Donna Reiner, has written many articles over the years for the Arizona Republic and others about Phoenix history and memorials.  She is a regular contributor to our newsletter. This month, Donna tells us about a five-acre camp Sombrero at South Mountain, designated just for girls scouts.

Two hundred and forty-four years ago, Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, John Adams, asking him to please “remember the ladies” in the “new code of laws.” We know, however, that she was not successful in persuading Adams to take action.

Maie Bartlett Heard, on the other hand, did take action after her husband, Dwight Heard, had donated land on South Mountain to the Roosevelt Boy Scout Council in the late 1920s. She decided to donate approximately five acres to the Girl Scouts.

Announced at the Maricopa Council of Girl Scouts (now the Arizona Cactus-Pine Council) annual meeting in the fall of 1948, Mrs. Heard officially presented the deed to the council’s coordinating camp chair. To the delight of leaders and eventually thousands of girls, this camp started as a summer day camp experience and a winter week-end camp.

While the camp site was initially labelled as primitive (no facilities), things began to change in 1950 with the construction of a ramada and a NAME. Judy Styles, a young scout in Troop 164, won the council contest with her suggestion of Sombrero.

Sombrero also became a place for activities other than camping. In May 1952, Ida Redbird, a well-respected Maricopa pottery artist showed scouts ancient pottery making techniques in an all-day workshop.

According to Girl Scout archives, the camp director “obtained permission for Ida Redbird to return to the reservation after dark due to the curfew laws in place at the time.” Do you remember those?

In 1981, one of the council board members learned that the Fraternal Order of Police had property adjoining Camp Sombrero which they wanted to sell. The board visited the property and subsequently made plans to purchase the land. Along with the acreage came a lodge, pool, and staff house. Much needed accoutrements which were later improved and expanded.

Sombrero was most convenient for many of the valley troops providing a remote feeling, but close to home. It offered Day Camp for Moms and daughters, Dads and daughters, workshops on desert survival, cooking over an open fire, archery, and many other innovative programs. Of course, swimming was often the highlight after a day filled with action.

In 1992, Rosa Parks was in the Valley of the Sun promoting her book, Rosa Parks: My Story. She visited Camp Sombrero, graciously signed books for the girls in attendance and spoke about literacy and the freedom to learn. What a powerful experience for those girls who met her.

Today Camp Sombrero is a fond memory, often of dust and blazing sun, for many of us who attended, worked there as staff, or volunteered as leaders. After a five-year fundraising campaign, the Girl Scouts -Arizona Cactus-Pine Council opened the Bob & Renee Parsons Leadership Center for Girls & Women at Camp South Mountain in 2017.

The modern facility still has a pool and camping opportunities, but also space for meetings and classrooms to meet the needs of an ever-changing community.

Watch our listings page this coming week for a unique new listing. This 1,650sf, 2b/ba condo at the famed Villa del Coronado will be listed at $375,000.

This third-floor balcony property overlooking Villa Del Coronado and the lights of downtown is a rare and special find. The home has been remodeled in recent years in the important ways, such as a newer master bath, kitchen and interior laundry.

The dramatic built-in bookshelves in the spacious living room remain in respect of the mid-century aesthetic of the home. This property is also rare, as one of few in the community with a two-car garage.

This is a very stable co-op community, with strict rules governing leasing. In other words, there are very few leased units.

All utilities and property taxes are included in the monthly HOA fee.

This property was built in 1957 as a new concept in living. At the time, the builders has similar concepts in La Jolla, Santa Barbara, Pasadena, Long Beach and Los Angeles. Co-op living was advertised as a way to save money, own your own space and share costs on pools, common area and maintenance.

Not much has changed since then. Although now, you can walk to the Phoenix Art Museum, light rail, Phoenix Theater, restaurants and much more.

The January Market Report comes at a time when we don’t expect to see any change in the upward march in prices.

As I presented last month, the folks at the Cromford Report don’t see an end in sight to the shortage of homes.

They expect we will need about 270,000 more homes over the next decade. Unless investors are forced to sell the homes they scooped up to turn in to rentals; unless people sell off thousands of short term rentals, unless we find a path to citizenship so that home builders can hire more workers; and unless fewer people move to Arizona, there will continue to be a shortage.

But, then again, nobody every sees a market correction until it happens. Who knows what could catalyze the next downturn. The only thing I can see is that Arizona still does not take water conservation seriously enough.

Here is what the Cromford Report said about December:

“Each month about this time we look back at the previous month, analyze how pricing has behaved and report on how well our forecasting techniques performed. We also give a forecast for how pricing will move over the next month.

For the monthly period ending December 15, we are currently recording a sales $/SF of $264.00 averaged for all areas and types across the ARMLS database. This is down 0.3% from the $264.70 we now measure for November 15. Our forecast range mid-point was $266.85, so we were expecting a 0.7% rise and saw instead a 0.3% fall. However the result was still within our 90% confidence window. The monthly average $/SF can often vary by as much as 1% from day to day, so there is little significance to these numbers.

