Just five short years ago, we celebrated the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy’s 25th Birthday. As a part of that celebration, we remembered some of the most significant things that happened in each of our first 25 years.
We are now approaching our 30th Birthday, and we are taking this opportunity to reflect again on our past achievements, important moments, and dear memories that rise to the surface amongst hundreds, if not thousands, of individual moments for individual people.
With reflection, gratitude inevitably comes, and we are truly grateful for nearly 30 years with each of you.
Originally published in the 25th Anniversary Edition (Spring 2016) of Mountain Lines, our quarterly magazine of the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy.
1993: Scottsdale Commissions a Task Force
Early in 1993, Mayor Herb Drinkwater urged the Scottsdale City Council to form a task force to identify what land should be designated to form a preserve, and then to recommend ways to fund the effort. The Council responded by forming the McDowell Mountains Task Force on March 15.
Local business leader and equestrian, Virginia Korte, headed the Task Force. Bob Cafarella, the City of Scottsdale’s preserve director, assisted the sixteen-member task force. Charged with defining public interest and goals for the Mc-Dowell Mountains, the group went to work to recommend a plan of action. It would take more than six months of hard work before the task force would present its final report to the City Council in October.
Early in 1993, Mayor Herb Drinkwater urged the Scottsdale City Council to form a task force to identify what land should be designated to form a preserve, and then to recommend ways to fund the effort. The Council responded by forming the McDowell Mountains Task Force on March 15.
Local business leader and equestrian, Virginia Korte, headed the Task Force. Bob Cafarella, the City of Scottsdale’s preserve director, assisted the sixteen-member task force. Charged with defining public interest and goals for the Mc-Dowell Mountains, the group went to work to recommend a plan of action. It would take more than six months of hard work before the task force would present its final report to the City Council in October.
1994: Formal Creation of the Preserve
1994 was an exciting year for Land Trust founders. On Oct. 3, one year after the McDowell Mountains Task Force present-ed its report to the Scottsdale City Council, the Council held an outdoor session at WestWorld. The creation of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve was the major agenda item. It was a festive occasion with Bill Ensign, Chairperson of the Land Trust, and Mayor Herb Drinkwater leading the council members on a horseback ride in the Preserve prior to the meeting.
Many Preserve advocates spoke at the Council meet-ing, including Mayor Herb Drinkwater, members of the City Council, Mary Manross and Robert Pettycrew, and Chair of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission Art DeCabooter. An historic Scottsdale event followed the speeches when the Scottsdale City Council formally dedicated the original Mc-Dowell Sonoran Preserve. The newly formed Preserve was 4.5 square miles (2,860 acres) consisting of three parcels of city-owned land. The three parcels were approximately 891 acres south of Bell Road near 120th Street dedicated to the City by Newhall Land & Farming Co. and previous owners, the Herberger family; 689 acres near 136th Street and Thunder-bird Road dedicated to the City by SunCor Development Co.; and approximately two square miles north of Union Hills Drive along the City’s eastern border.
1995: The Path to Preservation
The 1993 formation of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission (MSPC) catalyzed efforts to find the optimal path for preserving land desired for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Early preservation advocates, including Jane Rau, Christine Kovach, Carla, Greg Woodall, Chet Andrews and other mem-bers of the McDowell Sonoran Land Trust (Land Trust), and other members of the Land Trust, led the early efforts. At a Scottsdale City Council study session in January, MSPC Chair Art DeCabooter recommended that the Council ask voters to approve a sales tax increase to fund land purchases within the 16,460 acre Recommended Study Boundary.
Mayor Herb Drinkwater and City Council Member Mary Manross, who later became mayor and led efforts to continue Preserve expansion, were key City supporters. Drinkwater’s daughter, Jamie Drinkwater Buchanan, recalls her father’s ap-preciation for the early Preserve advocates. “He understood that it took lots of voices speaking out and advocating preser-vation to make it a reality.” In one of Mayor Drinkwater’s “State of the City” addresses, Buchanan remembers her father stating he hoped that citizens would support a tax initiative to save the McDowells and surrounding desert lands for future genera-tions to enjoy. He presciently described the Preserve as a “true jewel of the desert”.
Land Trust volunteers got busy reaching out and raising awareness about the reason for the tax and the benefits of a preserve. One of the ways devised to raise support for the sales tax was ingeniously simple – organize hikes into the proposed preverve land. Volunteers estimate they led about 2,000 hikersbelieving firmly, according to Scottsdale historian Joan Fudala, “that every visitor to the land would be a sure ‘yes’ vote.”
Happily for land preservation advocates, May 23 saw their hard work rewarded with the resounding passage of Scottsdale’s “Save Our McDowells” Proposition 400. Voters approved, by a 64 percent to 36 percent margin, a two-tenths of one percent sales tax increase for up to 30 years to “provide funds to supple-ment private efforts to acquire land for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve for the purpose of maintaining scenic views, preserving plant and wildlife, and supporting our largest industry, tourism, while providing appropriate public access and passive outdoor recreational opportunities for residents and visitors.” Looking back, it’s clear that the committed efforts of the early Land Trust volunteers were absolutely essential in driving the local preservation movement forward and creating a future vision of Scottsdale that residents could see and support. .