By Bill Williams, investigative reporter
May 2025 – (This an update to a report originally published in April 2024)
Some people in Prescott valley, including council members, are tricked into thinking town manager Gilbert Davidson is a boy scout, but if you stand up to him, you will see an evil part of him emerge not unlike the Woody Harrelson character in Natural Born Killers.
On November 14, 2024, Judge Kristyne Schaaf-Olson of the Yavapai County Superior Court issued a consent order concluding a special action initiated by a Prescott Valley resident against the Town of Prescott Valley, its Mayor, and members of the Town Council. The consent order required the Town to follow specific review and consultation procedures for Fain Signature Group’s proposal to open an aggregate mining operation near residential areas and a middle school in Prescott Valley.
The resident, Max Hathaway, had filed the special action in early June 2024. Over the next several months, the Town had vigorously contested Mr. Hathaway’s special action. That opposition did not end until the judge issued an order on October 28, 2024, vindicating the legal position taken in Mr. Hathaway’s special action. The imposition of these procedures has effectively halted further progress on the proposed aggregate mining operation.
The backstory leading to Mr. Hathaway’s action highlights concerning aspects of Prescott Valley’s government. Town Manager Gilbert Davidson, after taking office in late 2021 and moving to Stoneridge near the Fain Signature Group’s mining operation, denied its right-of-way renewal across Fain Park in February 2022. This permit had been granted for the Fain Signature Group to expand operations at Glassford Hill Road the previous year. Those operations had been in existence for over 50 years and are a prominent feature of the area in which Mr. Davidson purchased his home.
The location proposed by the Fain Signature Group after the denial of the right-of-way would have been more than twice the distance from Mr. Davidson’s home as the proposed expansion sites. Was this significant benefit to Mr. Davidson a fortunate coincidence of his denial of the renewal of the right-of-way across Fain Park, or was it the intended outcome?
I should include in my analysis this fact: Mr. Davidson’s denial of the right-of-way was discussed and approved by the Mayor and Town Council in an “executive session.” This important decision, which threatened the health, quality of life, and property values of thousands of residents, had been consummated outside the view of the public and with no input from the most important stakeholders… the People.
Those stakeholders bought their homes when the parcel proposed for the aggregate mining operation had been zoned for low-density single-family housing. Moreover, the citizens of Prescott Valley ratified the Town’s General Plan in November 2022 without being informed that this zoning designation could fall victim to a new aggregate mining operation just a few months later.
In fact, the land use element in the General Plan 2035 they ratified indicated that future aggregate materials would likely come from the expansion of the existing operations (which is Asphalt Paving and Supply, Inc.’s (APS) property at the southern end of Glassford Hill Rd, in Prescott Valley). This is the same expansion that Mr. Davidson nixed with the stroke of a pen.
Brad Fain wrote a letter to Mr. Davidson: “We were surprised and disappointed that you have taken steps to revoke the existing application to cross town property for the continued hard rock mining operation. This hard rock business has been in operation for nearly 50 years. When our grandparents decided to gift the park to the town the current configuration of the park was taken from the mining boundary essentially reducing the mining area. At the time it was clear that mining would continue to produce a much-needed resource to the community.”
Before my analysis continues, I should include the fact that the operator of the current mining operation received a notice of violation from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in November of 2023, for (in layman’s terms) emitting too much dust into the atmosphere (see ADEQ case i.d. number 216557), and the notice informed the operator that it would have to build a baghouse – a large structure with which to capture said dust, or APS would stand in further violation.
The special action Mr. Hathaway filed has a unique function in the Arizona legal system. A special action does not seek money or an injunction, unlike typical legal actions. Rather, Mr. Hathaway’s special action sought “an order acknowledging that the Town, the Mayor, and the Town Council do not have the discretion to ignore state law in processing the Fain’s application [to relocate its aggregate mining operation] and also requires them to comply with that law,” Mr. Hathaway told me at the time that it was filed.
Mr. Hathaway’s special action highlighted the public’s anger at the Town for neglecting its statutory duties to fast-track the approval of the Fain Signature Group’s new mining operation. The residents of Prescott Valley had mounted a successful petition drive in early 2024 that triggered a provision in the Town’s General Plan that converted the Fain Signature Group’s application for an amendment to the Town’s General Plan from a minor amendment into a major amendment.
The status of a proposed amendment as a “major amendment” as opposed to a “minor amendment” makes all the difference in terms of the procedures required under state law. For a minor amendment, a couple of public hearings before the Town’s Planning and Zoning Commission essentially suffices before that Commissions sends its recommendation to the Mayor and the Council. A simple majority vote would approve the Fain Signature Group’s amendment, affecting thousands of nearby households with the new mining operation.
Under state law, however, a proposed major amendment must undergo a far more robust set of notice, formal consultation, and other safeguards for residents and neighboring municipalities. These state law provisions require an opportunity for official comments on a proposed major amendment by public officials and agencies, the county, school districts, associations of governments, public land management agencies, other appropriate government jurisdictions, public utility companies, civic, educational, professional and other organizations, property owners and citizens generally to secure maximum coordination of plans and to indicate properly located sites for all public purposes on the general plan.
The special action identified other notice and comment provisions under state law that required the Town’s planning agency to submit a copy of the proposed major amendment for review and further comment to, among others, the Yavapai County planning agency, the Town of Dewey-Humboldt, the regional planning agency, the Arizona commerce authority, the state department of water resources, and any person or entity that requests in writing to receive a copy of the proposal. Finally, the approval by the Mayor and Council of a proposed major amendment requires a two-thirds super-majority.
Why had the Town, the Mayor, and the Council been so dead set on expediting the processing of the Fain Signature Group’s application? In terms of the safety and rights of the affected residents, there was no good reason. One potential reason is that, in May, Governor Hobbs signed into law new legislation that expanded the powers of the state mine inspector to deny the needed reclamation plans for new proposed aggregate mining operations that are in close proximity to existing residential developments. This new law expressly would not apply to existing aggregate mining operations. You can connect the dots here.
When asked by this reporter at the time about his motivation in filing the special action, Mr. Hathaway noted that “the petitioners had followed the law to the letter in satisfying the strict legal requirements for their petition, and this Special Action is asking the court to require the Town, its Mayor, and Council to do the same when reviewing the Fain’s application for a new aggregate mining operation that will impact thousands of households.” As it turned out, Judge Schaaf-Olson agreed with Mr. Hathaway.
Bill Williams earned a masters of science degree in journalism from Iowa State, a journalism degree from the Cronkite School at ASU, and a paralegal degree at Yavapai College.
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