On December 15 the pending listings for all areas & types show an average list $/SF of $274.41, up 3.0% from the reading for November 15. Among those pending listings we have 99.5% normal, 0.2% in REOs and 0.3% in short sales and pre-foreclosures. The short sale and pre-foreclosure percentages remain extremely low and are having no impact whatsoever on market pricing.

Our mid-point forecast for the average monthly sales $/SF on January 15 is $273.21, which is 3.2% above the December 15 reading. We have a 90% confidence that it will fall within ± 2% of this mid point, i.e. in the range $267.75 to $279.67.

Prices had been pretty flat for 4 months, then rose dramatically between October and November, only for them to stay flat again over the last month. We remain convinced that prices will rise again over the the next month and unless the situation changes significantly the same can probably be said for at least the next 6 months.

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) has done a much better job since its creation in 2000 than the previous set-up, allowing the Arizona Legislature to create district lines for itself.

However, we need to make two crucial reforms to the system of choosing commissioners if we want to avoid the political political tampering that happens increasingly with each passing decade.

On December 22nd the five-member AIRC passed its final legislative and congressional maps, which will define our political landscape for the next 10 years.

Predictably, as a result of political tampering, the maps have shifted dramatically from the 2011 redistricting to favor Republican candidates in both the Legislature in Congress.

How we got here and how we fix it requires a brief look back.

A Little History

In 2011 the Republican Party in Arizona was convinced that the Democrats had rigged the decennial redistricting process.

Today the Democratic Party in Arizona is convinced that the Republicans have rigged the redistricting process.

Now both parties, and especially Independent voters, have an undeniable reason to enact two key reforms to the redistricting process: the two biggest weaknesses in the redistricting process could be exploited by either political party in the next round of redistricting in 2030.

The reforms I suggest also address the specific complaints that both parties, and independents, have had over the last two decades.

Increase the Number of Commissioners

First, we should increase the number of commissioners from 5 to 9, seating 3 Independents, 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The chair will still be an Independent chosen by the other commissioners.

However, having three Independents will virtually eliminate the incredible pressure of the political parties to find one linchpin Independent commissioner who will favor one side over another, as is the case now with only 5 commissioners.

Having a greater number of independents has worked better in other states, such as Michigan. That commission has 13 commissioners, 5 of which are Independents with 4 each from each major party.  

It is also fundamentally fairer to the increasing number of Independents in Arizona.

Restrict the Role of the CACA

Second, the role of the Commission on Appellate Court Appointments (CACA) should be restricted only to vetting the AIRC applicants to assure that they meet the requirements of the constitution.

For context, here is how it works now: people who would like to be AIRC commissioners must meet basic requirements. They submit their names to the CACA, which checks that they meet those requirements. Currently, the CACA then chooses a smaller number of applicants to forward to the leaders of both parties of the House and Senate for final appointment.

In my suggested reform, the applicant names that would be sent to the legislature for appointment should be drawn at random from the pool of vetted applicants. The legislative leaders would still have several applicants to choose from, as they have now. But the their choices will not have been unfairly restricted by a biased (and politically packed) CACA.

This reform eliminates the incentive for a partisan governor to stack the AIRC via the CACA. Whether you believe that the GOP did that in this round of redistricting or not, it is clear that the cat is out of the bag and the opportunity should be eliminated in the future so that neither party can do it.

While it seems quixotic to think that politicians, famous for waiting until the last minute to do anything, will act a decade ahead of the next redistricting, it is important to note that in each of the last two decades both parties actually did plan very far ahead in order to try to gain the upper hand in the up-coming process.

After feeling that they lost ground in the 2001 redistricting process, Democrats put a lot of energy in to preparing for the 2011 process, searching for commission candidates that would not make the same choices that were made in 2001.

After being convinced of the unfairness of the 2011 process, the GOP made it a priority to position allies on the CACA so that they could influence who would likely be the Independent commission chair.

In short, the aggrieved party will harness their resentment and direct it to the next round of redistricting. The biggest losers will always be Arizona voters who have always wanted a process that minimizes political games.

It is a truism in any political system that the longer that system is in place without necessary reforms, the greater the opportunity for politicians to rig it. These two simple reforms will go a long way to make a more tamper-proof redistricting process.

A Comment on Competitiveness

Those of you who know me know that I worked for many hears to require the commission to make a greater number of competitive districts. Philosophically, I believe that we all do better when there are more competitive districts, once we meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

I could speak for an hour on why and how we could do that. However, I’m practical. It is more likely that a compromise, like I recommend above, could be referred to the ballot by the Legislature, and is not likely to be successful as an initiative.

I know. I tried in 2008.

As such, I think that the most likely scenario would be a referendum to close the existing loopholes from the very political parties that I hope will see this as their best interest.

Don’t get me wrong. If you know any billionaires who are willing to drop about $10 million on a ballot measure, please send them my way.

Until then, we can still do better.