By Linda Kor During the Oct. 23 meeting of the Holbrook City Council, Councilwoman Francie Payne was not present at the meeting but was available telephonically to present a request for a resolution of support for Proposition 419, the Navajo County jail tax. “Besides saving county jobs, and jobs in this area have been hit quite a bit lately with the closures at the mine and at Cholla, we don’t need to lose any more at the county,” she stated. She explained, “Through this one-third cent county sales tax the cities would no longer have to pay to incarcerate prisoners at the county jail. This would save the City of Holbrook about $144,000 and I think that there’s a lot of good things that we could spend that on.” Councilman Adam Marsh stated that he also saw it as a public safety measure. “If we can’t make up this money somehow, then our police officers are going to have less backup from the county and we will find ourselves less and less able to respond to emergencies.” Councilman Tim Dixon had concerns regarding the wording of the resolution where it was stated that the city would need to “re-institute it’s own municipal court system,” noting that the city already operates the municipal court so it would not be re-instituted. It was clarified by Navajo County Finance Director Paige Peterson, who was present at the meeting, that the loss would be the availability of prosecution and defense attorneys for those cases due to cutbacks in services if the proposition should not pass. It was noted by County Attorney Glenn Kephart that prior to the recession of 2008 the Navajo County Attorney’s Office had 17 prosecutors. Currently, the office is authorized to have 13 prosecutors but has 10, in part because County Attorney Brad Carlyon is waiting to see the outcome of Proposition 419. “We’re looking at cuts across the board. The county attorney would lose a couple more prosecutors. So he would be down from an original 17 to seven or eight. The caseload currently that his prosecutors have, for serious crimes, is 82 to 85 cases. If he has to reduce the number of prosecutors he has, he will have to choose not to do certain prosecutions,” said Kephart, adding that as a result even if the Sheriff’s Office had the resources to arrest someone, there may be no justice. If Proposition 419 should pass, the tax would be for 20 years and could be decreased but never increased. The council unanimously supported the resolution with the removal of the statement regarding the municipal court reinstatement. Mayor Bobby Tyler was excused and not present at the meeting.
