August 30, 2018 / Modified aug 30, 2018 4:49 p.m.

Arizona Supreme Court Won't Review Pima County-World View Deal

The claim involved incentives as part of the deal the county made for the aerospace company's headquarters.

World View launch hero A March 2015 launch of a NASA-funded World View balloon flight to carry experiments to a near-space environment.
World View via NASA

The Arizona Supreme Court has decided to let a lower court ruling stand on a case involving economic incentives Pima County gave to aerospace company World View to locate its headquarters near Tucson International Airport.

An appellate court panel found that Pima County did not violate state law when it did not seek bids to build the headquarters for World View, and the state's top court's decision not to take on the case means that decision is final.

County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry claims the no-bid scenario was a need to start construction on a timetable that would meet World View's needs and to prevent other municipalities from poaching the company.

"Had we gone [to public bid] everyone would have known that World View was looking to locate their headquarters somewhere, and it could have jeopardized the transactions," he said

Huckelberry added that this is another county victory against the Goldwater Institute when it comes to World View.

"We've now definitively won round two. We have one more to go, and that should be in my view the easiest one to win because it's dealing with the gifts clause."

The other claim he references asks whether Pima County gave World View an illegal gift when it set up the lease deal with World View.

The county contends that it was not a gift because total revenues from World View's lease will exceed what the county spent to build a site for the company.

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