The Turning Point Monthly, March 2012, page 1a

A Veritable Job Engine, Greenlee Now Wants HousingBy Gary Dillard

When Greenlee County Supervisor Da-vid Gomez writes out his wish list for the Arizona county with the best employment opportunities, he thinks first about afford-able housing.

Home to North America’s largest copper mine, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold’s Morenci’s operation, Greenlee County doesn’t suffer from a shortage of high-pay-ing jobs, as does virtually ever other county in America.

What it lacks, however, is a place for them to live, says the retired district manager for Southwest Gas Corp.

“We have 50% of our work force driving here out of Graham County,” he says.

That has a direct impact on other goods and services that can be provided to the Greenlee County communities. “Folks just go over the hill to Graham County and do their shopping there.”

Gomez has lived through several cycles of the copper industry and knows how that can impact the desire for homebuilding and home ownership.

But he also knows that copper, now at about $3.80 a pound, has been a high-priced commodity for several years and looks to be staying there for the long term, and that Freeport now has a $1+ billion project get-ting under way.

That will bring in approximately 1,200 construction jobs and about 600 additional permanent jobs when it’s complete.

“There’s a lot of folks that would choose to stay in Greenlee County, if they had the choice,” Gomez said.

And who wouldn’t want to live there?For the District 1 supervisor who is a na-

tive of Morenci, choosing to live in Green-lee County is a no-brainer.

“This is a great place to live and raise kids,” he said. It offers a low crime rate, great schools and a low tax rate.

It also offers unbelievable outdoor recre-ations. Its fishing and hunting opportuni-ties are among the best in the state, espe-cially with three rivers — the Blue, the San Francisco and the Gila — as well as Eagle Creek flowing all year round.

It also offers a host of other outdoor ac-tivities, including rockhounding, hiking, rafting and birding.

For many people, perhaps the absolute best aspect of what Greenlee County has to offer is that “FMI is hiring right now and we want folks to know that there are jobs here.”

The county, named for early-day miner Mason Greenlee, is 120 miles long and 20 miles wide, covering 1,837 square miles.

Most is managed by the government, with the Forest Service holding the largest share, about 63.5%. The Bureau of Land Manage-ment controls 13.6%; the State of Arizona controls 14.8%; and individual or corporate ownership is only 8.1%, with much of that controlled by mining.

Nevertheless, Gomez says, there is land for construction of affordable housing. There is land at Tabletop, at the top of the hill at Clifton, he said. There is land avail-able at Loma Linda and Verde Lee and state land can be acquired.

There also is room to build between Clif-ton and Duncan, he add.

Another hotel needed, tooSecond on Gomez’ wish list is another

hotel somewhere in the county.At present, there are only two, one in

Morenci and one in Clifton, and the mas-sive amounts of business companies do

with FMI keep those booked up months in advance.

If developers are looking at Greenlee County and want to put in something in-dustrial, it would be best if that were some-thing compatible with the existing copper mining operations.

“We’re always talking about diversifica-tion,” Gomez said, “but we’re more likely to attract developers that could tie in with what we already have.”

And there is no doubt that copper min-ing is the lifeblood of Greenlee County. It’s what created the region almost a century and a half ago and it’s certainly what makes it one of the nation’s best job engines.

Freeport has pointed out in recent months that there’s as much copper left in the hills of Morenci as has been mined by open-pit methods since about 1940.

Talking with the governmentDuring the week of March 5, Greenlee

County officials attended the National As-sociation of Counties meeting in Washing-ton and had a chance to meet with both senators, several representatives and offi-cials with the U.S. Forest Service.

Since time was limited, the county offi-

Copper mining continues to be good for Greenlee County and its residents. But Supervisor David Gomez wishes that more mine workers could live nearby instead of having to com-mute. (Photo from the website of Robert Shantz of Duncan.)

continued on page 2a

The Turning Point Monthly, March 2012, page 2a

cials lobbied the Forest Service on issues that are of immediate concern to Greenlee and other counties in Arizona.

One of the most important, Gomez said, was maintaining PILT monies. Payment in Lieu of Taxes has been an impor-tant program to rural counties for decades, especially in areas where government controls most of the land and neither pays taxes nor allows any devel-opment that does.

Payments like these are vital to Greenlee County, Gomez said, for maintaining basic ser-vices.

On some of these Washington visits, he said, Greenlee officials joined with counterparts from Navajo County, which shares the issues.

Saving the forestsAnother issue brought to

members of Congress and For-est Service officials was what is known as the 4FRI plan, or Four Forest Restoration Initiative.

Since the Forest Service doesn’t have and isn’t likely to have budget for maintaining the Apache National Forest or others in Arizona subject to de-struction by forest fire, the 4FRI plan contracts that out to pri-vate industry.

It’s been in the works for years now, with no action, Gomez said, but Forest Service officials said something should happen within a month or so.

It is imperative that the For-est Service work expeditiously to select the most qualitied contractor to start thinning our forest and preserve 2.4 million acres around the state.

It would create about 600 jobs and inject almost $200 mil-lion per year into the Arizona economy.

“We’ll be entering this year’s fire season soon,” Gomez said,

Greenlee . . .continued from page 1a

“and nothing has been done since the Wallow fire,” which last year became the most de-scructive fire in Arizona’s his-tory.

1 year at a timeThe best that elected officials

and Forest Service personnel could promise, Gomez said, was basically “one year at a time.”

There is hope, for example, that the PILT program will be renewed for another year, but there are no promises about what will happen after that, he reported.

Another political issue the county is fighting is on the state level, he said.

The Legislature keeps sweep-ing HURF (Highway User Rev-enue Funds) into the general fund, a move that is more de-structive of rural than urban populations, Gomez said.

These funds, which come from gasoline taxes, were spe-cifically designed to pay for highways and “were never meant to fund state agencies,” the Greenlee County supervi-sor said.

A one-man chamberTalking with David Gomez

is like listening to a one-man chamber of commerce.

He recalls attending state-wide meetings of Southwest Gas managers in Tucson.

When it neared time to break up, he said, he started packing his papers with great enthu-siasm, telling his peers that it was time to get back to “God’s country.”

He recalls that his counter-part from Yuma started refer-ring to his home as “paradise,” though Gomez had a slightly different view of the part of Arizona exactly opposite from “God’s country.”

He also recalls a county of-ficials’ meeting in Eastern Ari-zona and he was able to show them exactly what he meant. They were shocked, he says.

Few had ever been any further east than Apache Junction, and they certainly had no idea what Greenlee County offered.

“Nobody had a clue,” he says.While the giant copper mine

is the county’s greatest asset, and the forests to the north and the three year-round rivers of-fer many riches and opportuni-ties for adventure, but close be-hind those attributes comes the way of life that’s possible in such a setting.

“Greenlee County is such a relaxed atmosphere, a way of life,” he says.

His kids now live in Chandler and he has meetings regularly in Phoenix, he says.

But even after all these years, David Gomez says, “it’s always a great, great feeling to be com-ing back over the mountains in Clifton,”