Marana Town Manager Gilbert Davidson and the finance department are putting the finishing touches on the town’s $33 million budget that went before the council on April 16.

More than 1,000 guests crowded into the Tucson Convention Center last Friday where the annual State of the County event shared the playbill with organic, locally produced salad greens topped with regionally raised beef.

With the drought claiming Independence Day fireworks celebrations in the metropolitan area like the Rodeo fire is claiming pine trees on the Mogollon Rim, organizers of the town of Marana's Star Spangled Celebration recommend people show up early for the town's event.

The budget-planning season for the Marana and Oro Valley town councils has come and gone with the final products being approved in recent weeks.

In its second round of budget planning for the upcoming 2011-2012 fiscal year, the Marana Town Council on May 10 reviewed the proposed enterprise funds, and were updated on how the latest legislative session will impact the town.

It is the tale of two budgets. While Oro Valley is challenged with where to make deep cuts due to a lack of growth, in neighboring Marana, officials spent their first budget work session planning how to spend extra money coming from a growing population.

Despite a struggling national economy, the 2013-2014 fiscal year budgets are looking optimistic for the northwest towns of Oro Valley and Marana.

An audience of perhaps 80 people came to Mountain View High School on Wednesday, listening to the gritty details of budgeting in the Marana Unified School District.

The Marana Town Council on June 17 unanimously approved a $211.5 million fiscal 2009 operating budget.

June 1, 2005 - The Marana Police Department will see 10 new officers added to its lineup and a bump in salaries for the upcoming fiscal year under a preliminary budget presented to council members May 26.

June 29, 2005 - Marana council members unanimously approved a tentative 2005-06 budget last week that increased more than $3 million from figures presented during a May 26 budget workshop.

In a May 15 Marana council meeting, while adopting the  the tentative 2012-2013 fiscal year budget, officials were  pleased to announce the purchase of 28.8 acres of state land adjacent to Heritage Park Drive.

Chief Tucson public defender Charles Davies has been chosen as the new Marana town magistrate.

Citizens of Marana can expect to hear more from Marana Town Staff in the month of February. Staff will be officially revising its current Strategic Plan in March, but not before visiting civic centers, local businesses, and homeowners associations to receive input for what the Town is calling the Strategic Plan II.

One of Marana’s strongest assets as a community is that we have created a culture of strategic planning. While we always make sure the services we provide — police, water, parks and roads, for example — are top-notch, we also take time to dream about the town’s future and how we will grow to become a community known for its extraordinary long-term vision.

Children enrolled in full-day kindergarten are much stronger readers than their predecessors in half-day kindergarten, according to comparative data from the Marana Unified School District.

Now that the economy is no longer going downhill at record pace, many say it is dragging along the bottom, and everyone is looking at ways to help nudge it upward.

Call it a meeting of the minds or perhaps a show of solidarity.

I attended the Chamber of Commerce forum for Marana Town Council candidates. I was late, but I was there long enough.

Oct. 13, 2004 - Population growth throughout Pima County has increased enrollment in the area's schools and put a strain on available resources. Meanwhile, state budget limitations have kept municipalities from providing necessary infrastructure to support newly built schools, a Marana official said at a recent council meeting.

Ryan Stanton, rstanton@ExplorerNews.com

August 3, 2005 - When Jane Fairall took a job in the Tucson Unified School District's legal department two years ago, she knew she wasn't leaving prosecution for too long.

Marana has put a firm $18.2 million price tag on the construction cost of its new town hall in north Marana, but it's still a crap shoot as to how much the off-site infrastructure and improvements will cost and whether a private sector commercial gamble will pay off.

In the more than three decades he spent in politics - first as mayor of South Tucson and later on the Pima County Board of Supervisors - Dan Eckstrom developed both a powerful political machine and a reputation as a tough, free-wheeling politician who knew how to bring home the bacon to his constituents.

A primary election contest for two seats on the Marana Town Council is scheduled for Tuesday, March 8.