Effort to incorporate San Tan Valley moves step forward

By Janet Perez
Mail | X: @AzNewsmedia

The organization seeking to incorporate San Tan Valley has received the OK from the Pinal County Board of Supervisors to start circulating a petition to get the question before voters in the Aug. 5, 2025, election.

The board unanimously approved the request from STV Inc. 2024 at its Oct. 30 meeting. The organization initially wanted to have the issue on this year’s Nov. 5 ballot.

The group will hold a kick-off event for the petition from 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Nov. 16 at Poston Butte High School, 32375 N. Gantzel Road.

“The heart of our committee has been to represent this area and to be able to provide local control to residents who are tired of having 20 car washes on every corner,” Tyler Hudgins, chairman of STV Inc.
2024 told the commissioners. “Residents are tired of having to leave San Tan Valley just to go eat at a restaurant with their family. Residents are tired of commuting outside San Tan Valley for work. Residents are tired of their tax money being redirected to other cities and towns and want it to come to fund their roads and their neighborhoods, and residents are tired of the unsafe roads and traffic.”

STV Inc. 2024 began the effort to incorporate San Tan Valley in 2023. In April 2023, the group finished the first phase of its efforts when it filed a notice of intent to seek incorporation with the Pinal County Board of Supervisors.

Since then, Hudgins said the organization has held 11 town halls, met with residents, created a map of the proposed incorporated area and met with leaders from various East Valley cities and towns, as well as Florence and Coolidge in Pinal County, to try to get their support.

The town and city councils of Queen Creek, Mesa and Gilbert have passed resolutions supporting the effort, Hudgins said, adding that the group had also met with large landowners and the Arizona State Land Department.

“We also worked on creating a minimal operating budget for the community and really the goal of this was to show viability,” Hudgins said.

Hudgins told supervisors that through the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, STV Inc. 2024 determined that state-shared revenue for the area would be $53 million to start, climbing to $65 million after incorporation.

“We were able to show the residents that of the minimum requirements of a city or a town we would have the appropriate funding,” he said.

The proposed town of San Tan Valley would encompass parts of the J.O. Combs and Florence unified school districts.

STV Inc. 2024 plans to collect the required signatures to get the incorporation issue on the ballot over the next six months.

Efforts to incorporate San Tan Valley failed in 2004, 2010 and 2017.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org.