Thanks for coming in.
TYLER HUDGINS: Thanks for having me.
BRODIE: So are you surprised by the results? I mean, this is a pretty overwhelming victory.
HUDGINS: This matches up anecdotally with the conversations that we had with residents in San Tan Valley. We continued to run our race as best as we could and hoping for the best and we're excited with the results.
BRODIE: To what do you attribute this? I mean, why do you think it is that so many of your fellow residents decided this was the way to go?
HUDGINS: We think the residents decided to go this way because they innately feel the complex issues that are plaguing San Tan Valley. And they want a better future. And incorporation is the vehicle to be able to do that.
BRODIE: Yeah. So what does this allow San Tan Valley to do? Why will this, in your mind, make residents' lives better as opposed to continuing to be unincorporated?
HUDGINS: Well, the county manages San Tan Valley currently. And they manage an area the size of Connecticut. And this is 100,000 people. We are larger than Queen Creek. So we are the largest incorporation ever in state history, largest of this side of the Mississippi in the country.
So this is massive. And this area has been managed by supervisors who don't necessarily live in our community. So we have one supervisor who lives there. This will give us seven local representatives who live in this community, who are invested in this community, who can start addressing these issues.
BRODIE: What are some of the issues that you think need addressing early on?
HUDGINS: Yeah. So, last week, Rural Metro proposed that they're ready to propose an agreement or a contract with the new town once it incorporates. And currently, fire subscription services, residents have to pay that out of pocket, and those fees are quite expensive. And not everyone has 100% coverage, not everyone has a subscription. And so if you have a fire, you will get a fat bill from the fire department for them having to come out. And so a town contract could reduce or eliminate all of those fees and then provide 100% coverage to residents. And we think that's going to be a good thing for the pocketbook, and it's going to be for the safety of the community.
BRODIE: Is that the kind of thing where you would anticipate continuing to work with some of those providers as opposed to, for example, developing or building up a San Tan Valley Fire Department of your own?
HUDGINS: Yeah. This will give us options. It will get us to be able to go to the table and determine what's going to be best for the community and start to work with Rural Metro, as the current provider, to see what options are available there and then determine how we do that in the future.
BRODIE: So let's talk about logistics. I mentioned that the Pinal County Board of Supervisors will canvass the results and basically make them official in a couple of weeks. I assume you think the results will hold and that you're not going to see some large number of “no” votes coming out between now and then?
HUDGINS: Yeah, we expect that there is on the low side 500 votes, and then on the high side a 1,000 votes remaining.
BRODIE: OKy.
HUDGINS: So, in our view, San Tan Valley would be the 92nd incorporated community in the state of Arizona.
BRODIE: And so what happens next? Like, when do you actually start having, you know, some of the self-determination?
HUDGINS: Yeah. So what's going to happen is Pinal County has a legal obligation to maintain and fund services for San Tan Valley through July 1, 2026. Now, they have indicated to us that they are prepared to hand over those services at the appropriate time to make sure that the town is set up for success.
And then, the county is going to certify this election and then appoint seven individuals from the community to form that first council — it will be like an interim council — and they will serve until August 2026, at which time there will be an election and elected council will move in. And the responsibility of that first group is really to start up this government, get it up and running and put it in a position for success.
BRODIE: I mean, that seems like I would imagine a fair bit of pressure, right? Like you're really, like, starting this from the ground floor. Like, I would think there's a lot of pressure kind of not to screw up, to be honest.
HUDGINS: Yeah. It's a big deal. And, it's going to be important. And I think the county knows that, and they're going to make sure that they have the right people in place to be able to set up the community in this first year.
BRODIE: When you look at San Tan Valley in a year, five years from now, what do you see?
HUDGINS: I imagine a better future. I imagine a community that is getting on track. This should have happened 15 years ago. There have been multiple incorporation attempts that have happened, and they have failed before they've ever gotten to vote. And when our group of citizens came together, we did this with the goal of giving residents the choice for the first time in San Tan Valley's history. And that's what we did. And we're excited that the voters agreed and want to move this forward.
Greg Hahne contributed to this story.
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