The Marana Town Council unanimously approved the rezoning of 600 acres of farmland to be used for a proposed data center. The project comes from Beale Infrastructure, the developers of Pima County's Project Blue proposal.
After contentious exchanges with constituents during a public hearing and online, three residents – Sue Ritz, Matthew Rohen-Trapp and Julie Prince – have decided to fight back by running for council.
Rohen-Trapp is a student at the University of Arizona who has lived in Marana his whole life. During a recent public hearing about the proposed hyperscale data center, he brought forward concerns about the project, bringing sitting council members to attention who had received campaign contributions in 2024, from Keri Silyn, the lawyer representing Beale.
“I know you all to be good, honest people and I trust that even if you, like Vice Mayor (Roxanne) Ziegler, have received campaign funds from the families of Keri Silvyn and Rory Juneman, you will not let that cloud your judgement, and I thank you deeply for that,” Rohen-Trapp said during the January 6 meeting.
Ziegler, who has served on the council for more than 20 years, responded to Rohen-Trapp’s comments, encouraging him and others in attendance to review the campaign finance section of Title 16 of the Arizona Revised Statutes.
“It allows campaign contributions,” she said. “I take campaign contributions because I am retired.”
Rohen-Trapp said that he wanted to remind her that her duty is to the constituents and not to the donors.
Ziegler was again confronted about the ethical concerns surrounding campaign contributions from Silvyn by speaker Derrick Espadas, after a back and forth exchange, she told him to, quote, “get the hell out.”
She wasn’t the only sitting member of the council who went on the defensive. Prior to the public hearing, councilmember Patti Commerford – a 24 year council veteran – described constituents as ignorant on the NextDoor app. She had taken some time at the start of the meeting to explain how her post was not taken in the context that she intended.
Mayor Jon Post admonished speaker Jackie McGuire for comments she made regarding campaign contributions made to the late Mayor Ed Honea that were also from Silvyn, in a widely circulated social media post.
“Just the fact that you brought him into this argument…is poor taste….He is unable to defend himself,” he said.
Later McGuire told AZPM that Post had brought up an article in which she quoted campaign donation amounts that were on the town’s website.
“I think it was kind of a distraction from the actual topic at hand and that’s his choice to make,” she said.
Recently Post had taken to Facebook and put out a video calling out Rohen-Trapp by name.
“He went right out the gate claiming that I had filed referendum paperwork against the downtown project saying essentially that I didn’t want to see us have development with new businesses and a place for the community to gather and get to know one another better. And that’s not true,” he said.
The referendum Post mentions was one of two filed by the advocacy group Worker Power, to place a downtown development project and the data center project on the August ballot.
The greenlighting of the data center has seemed to serve as a catalyst for increased public engagement in Marana.
Rohen-Trapp, who had been interested in public service said that he was approached by sitting Councilmember Patrick Cavanaugh after the December 10 Planning and Zoning Commission hearing, about potentially running as a candidate.
“I thought his presentation to the council was smart, intelligent, well written and I think that he stood up for himself when a council member started to attack him, so I think that’s a great sign of leadership,” Cavanaugh said.
“I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to come and offer some new perspectives, because a lot of the council has been on there for decades and we haven’t really had many new perspectives,” Rohen-Trapp said.
Prince agrees about the need for a more rounded counsel.
“They have a certain way they believe and a certain way they think the community is and the community has changed, it’s growing, it’s got a lot of diversity,” she said.
Ritz says the town has been well run for the most part, which has attracted residents to live and stay there.
“I want to see development but I don’t want it to be a rubber stamp. I want it to be thoughtful, I want it to be sustainable,” she said.
At the request of Mayor Post, Town Manager Terry Rozema recently invited the candidates to a meeting about the downtown development project referendum but the three declined saying they are not involved and that it is a matter for residents to decide.
In a joint statement, the three candidates said that they, “actively support the data center referendum, which they view as a separate and critically important issue for Marana’s future.”
Worker Power announced on Friday that they had collected more than 2,000 signatures for the downtown development project referendum and submitted the petition to the Marana Town Clerk on Thursday.
Marana officials say that 1,360 signatures are needed to be submitted for processing and validation.
If the Town Clerk decides the required threshold is met, the Town Council will decide when the referendum will go to the ballot.
AZPM reached out to Mayor Jon Post for comment.
