State Route 347 is a hot topic in Maricopa with it being the only direct way for residents to get to Phoenix on a two-lane stretch plagued by frequent crashes.
One of the major improvements that Maricopans would like to see is adding a third lane in each direction. InMaricopa recently asked 1,373 of our readers if they would support a city of Maricopa sales tax for SR 347 expansion.
The question was based on an InMaricopa story earlier this month about Pinal Regional Transportation Authority voting to indefinitely disband itself, which at the time of publication had been read nearly 22,000 times.
The PRTA was no longer being feasible, said Maricopa City Councilman Vincent Manfredi, who long sat on the agency’s board.
Manfredi, a PRTA board member or alternate since 2016, said he believed a half-cent local sales tax on purchases within the city limits would be the solution. He said the option would need to be discussed at the council level.
A majority of voters in the InMaricopa poll — 60% — supported levying the new sales tax to fund what the voters said were needed SR 347 improvements.
“I’m all for doubling or tripling my taxes in Maricopa,” said The Villages resident David Ollearo. “There’s 20 zillion people in here and one road in [and] one road out. I feel like it’s 1916 again.”
Meanwhile, 35% of voters said they would not support such a sales tax.
One of the people opposed to the tax was Thunderbird Farms resident Phillip C. Pettes. A landowner in that community for 42 years, Pettes said while he doesn’t live in Maricopa proper, he does shop and do business there.
He recalled when voters similarly approved SR 347 to be expanded from one to two lanes in each direction in the 1990s.
“They tried to get the state to do it and make it a state highway,” Pettes said. “When that didn’t work then they tried to the county to go for it. That also went nowhere. So, they made it that only those who lived in this area of West Pinal to pay the total cost and shoved it down our throats by a one-acre-one-vote process and the farmers had way more acres than anyone else.”
Because of that, the vote passed, and the road, obviously, ended up being built. Pettes said to build the road, the Gila River Indian Community needed to be compensated for additional SR 347 right-of-way and that only Maricopa-area residents were taxed.
“We got the road and high taxes to pay for it,” Pettes said. “As soon as it became a new four-lane highway, the state took it over with the exception of the cost.”
Pettes said he believes the onus is on the state to take on SR 347 woes, as today it is a state highway, after all, and he helped pay for it to become one.
Pettes went on to say that people were “out of their head” for wanting to shoulder a new sales tax on top of the state tax they already pay.
“We have already paid our share,” the longtime landowner said.
While some like Ollearo are strongly in favor of the tax and others like Pettes strongly oppose it, there are others who fall in the middle. About 4.7% of voters in the recent poll said they were undecided and might need a little more information about the tax.
