Scottsdale Hall of Famer: Carla

Some people need two names. Carla has never needed more than one.

Decades ago, the South Scottsdale native legally dropped her last name as a personal declaration of independence. It suited her. After all, the woman who refused to be ordinary helped give Scottsdale the most extraordinary thing it owns: the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

Today the Preserve protects about 30,500 contiguous acres and more than 180 miles of trails. It is widely called the largest urban preserve in the nation. Councils and voters made it official. However, Carla was among the first to dream it, and then she did something harder. She acted.

A Desert Education

Carla moved to south Scottsdale in 1965. Her mother, a scientist, raised her on outdoor exploration and camping trips to national parks. At Coronado High School in the 1970s, she co-founded the Ecology Club. Meanwhile, she roamed the McDowell Mountains with her brother, archaeologist Greg Woodall.

Then the bulldozers arrived. “Watching the Sonoran Desert get bulldozed and the Boulders fenced off for private development was heart wrenching,” she told AP&G readers in a Speakers’ Corner profile. Many people feel that grief. Few turn it into a movement.

From Dream to Ballot

By 1991, Carla was championing the idea of a preserve. In 1992, she joined the board of the McDowell Sonoran Land Trust. Two years later, she served on the new McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission.

Her defining moment came in 1995. Carla led the “Save Our McDowells” campaign, which asked voters to approve a two-tenths of 1% sales tax to buy preserve land. Scottsdale said yes. That vote turned a dream into a funding stream, and the city has been buying back its mountains ever since.

From 1998 to 2007, she served as the Land Trust’s executive director. In addition, she and Chet Andrews built a steward program that has trained thousands of people to care for the Preserve.

The “Marxist of the McDowells”

Not everyone applauded. A local newspaper once dubbed her the “Marxist of the McDowells,” according to High Country News. The label was absurd then, and it looks even sillier now. Few things are more conservative than conserving land for your grandchildren.

Carla also understood politics better than her critics did. “We’ve got to have a broad base of support,” she told High Country News. “If the business community throws a whole bunch of money against an initiative, it’s going down.”

So she built that base. In 2001, she helped bring 1,500 people to a State Trust Land hearing. She also pushed to reform how Arizona handles state trust land, warning that state ownership is not the same as protection. “There’s this illusion of open space,” she said. “People see the sign that says it’s owned by the state, and they think it’s protected. It’s not.”

A Road With Her Name

Recognition followed. Carla received Scottsdale Leadership’s Frank Hodges Award and was inducted into Scottsdale’s History Hall of Fame. Fittingly, the access road to the Preserve’s Gateway is named Carla Way.

Yet she never treated the Preserve as finished business. She has kept advocating for the funding to maintain it and the will to protect it. These days she lives in Peaceful Valley, where she watches the Indian Bend Wash path from her front porch with her cat, Fnuts.

Why She Belongs Here

Scottsdale’s builders gave the city its resorts, its ballfields and its skyline. Carla gave it something no one can build: a mountain range that belongs to everyone.

Moreover, she proved that one determined resident can outlast a bulldozer, as long as she brings enough friends. With development fights dominating City Hall, that lesson has rarely mattered more.

Carla is a Scottsdale Hall of Famer. One name is plenty.