KINGMAN — The Mojave County Board of Supervisors has granted narrow approval to a rezoning request to allow RV parks, outdoor concert venues and RV storage facilities around Topok/Golden Shores.
And the residents are not at all happy about it.
Supervisors listened to a 40-minute parade of residents explaining their reasons for opposing a proposed development by Telos Venture Partners LLC south of Tour Drive and west of Oatman Highway. Prior to the Board, there were requests to rezoning properties from agricultural/residential and residential/recreational to special developments/commercial.
Topok residents were in full force at a supervisors meeting in Kingman on Monday, giving sometimes impassioned testimony against the project. Mojave County Planning and Zoning Commission rejects resolution in favor of development unanimously recommended.
Residents met with project developer Ryan Rodney last week, but they said it did nothing to assuage their distaste for a development that one resident said would “destroy our town.” rice field.
“This whole deal is something Topok/Golden Shores doesn’t really want or need,” resident Rick Bishop told the supervisor. “The infrastructure can’t handle it.”
In addition to concerns about water use, Bishop said he was also concerned about the type of residents living in RV parks around the community.
He said the idea that it would create jobs for the community was ludicrous.
“This is a retirement community,” he said. “We are not looking for a job.”
Instead, residents want to keep quiet communities quiet.
“We don’t need people coming out of town and ruining it,” he said.
Topok resident Kelly Rafferty Hull, who has owned properties on the outskirts of town for 30 years, said a sewage treatment plant proposed to support development is “right outside” her home. rice field.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life listening to off-road vehicles. Thousands of off-road vehicles cross the desert,” she said. “I don’t want to smell a sewage treatment plant right outside my back door. I don’t want noise pollution from the concert venue across the street from my house.
“We are a small little town. We don’t want all this.”
One resident said the project has a conflict of interest because Arizona Rep. Leo Biacicucci is a major investor. Based in Scottsdale, Biasiucci is registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission as a member of Telos Venture Partners LLC.
Yet another resident said that the nearly unanimous opposition of the residents must carry some weight.
“99% of the community is against this,” said Robert Warmenhoven. “Go somewhere else for that. We like quiet, small towns.”
However, the supervisors voted 3 to 2 to approve the resolution. Supervisors Ron Gould, Hildy Angius and Gene Bishop voted in favor, while Buster Johnson and Travis Lingenfelter voted against.
The vote – really just a motion to withhold the vote – was met with a negative reaction from the gallery.
“Throw them all away,” shook one resident.
“We are going to vote for all of you,” said another.
“Money speaks,” cried another.
Bishop and Angius have already announced that they will not seek re-election to the Supervisory Board.
The chairman of the board, Lingenfelter, called for politeness on several occasions, and eventually cut short to allow the upset residents to leave the auditorium before the meeting could resume without further trouble. I called for a break.
