Hoping the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl will be relisted as an endangered species, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is pushing the Board of Supervisors to approve a new Multi Species Conservation Plan for its unadopted Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.

Using our money, the county has approved at least four other species plans since 2003.

But now there’s a chance a Democratic president’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or a federal court might restore the owl to the endangered list.

Huckelberry has been planning this effort since early last year, however, shortly after the newly delisted owl appeared to have no chance of being put back on the list.

Meanwhile, environmental activists and county employees have been searching for a substitute for the pygmy owl.

They knew the Tucson shovel-nosed snake, the Sonoyta mud turtle, the acuna cactus or the Marana piranha are not as cute as the owl, but they hoped one of them could come off the bench to assume the owl’s job of hindering growth and driving building costs higher.

(Actually, there is no Marana piranha. I tossed that in because it rhymes nicely).

A slumping real estate market and a foreclosure crisis are beside the point to the green bureaucrats and activists. They want to increase the amount of government-owned land in Pima County from the 87 percent it is now to at least 90 percent.

Now that four of the five county supervisors have emerged from the primary elections with no opponents, Huckelberry apparently feels it’s safe for them to resume talking about spending more money for more restrictions on owners who want to build on their own land.

As I predicted in a Feb. 5, 2007, column in Inside Tucson Business, spending more tax money for yet another species plan has enabled the incumbents to dodge criticisms and sharp questions about the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, land purchases and eroding private property rights during their campaigns.

Democratic Supervisor Sharon Bronson faces Republican businessman Barney Brenner for the District 3 seat in a November election rematch of their first encounter in 2000.

But Democrats Ramón Valadez and Richard Elías in Districts 2 and 5, along with Republicans Ann Day and Ray Carroll in Districts 1 and 4, all have clear sailing in the Nov. 4 election.

Even if Bronson were to lose her seat to Brenner, Huckelberry could probably expect Republicans Carroll and Day to join Democrats Valadez and Elías for the needed votes to enact the species plan.

Carroll and Day have generally supported the same Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan issues Brenner has opposed as a private citizen.

Huckelberry and environmentalists hope the board will support a 2009 bond proposal for more than $200 million in open-space bonds so the county can buy more vacant land around Tucson.

They ignore the fact the county has not protected land and archaeological treasures it already owns.

The timetable Huckelberry set last year called for the species plan to be completed by Nov. 1 of this year and for the county to submit a formal application to the federal government for a blanket permit under section 10 of the Endangered Species Act by Dec. 1.

The permit would allow the county to approve developments that might inconvenience or even kill a few animals, birds, snakes and plants if officials could show they had compensated for those losses by preserving similar land nearby.

Without a section 10 permit, federal approval would be required for each proposed project.

The big question will be whether county taxpayers will vote a third time for a large bond proposal to raise their secondary property taxes to provide more money for vacant land.

Sooner or later, Huckelberry and the supervisors will have to hire more employees to patrol and safeguard the county’s vacant land.

The new employees will open up jobs for managers and directors to supervise them, clerks to process their paychecks and personnel records, desks and vehicles for them to use, etc., etc.

Although the new jobs are a great way for winning politicians to reward campaign workers and supporters, they also will add to our tax bills.

Contact Steve Emerine or e-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Emerine is a regular Monday guest on the John C. Scott radio talk show, which airs from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to noon weekdays on The Voice KVOI 690-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.