Denogean: Stunt pulled by mining firm just shameless
by Tucson Citizen on Mar. 28, 2008, under Local, Special
The woman from Rosemont Copper who appeared at the door of the South Side apartment shared by Olivia Aguilar and Willie Hill about two weeks ago must have seemed like the answer to a prayer.
She wasn’t there to sell them anything, she promised. She wanted to talk to the two, both of whom happen to be recently unemployed, about high-paying jobs for Tucsonans. All they had to do was be treated to dinner by Rosemont and attend a meeting. If they didn’t have a ride, the company would provide one.
Aguilar, 25, and Hill, 31, were excited but completely unaware that they were about to be part of a shameless stunt by Rosemont to pack a March 18 public hearing in Tucson with shuttled-in, sham supporters of its plans to mine the Santa Rita Mountains.
Before the hearing held by the U.S. Forest Service as part of an environmental impact statement on the proposed copper mine, Rosemont representatives went knocking on doors at various locations, including the sprawling apartment complex on South Campbell Avenue near the airport.
The “community outreach team,” as Rosemont calls it, was rounding up “supporters” to appear on the company’s behalf.
The pitch was less than straightforward. Aguilar and Hill, who are raising four children and paid this month’s rent with tax refund money, said they thought they were being recruited for mine jobs. They didn’t know there are no jobs now and won’t be for at least two years.
“They frigging lied so they could get our damn signatures on that list,” Aguilar said.
Supervisor Ray Carroll, the most vocal opponent of Rosemont, is disgusted. Rosemont took advantage of people who are struggling to make it in a tough economy and thought it would get away “with treating them like they are so dumb that they wouldn’t figure it out,” he said this week.
Aguilar and Hill drove themselves to the dinner at Bennigan’s, which Hill estimated was attended by 50 to 75 people. The couple also recruited Hill’s sister, another job-seeker, to attend.
Aguilar noticed that nobody was taking applications. The only reference to jobs was a suggestion to leave a résumé with a company representative before heading in their own vehicles or in one of the shuttles provided by organizers to the public meeting at Pima Community College’s Desert Vista campus.
Hill walked into the meeting at Desert Vista with a full belly, a hopeful attitude and a company-provided button reading “ROSEMONT COPPER, Great Jobs, Great Benefits” pinned to his shirt. He was immediately greeted with a disparaging remark by a mine opponent that made him realize he had walked into a political fight that he knew nothing about and in which he had no interest.
Though Hill laughed as he told the story, his disappointment was clear.
“I just wanted a job, a good job, to take care of my family,” he said.
Juan Rascón, a mine opponent who attended the hearing, said he noticed the people coming off the buses. They were mostly young, including couples who brought their children with them, and predominantly Hispanic, he said. He estimated there were at least 100 people.
“It was quite an impressive show of force,” Rascón said.
Rascón said organizers appeared to be moving them in and out of the meeting in an orderly manner – having them sign the green public comment sheets indicating their support for Rosemont and return to the waiting buses.
He said at least one person wearing a Rosemont button had the impression that signing the green sheets was required to get on a job list.
Rascón said Rosemont’s tactics reminded him of Mexican political parties combing the countryside and offering hats and blankets to poor farmers to show up at political rallies.
The mine “supporters” he spoke to knew little about Rosemont, but clearly “were there with the dream of getting one of these jobs.”
The ones that don’t exist.
Rascón, who said he had been a silent opponent of the mine, was so angry he approached Jamie Sturgess, Rosemont’s vice president of sustainable development, to give him a message.
“As of tonight, you’ve lit me up, you’ve transformed me,” he said.
He wasn’t alone. Aguilar and Hill stayed to learn more and didn’t like what they heard about the proposed mine’s possible impact on water supplies and the environment. “As soon as we found out what was going on, we were taking off our buttons,” Aguilar said.
On March 19, Sturgess apologized for the confusion in a written statement but defended Rosemont’s “community outreach” efforts.
Jan Howard, a spokeswoman with Strongpoint, Rosemont’s public relations group, said in a phone interview Wednesday that dinner was offered because the meeting was at the dinner hour and asked what was wrong with providing rides to people. She said Rosemont brought in no more than a couple of dozen supporters. And, she said, Rosemont’s intent was to inform people of the potential benefits of the mine, not to mislead people about jobs.
“Sometimes people hear what they want to hear,” she said.
Really? Aguilar gave me two informational sheets left with her by the Rosemont rep. One, to be fair, described the environmental impact statement process.
The other – the attention grabber – looked like what you pick up at a job fair. The “Rosemont Copper Career Opportunities” sheet talked about its plans to employ 500 people. The paper detailed the types and numbers of jobs that will be available. It promised a generous benefits package and noted that experienced workers in Arizona’s copper industry earn an average of $59,000 a year.
Rosemont, along with its parent company, Canadian-based Augusta Resource Corp., has made lots of promises to southern Arizona, all of which boil down to a pledge to be a good corporate citizen.
To put it bluntly, this cheap attempt to corrupt the public hearing process reflects poorly on the ethics and corporate character of Rosemont. And it earned it at least two new opponents.
Before Aguilar and Hill left the March 18 hearing, they made a point of signing a petition against the mine.
Anne T. Denogean can be reached at adenogean@tucsoncitizen.com and at 573-4582. Her columns run Tuesdays and Fridays.
