SAFFORD — The Graham County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Monday to pay $35,000 to AG Value LLC to perform an appraisal of Bonita property owned by NatureSweet Tomatoes.
“On property taxes, any property owner has the opportunity to challenge their assessed value of their property,” said County Manager Dustin Welker. “From time-to-time, we do receive these appeals and challenges, which, in the end, as a push forward, turn into tax lawsuits.”
To defend the county’s assessment of the property’s value, the county has hired the law firm of Carden Livesay, Ltd.
In December 2021, NatureSweet President and CEO Rodolfo Spielmann announced the company was challenging the assessed valuation of the greenhouses in Bonita, citing the shutdown of operations there.
A plan by NatureSweet to sell two of its greenhouse complexes to Bayacan for the indoor growing of medical-grade cannabis was delayed nearly two years, when a Maricopa County political nonprofit group initiated a referendum seeking to overturn the Board of Supervisors decision to rezone the property, which would allow the sale and marijuana grow. In 2022, the voters upheld the supervisors’ decision.
Due to the delay caused by the referendum, and citing disease pressure on tomato-growing in the facility, NatureSweet shut down operations at the Bonita location in the summer of 2021.
The challenge to the assessed valuation is on the greenhouses no longer serving “as a functioning and operating greenhouse facility” for NatureSweet.
