The Arizona Attorney General's Office is investigating whether the Chandler City Council violated the state Open Meeting Law when the council rezoned the property where Covance,a controversial multinational research company, is building a testing facility.

"We received an Open Meeting complaint, and we have an open file," said Andrea Esquer, spokeswoman for Attorney General Terry Goddard.

Assistant Attorney General Casey Cullings will review City Council agendas and minutes, and after that, possibly conduct interviews. The complaint was filed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
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"Chandler and Covance entered into a secret agreement that Covance would pretend to rezone one property when all along it intended to build on the airport property," said Dan Kinburn, an attorney for the physicians group.

Kinburn said city officials knew of Covance's intent to use the airport property but concealed that fact from the citizens during the rezoning vote. City officials deny they violated the law. Because the investigation is in progress, Esquer declined to speculate about possible sanctions. It is not known how long the investigation will take.

"Each case is individual and unique, so we don't assign a timeline," she said. "It takes as long as it takes."

The Physicians Committee, based in Washington, D.C., had earlier asked for the investigation, which was put on hold when the doctors' group and several Chandler residents filed a lawsuit alleging city violations.

In January, Superior Court Judge Paul McMurdie tossed out four of the five complaints. In February, the plaintiffs asked that the last point in the lawsuit - the Open Meeting one - be dismissed because of time issues.

Pursuing that aspect would have required at least a year, and by that time, the Covance building would be up and running, the physicians group said.

After the suit was dropped in February, the physicians asked the attorney general to reopen its investigation, which it has done.

"The public was excluded from any meaningful participation in the public hearing process for an issue that was, and is, the source of great public debate and formidable opposition," the Physicians Committee letter to the attorney general said.

As the controversy about the company's entry into Chandler continues, Covance opponents say they aren't reconciled to the fact that the research facility will be built.

"Chandler residents are not at all discouraged by the end of litigation," said Jan McClellan of Citizens Against Covance. "We're still meeting, talking and doing outreach."

Asked what the opponents' current strategy is, McClellan said, "It's secret. Just like Covance has trade secrets, so do we."

Despite the foes' determination, overt opposition appears to have decreased.

Dave Bigos, assistant to the mayor and council, said e-mails protesting Covance have greatly decreased.

"It's died down significantly," he said. "We get maybe less than 10 a week. For a time, we didn't get any for a couple of months."

In late 2006 and early 2007, e-mails were arriving from throughout the world. For a few weeks, the city was receiving close to a thousand a week.

"Locally, we never got more than maybe 20 in a week, or a couple dozen," Bigos said.

Dan Kinburn, attorney for the Physicians Committee, expressed frustration, saying government agencies had ignored the foes' concerns about health, safety, environmental and transportation issues.

"We've tried to get some governmental authority to actually ask the questions that the city of Chandler never asked, and that's whether there was a safety and health hazard or transportation hazard, or how the animal carcasses are going to be disposed of."

Bigos said city had researched the company, sending representatives to Covance facilities in Wisconsin and Virginia.

For his part, Kinburn said opposition is as strong as it ever was.

"But at this point, it's not clear what the strategy would be that would change this and stop the project at this late stage."