Benson Residents – Wake Up:
“Case-by-Case Developer Deals” Are a Recipe for Payoffs & Kickbacks (And We’ve Already Seen It Here)
Back in 2014 the City of Benson quietly stopped collecting impact fees after Arizona state law got stricter. Those fees were supposed to make new development pay its fair share for roads, water, sewer, police, fire, and parks instead of sticking the rest of us with the bill.
Instead of fixing the program like every other town did, Benson just quit. Now everything is “case-by-case negotiated developer contributions.” Translation: backroom deals where city staff and council sit down with big developers and decide how much (or how little) they’ll cough up for infrastructure.
You know what that opens the door to? Payoffs. Kickbacks. Special treatment for whoever’s got the right connections or the deepest pockets.
And before anyone says “that couldn’t happen here”, we’ve already seen it.
Remember the Villages at Vigneto? The massive 28,000-home mega-development outside Benson. The developer, Mike Ingram of El Dorado Holdings, and his buddies allegedly funneled nearly $250,000 into Trump Victory Fund and RNC accounts right before the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service flipped its position and handed them a Clean Water Act permit they’d been fighting for years. Congress investigated, issued a criminal referral to the DOJ for bribery involving Trump-era Interior officials, and called it straight-up pay-to-play. That’s not some conspiracy theory, that’s public record from a House committee.
Fast-forward to the Aluminum Dynamics aluminum recycling plant. Packed Planning & Zoning meetings, residents screaming about skipped steps, and what happens? The Arizona Attorney General opens a full investigation into the city for Open Meeting Law violations on the ADI permit. Lawsuits fly, the judge has to step in, and locals are still fighting while the project moves forward.
This is exactly why handing growth decisions over to secret one-off negotiations is dangerous. No set rules, no public formulas, no transparency, just whoever negotiates the hardest (or greases the right palms) gets the sweetheart deal. The rest of us pay higher utility rates, watch our infrastructure crumble, and wonder why new developments seem to get red-carpet treatment while longtime Benson families get the bill.
Meanwhile, cities like Phoenix, Tucson, Queen Creek, Buckeye, Glendale, and Marana did it the RIGHT way.
They updated their impact fee programs after the 2014 law, adopted public Infrastructure Improvement Plans (IIPs) and Land Use Assumptions, and set clear, formula-based fee schedules for every type of development. You know EXACTLY what a new home or business pays upfront, no haggling, no favors. The fees are calculated to cover only the proportionate share of roads, water lines, parks, police/fire stations, etc., needed because of that new growth. Money goes into restricted accounts with annual public reports. Developers pay at permitting time, and growth actually pays for itself instead of soaking existing residents.
Standardizing this is straightforward under Arizona law (A.R.S. § 9-463.05): create a detailed public plan showing exactly what infrastructure new development demands, calculate the fair share per unit based on the same level of service existing residents get, hold open meetings, and enforce fixed rates for everyone. Transparent. Accountable. Zero room for backroom payoffs.
Now the City Council wants to delete the old impact fee language from the city code entirely, basically erasing the last trace of any standardized system so the backroom deals can keep flowing without even the appearance of accountability.
We’ve seen this movie before in Benson. It doesn’t end well for the people who actually live here.Time to pay attention, folks.
The math ain’t mathing when developers win and taxpayers lose every single time.
May 19 is our chance to reject the mirage and demand real accountability. No more dog whistles. No more boondoggles. Protect what’s ours , before it’s gone.
Vote Mark Boyle Special Recall Election May 19, 2026
Benson First, always!