Andrew Leo Bettwy - Land Commissioner Years

Land Commissioner Years

Because of Bettwy's widely-recognized expertise and knowledge of Arizona's public lands and because of his reputation for integrity and impartiality, Governor Jack Richard Williams appointed him State Land Commissioner in 1970 to become the steward of Arizona's trust lands. Although the position was a political appointment, Bettwy served for the next nine years under four governors (Jack Williams, Raul Hector Castro, Wesley Bolin and Bruce Babbitt). Bettwy was keenly aware of the value of every acre of the land that he managed, so he was never fooled by the attempts of developers and politicians who would propose trades for land of lesser value. In spite of constant political pressure to sell the trust lands, Bettwy stood firm by his view that the primary beneficiaries of the trust (public schools) were best served by holding on to the land (because it is an appreciating asset) and maximizing its income.

In 1978, Governor Babbitt fired Bettwy because they disagreed over the best way to implement land management policies. Because of Bettwy's concern for the public trust, Bettwy spoke frankly to newspaper reporters after he was fired which unleashed a vicious campaign of untruths that took aim at Bettwy's greatest asset, his reputation for integrity. Despite the power of Bettwy's attackers, the only newspaper that agreed to assist them was the Arizona Daily Star which had not forgotten that Bettwy's father, Andrew Jackson Bettwy, had flattened its former publisher William Mathews during his anti-Roosevelt New Deal speech at the 1936 Arizona State Democratic Convention in Tucson, Arizona. In response to the attacks that were published in the Star, Bettwy himself asked for an Arizona Senate investigation which disproved all of the untruths and commended him for his exemplary management of Arizona's trust lands.