PHOENIX —After having a number of signatures for a referendum to overturn a 2021 Graham County Board of Supervisors re-zoning decision ruled invalid, the group behind the effort are now asking a judge to reverse his decision.
Maricopa County-based George Khalaf and his group, Respect The Will Of The People: Graham County Voters & The Arizona Public Integrity Alliance Encourages A No Vote On Massive Marijuana Expansion In Our Area, agree that 12 signatures on the petitions they gathered should be removed because the signers do not appear on the Graham County voter rolls.
However, the group is now asking the court to put back 29 signatures that were previously ruled invalid.
Attorneys for Khalaf filed the response to the motion for summary judgment made April 25 by attorneys representing Shane Jones and Victoria Cranford, who filed suit over the validity of the petition gathering.
A total of 141 signatures were held to be invalid at a motion for summary judgment hearing on April 15. Another 1,077 signatures were ruled invalid April 22 due to the signature gatherer failing to document his actual address on the petition sheets per state law. With the 12 signatures both sides now agree should be struck down, and adding back three that Jones and Cranford’s attorney acknowledge were counted twice in the two previous rulings, that leaves the referendum effort two signatures short to qualify for the November 2022 ballot.
However, Khalaf’s attorneys now argue that of the previously disallowed signatures, seven are duplicates of the two previous rulings, four were misspellings by the plaintiffs, six appear in county records contrary to previous assertions, three mixed up the printing and signing of their names, one has a valid address but no Zip Code, and two have valid dates. They also list another six with the same reasoning as the previous six — that the signers are eligible voters in the county’s system —but are in included in the total of 29 they are seeking to be changed from invalid to valid.
Jones and Cranford’s attorney have until May 7 to respond to this latest filing, and Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John R. Hannah said he would rule as quickly as possible thereafter.
The rezoning was granted to NatureSweet Tomatoes, the owner of greenhouse complexes in Bonita, in order to sell two of the complexes to Bayacan. Bayacan principals announced their intention to use the greenhouses to grow medicinal cannabis.
Bayacan officials said the company is seeking to hire 150 people for the first phase of development at one of the greenhouse complexes, at a starting salary of about $35,000 per year plus benefits. At build-out, the company expects to employ about 600 for operations. The numbers would double if the second greenhouse complex comes online.
NatureSweet announced plans to turn its remaining greenhouse complexes into a research and development facility, using the funds from the sale.
