IN THIS ISSUE:

  • Why a Green Valley Council?

  • What if GVC closed its doors?

  • Governance & Long-term Stability

  • GVC turns 50 in 2023

  • Friends of the Canoa Parks Meeting

  • Preferred Vendor Program
WHY A GREEN VALLEY COUNCIL?
The Green Valley Council is a unique entity like no other in the United States. Green Valley is not incorporated. It has no professional Manager. It is a self-managed community with the Green Valley Council acting in a “quasi-government” capacity. It thrives, and survives, solely because volunteers give their time, wisdom and energy to making it happen.
Our residents comprise the most highly educated community in Southern Arizona and our volunteers bring that education, plus years of applying their knowledge, with them when they move to Green Valley. They then share their talents with the rest of us to create—not a retirement community—but a community of primarily retired people.
IMAGINE...
If the Council had closed its doors 5 years ago (as it almost did)… Camino Del Portillo, Círculo De Las Lomas W. Rio Altar, West Camino Encanto and W Calle Tres would not have been repaired. First, there would have been no Council-led drive to convince the Board of Supervisors to allocate $600,000 more for Green Valley roads. Homeowners would have received a whopping $1.89 in benefits from a special property tax of $.25 per $100 valuation on your house. Second, there would have been no Council Road Prioritization Committee to choose which roads needed repair the most. The County would have paved whatever it wanted.

The Canoa Hills Trails Open Space Park would not have come into being. The County had been inclined to reject the gift of the abandoned golf course. There would have been no Council Park Task Force to convince the County otherwise. Not only did Green Valley, in general, want the park, but all the surrounding HOAs wanted the park. 
There would have been none of the following:

  • No updates on HOA law; no classes to teach new Presidents, Treasurers and Secretaries what their jobs entailed and tips on how best to work with other Board and community members; and
  • No opportunity to file service requests and have them tracked to completion; and
  • No mediation of HOA Board or homeowner/Board disputes; and
  • No updates on what is happening in the Board of Supervisors so that the Council and residents of Green Valley could voice concerns and take appropriate action; and
  • No Community Forums on any topic.

IMAGINE...

If the Council has to close its doors in 2021…  As noted above, the Council would not be able to continue to provide services and negotiate with Pima County. Even more sobering, its Foundation, that is, The GVC Foundation, Inc., would have no administrative or logistical support. Without such support, the Foundation’s management groups—e.g., the Friends of the Canoa Parks, MedianGreen, Good Deeds Done Together, the Green Valley Economic Development group—and other programs would struggle to survive, and in the end, the Foundation would probably lose its charitable, nonprofit status.

In addition, other organizations would be negatively impacted:

  • Our hospital would lose Council support and the public outreach it provides free for the hospital; and
  • The HOAs would not have the resources listed above, plus there would be no Presidents’ Roundtables, Architectural Chair Roundtables; and
  • Pima County would find it very difficult to coordinate presentations on important issues such as roads, parks, and the environment. There would be no organization to ask to host and run the meetings; and
  • There would be no Environmental Committee to spearhead or coordinate with Freeport-McMoRan on recovering from a major release of dust from the mine or to demand Freeport-McMoRan account for what happened and what would be done to prevent future releases; and
  • There would be no Traffic & Arroyos Committee or Road Prioritization Committee. The County would get no coordinated input from Green Valley. Our roads would be redone in whatever order the County chose; and
  • Organizing to fight for more road money, if the money was inequitably distributed within District 4 or by the Board of Supervisors, would be more difficult, especially with regard to communication; and
  • Without the Planning and Architectural Committee, the County would issue building permits if they met “the County Code or regulations.” The GVC committee voices concerns about “view shed” protection, community ambiance, safety and other issues when making recommendations to Pima County about the issuance of permits. If not for the Planning and Architectural Committee, Green Valley commercial buildings would slowly become a hodge-podge of styles, heights and colors (or be corrugated iron like the Tractor Store normally erects).

