GLOBE — Lois Monarrez, owner of the Gila County RV park, who hopes to have an expansion  up and running early next year, expressed praise for Globe City Manager,  Paul Jepson. She said that he arranged to convene all of the entities whose approval was needed for the park office in one day. Speed was of the essence as it is in any start up. She was also pleased that the sewer tap fee would be reduced to the actual cost to the city, under $500 rather than $4,505 dollars.  She was less enthusiastic about the totality of the process of getting the expansion built.  She said Wednesday that after she had gotten two letters of approval from the city of her engineer’s plans, the city alleged that she was ïn violation”in several respects as to the sewer hook ups. They demanded that she make expensive changes. City officials ultimately had to concede that the costs for any changes after the letters of approval had been issued could not be charged to Monarrez. And subsequently the city discovered that she didn’t need to make the changes after all. After her contractor had made the hook up though, she was hit the high fee for the sewer tap. In a previous council meeting Monarrez had spoken up about her struggles in a public comment. Finally, at the December 6 council meeting, Paul Jepson got direction from the council to get the forty-five-hundred dollar fee reduced. He explained that state law decreed that the city could not waive the fee for one company, but would have to change the fee structure for all companies building in Globe. Meanwhile, Monarez would have a year to pay whatever fee the city determined to be its actual cost for permitting the sewer tap.  Many of the various impediments to her project were cleared away and not a bit too soon since will soon have to start paying back her construction loan in January.

Councilwoman Charlene Giles praised Monarrez for showing that ‘one person can make a difference.” Members of the council expressed support for lending a hand to new businesses rather than putting up a hand to stop new development like a policeman who had decided to impede rather than facilitate traffic. As with the arguments pro and con regarding certain sections of a new sign ordinance, the different approaches were in the aid of the same end, according to the council, helping Globe businesses to prosper.