The abrupt resignation of Pima County Treasurer Brian Johnson last Friday isn’t related to the $6.6 million political fight he was having with the Pima County Assessor’s Office.
That much we know. The actual reason he did resign? Well, that’s still something of a mystery.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Or, in plain English, just because he was in hot water with the Pima County Board of Supervisors over that political fight with the assessor doesn’t mean there wasn't another serious issue in his office.
Multiple sources inside Pima County have confirmed to the Tucson Agenda that Johnson was facing at least one serious human resources complaint at the time of his resignation.
In the three-paragraph resignation letter, Johnson doesn’t specifically state why he chose to resign.
“This was a very difficult decision, but recent urgent changes in my personal responsibilities have made it clear that I can no longer serve the citizens of Pima County at the level they deserve,” Johnson wrote in his resignation letter.
An undated photo of Pima County Treasurer Brian Johnson, his 30-person staff, and Halloween decoration. Johnson is in the middle wearing a green shirt.
When we last talked to Johnson, he gave no hint about resigning, telling us he was prepared for a lengthy legal battle with County Assessor Sue Droubie.
For the moment, Chief Deputy Treasurer Jake Martin — who Johnson appointed after being elected in 2024 — will take over day-to-day operations until the supervisors appoint a permanent replacement for the remainder of Johnson’s term.
The supervisors are expected to meet at a special session later this week — likely in executive session — to lay out a public process to replace Johnson permanently.
As we understand it, the deadline has passed to call for a special election for the remainder of Johnson’s term.
And state law requires that since voters backed a Democrat in 2024, his replacement must also be a Democrat.1
Beyond collecting approximately $1.6 billion in property taxes every year, the Pima County Treasurer’s Office manages the county’s investments and acts as the bank for local school districts and other taxing districts.
Johnson’s resignation letter
We reached out to a number of sources over the weekend, who were all tight-lipped about the HR complaints against Johnson but confirmed his resignation was not tied to his fight with the assessor about refunds to 632 property owners, which we wrote about two weeks ago.
There was an item on last week’s executive session agenda to waive the attorney-client privilege on a legal memo issued by the Pima County Attorney’s Office on the fight between the two row officers, but the item was tabled until the next meeting. The memo is still privileged, but we know that one option supervisors were considering was suspending Johnson for 120 days.
Under Arizona Revised Statutes 11-664, a county board of supervisors can suspend a county assessor or county treasurer for "defalcation or neglect of duty.”
The last time this statute was used was in 2019, when the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors suspended then-Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen for his role in an international adoption scheme involving women from the Marshall Islands. He was later convicted on federal charges, and he’s still in prison.
Johnson and his office were also on the supervisors’ radar earlier this year for an entirely different matter.
In February, supervisors discussed a budget remediation plan for the Treasurer’s Office as county budget gurus estimated that his office was going to be in the red by the end of the fiscal year. The supervisors tapped the county’s reserves to cover the increased costs.
At the time, a county memo pointed to changes made before Johnson took office and an increase in postage that cost the county an additional $70,000 this year.
Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz thanked Johnson for his service after his abrupt resignation on Friday.
“I want to thank Brian Johnson for his service to Pima County and wish him well. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors to find a qualified successor and ensure a smooth transition with no disruption to county residents,” Heinz said.
As of Sunday night, that emergency meeting hadn’t been scheduled.
Former Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik weighed in on free fares on the Bill Buckmaster Show on Friday, telling the host and his co-host Joe that the council needs to re-introduce fares.
Kozachik, now the director of the Pima Animal Care Center, said he has been regularly riding the bus from his midtown home to the animal shelter since he first took the job and has been talking to bus drivers about safety conditions.
Last week, the Teamsters voted to strike if the city does not meet their demands for better working conditions.
While running PACC is a full-time job, Kozachik is still paying close attention to city politics.
“It is simply absurd as one council member recently said that ‘99.9% of the riders are just fine and it's a 0.1% that are the ones who are getting on and causing problems.’ That's simply not factually true,” he said on Friday.