In sum, many of the things that operate together to make Green Valley the place you love to live would disappear. Instead of one unified voice representing a population in excess of 22,000, individuals living Green Valley would compete with over 300,000 other voices also living in unincorporated areas of Pima County.

IMAGINE...
IF the COMMUNITY VOICE of Green Valley WENT SILENT!


RESPONSIBLE GOVERNANCE
and
LONG-TERM STABILITY

As our populations’ interests and knowledge bases change, Green Valley Council has to be nimble enough to entice newcomers to participate in this unique experiment in managing a community without the power to force things to happen. With community support—and appropriate revenue—the Council is confident it can meet the new challenges. It has done so for 46 years.

The annual reports and other informational brochures prepared by the Council and its communication through the website, face book, electronic newsletters, and other Green Valley news media describe how the Council works and list its achievements. The Council is meeting and exceeding its objectives, its vision, mission, and values.

The biggest challenge facing the Council, today, and in 2021, is its long-term financial stability. For over 20 years (1992-2012), the Green Valley Council was supported financially through membership dues and the production of a telephone directory for Southwestern Bell, ATT, SWB. and other earlier publishers. Membership dues over those 20 years held steady at $5.50 annually for each rooftop in a member HOA. In 2013, the Council started to consider the need for other sources of revenue and raised the annual membership dues to $7.50 annually. In 2014, the Green Valley Community Directory changed publishers, and in 2015, the contract was terminated. The Green Valley Council had to resort to using $70,000 of its reserves to meet expenses in 2015. The reserve has not yet been replenished.
In 2015, the Council negotiated a five-year renewable contract with Pima County to coordinate service requests, communication and aligned GVC Committees with corresponding Pima County governmental departments and agencies. This contract, which began on January 1, 2016 will end on December 31, 2020. Early in 2020, the Council will begin talks with Pima County to extend this contract another five years. 
2016 : the current publisher of the Community Directory and the Council had agreed to distribute and promote the Green Valley Community Directory, but the revenue from this agreement was about 70% less than the pre-2014 revenue.

Also in 2016 , a GVC administrative Financial Development Committee was formed to better inform the Council of its short-term and long-term financial future. The Committee now includes members of the Executive Committee and the Council’s Board of Representatives. This Committee assesses the income and expenditures of the Council, making recommendations and seeking new revenue opportunities. Their report will be presented at the November 21, 2019 Board of Representatives monthly meeting, along with the Council’s 2020 budget.

In 2018 , the Green Valley Council increased membership dues for homeowners another $2.00 from $7.50 to $9.50. To help supplement income, the Council continues to provide a number of services to its members. These services are listed on the Green Valley Council website (www. gvcouncil.org).

In 2019, this revenue source was again reduced by another 50%. Continued reliance upon this revenue source is unrealistic, as publishers continue to move printed directories onto the internet.


Forty-six years of continuous service to the Green Valley Community and counting! The Council will reach its 50 th Anniversary in 2023 if the community continues to recognize its civic responsibilities. HOAs who have not joined or HOAs who have left the Council are not meeting their civic responsibilities and are instead placing financial hardships on the membership, even as these HOAs benefit from services that the Council provides to the whole community. This is truly an untenable position.

Yes, there may be other governance options in the future, but the research and planning necessary to define these options have not begun in earnest. To this end, the Green Valley Council has formed a Futures Committee to envision possible futures. What we have at this point is the Green Valley Council, a quasi “Town Council” that enables the community to engage as an equal player on many municipal and governmental levels.

So let’s KEEP OUR VOICES UNITED
and meet our vision of making
Green Valley a premier community where people retire to live, work, play and invest!

Upcoming Event: FOCP Meeting
We are having our first official Friends of the Canoa Parks meeting on November 26th. Pima County NRPR will present, and you'll have a chance to speak to the steering committees for each park.

Check out our Preferred vendor Program for vetted service providers serving Green Valley
We carefully review each application for which businesses are preferred to serve our community's vast needs. Find anything from general contracting to salons to pet-sitting!

Green Valley Council is Your Community Voice
We want to hear from you
The best way to serve the greater Green Valley community is to know what the community needs and wants in a Council.