Kozachik said the plan when he was on the council was to keep fares free only during the pandemic to help those who were struggling economically.
The show that never ends: Neighbors of Nancy Guthrie say YouTubers have turned their neighborhood into a “for-profit tourist attraction” while lobbing accusations that Guthrie’s neighbors were somehow involved in her disappearance, Griffin Salkowski reports for the Arizona Daily Star. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department arrested three YouTubers last week, but others are still sitting in front of her house and doing daily call-in shows “with each caller sharing their batshit crazy theories of which neighbor or family member did it,” one neighbor said.
The voucher throwdown: In the waining hours of the legislative session, GOP lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to get a bill approved that would reform the school voucher program, as part of a deal with the Arizona Education Association, which would have withdrawn its own, more restrictive, ballot measure, per our sister newsletter the Arizona Agenda. When that fell apart, lawmakers signed off on a ballot referral that would essentially void any ballot measure that restricts voucher funding for military families, which inevitably would happen under the AEA’s measure and a competing measure from Fortify AZ.
“We used to have a river”: About 40 protesters gathered last week as developers cleared the land for the Project Blue data center, Ivy Kleinman reports for the Tucson Sentinel. The protesters held hand-painted signs and pointed to the data center’s use of Southern Arizona’s dwindling water supply, as well as their concern that private equity is pushing data centers to boost the AI industry. Also last week, Tucson police arrested two people for their role in a May 7 protest at the law firm that represents the developers.
Taking a closer look: Pueblo High School Principal Frank Rosthenhausler is in the hot seat after staff complained about a culture of sexism and preferential treatment, the Arizona Luminaria’s Shannon Conner reports. The TUSD Governing Board got an earful from more than a dozen speakers at last week’s board meeting, including a math teacher who said “we are constantly disrespected” and “publicly shamed” when they try to share ideas with the principal. The district is creating a “culture and climate” report, which could take several more months to finish.
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“Big, beautiful opportunity”: Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s support of the Big, Beautiful Bill, could come back to haunt him at the ballot box as cuts to SNAP and other programs hit Southern Arizonans, Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock writes. More than 77,000 Pima County residents lost their SNAP benefits — as county officials recently revealed — and even more residents could see cuts to Medicaid after the November election.
“If Ciscomani's likely Democratic opponent JoAnna Mendoza can just put the nail against the wall and hit it with a blunt object, she can win the election,” Morlock writes. “That should be real simple, but then she's a Democrat and works with Democratic consultants who've proven themselves terrified of any fight on the political landscape. They see only downsides in class-war politics.”
Here’s what’s on the menu for those of you looking to get your fix of local politics this week:
The Pima County Republican Club meets on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. at The Kettle just west of I-10 on 22nd St.
The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board meets on Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Duffy Community Center, 5145 E. 5th Street. (Agenda / Live-stream.)
The South Tucson City Council meets at 6 p.m. in the Council chambers 1601 South 6th Avenue. (Agenda.)
The Oro Valley Town Council will meet on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at 11000 N. La Cañada Drive in Oro Valley. (Agenda / Live-stream.)
The Marana Town Council will meet on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at 11555 W. Civic Center Drive in Marana. (Agenda / Live-stream.)
Did we miss an event? Email Joe to get it on his radar.
The final day of Arizona’s legislative session set off some fireworks as frazzled lawmakers wrapped up the year’s business.
Here are some of our favorite moments from Friday’s marathon session:
The pro-school voucher crowd tried to gin up a controversy about reporter Craig Harris (who’s led the critical news coverage of the voucher program) talking to sources about a protest at the Capitol.
GOP Rep. Neal Carter did his best impression of a dork in a suit trying to be a big, scary guy as he got in Democratic Rep. Oscar De Los Santos’ face.
And, after taking a month off, lawmakers had to stay up until nearly 5 a.m. trying to ram through all their last-minute legislative priorities.
1 As we’ve mentioned before, it is pretty easy to re-register with any political party, so there’s still plenty of time if you want to put your name in the hat to be the next Pima County treasurer.