BMC Photo Contest
Lyn Hitchon | Event Chair
On behalf of the Black Mountain Conservancy, I would like to thank all of the people and organizations who were so instrumental in making our Annual Photo Contest a success.
Thank you to the CVS pharmacies at Carefree Highway and Cave Creek Road, and at the Summit Shopping Center at Scottsdale and Ashler Hills Roads for displaying our entry forms and being drop off points for the photo entries.
Many thanks to all the generous merchants who donated the prizes for this year's Annual Black Mountain Conservancy Photo Contest. The Carefree Resort and Villas once again donated a two night stay in a luxury room, which goes to our Peoples' Choice Award winner, the highest honor.
The twelve winning photographs were chosen by our wonderful volunteer panel of professional photographers, Don Asakawa, Alan Lowy and Jerry Sieve. The winners received gift certificates donated by local restaurants Le Sans Souci, Tonto Bar and Grill, Cartwright's, Giordano's Trattoria Romano, The English Rose Tea Room, Saba's, El Encanto, The Silver Spur and Barro's Pizza. Additional donors included ThaiPan, located at Pinnacle Peak and Miller Rds., Havana Cafe, at 64th St. and Bell Rd., and Arrivederci, at Thunderbird and Scottsdale Rds.
Foothills Printing donated the pads of ballots. Hall of Frames at the Summit donated the mat boards on which we mount the photos for display and voting at our gracious host locations, the Sonoran Festival of Fine Arts, the Desert Foothill Library and the Cave Creek Museum. The photo contest display will remain at the Museum on exhibit until it closes at the end of May. Gift certificates donated from Safeway and Basha's supplied the food and wine for the Photo Contest awards reception at the Museum, where Don Sorchych presented the awards.
A special thanks goes to Don, Curtis and Sonoran News, our co-sponsors, for your continuing support and publicity.
We really appreciate our pool of volunteers who work with our board members at the Sonoran Festival of Fine Arts. This year, we had help from Carol Bennett, Fran Wylie and Erv Parthe, Larry Schreibman, Carla King, Lisa Steukel and Linda Benedetto.
And last but not least, thanks again to all of you who submitted photos this year. We had a record number of entries (81) and once again there were so many gorgeous ones that it was difficult for the judges to chose the final twelve. Please keep them coming next year. This year's winning photos will be used in our 2010 calendar, which will be available next fall, so keep us in mind when it's time to buy your calendars!
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Phoenix tax dollars spent on food, flowers and resorts
Brad Burdick | Cave Creek
www.abc15.com/content/news/investigators/story/Phoenix-tax-dollars-spent-on-food-flowers-and/AReTNfVQcUuOllBqzXsBGg.cspx
HEY! Good call on this news story! It’s about time somebody started investigating this pro-illegal alien MAYOR and COUNCIL! Great job. I love your news. It beats the heck out of Channel 12 and the RAG. Channel 15 needs to start a newspaper to compete with the Rag! Thanks for uncovering the mayor’s expenses for FLOWERS and COFFEE! Unbelievable!
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‘Support our local sheriff’
Rich Christensen | Cave Creek
Just read your My View piece from the April 22-28, 2009 rag.
"Support our local Sheriff." Sounds great to me. I always have.
I've read so much bad mouthing of Joe Arpaio from you in your newspaper that I could swear you worked for Al Sharpton.
When did you have a change of heart?? Or will next weeks article be demanding his resignation??
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Our Constitution is under attack
Mark Hawthorne | Save Our American Republic (S.O.A.R.) | Apache Junction
In light of the recent shootings, where innocent civilians and police officers were murdered by madmen, the Federal Government has once again raised the specter of gun control and the erosion of our Second Amendment rights. As usual, the Government is blaming the tool rather than the cause of these tragedies. This is the easy way out and it is also a red herring.
The Government would like all to believe that guns are insidious and evil. The premise is flawed as guns are not living things. They have no personality. They are plain and simply tools.
Any tool, whether it is a pocket knife, baseball bat, shovel, et al. when placed in the hands of a murderous deviant can achieve similar results. It's an issue of personal responsibility.
In some of these situations, had the civilians involved been legally armed, the carnage in all probability would have been greatly reduced. Would there have been deaths? Yes. But wouldn't it have been a nicer scenario if the only death would have been that of the murderer intending to inflict many? Because someone was legally armed. Because of the Second Amendment.
Our Constitution is under attack by the very people we have elected to represent us. There are a few, like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R. Minnesota, who very correctly has seen fit to question those making the laws as to their Constitutional authority. She is asking the august body we call Government just exactly where in the Constitution it says they can do what they are doing? She's not getting any answers.
Please do not be fooled by Government misdirection. Read our Constitution. Know what it says. Support it, for if you do not, you will no longer be citizens, you will be subjects.
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Support for Bruce
Robin Ray | CSHS Arts Department chair
First of all, I want to publicly thank Jim and Judy Bruce for their continuous support to our young artists, students in our community, and especially for my visual art students at Cactus Shadows High School. They have helped students exhibit their art at many venues by framing student work, moving displays and art, and setting up and tearing down. This has made opportunities for students possible. They have helped create new horizons for enrichment of the arts through the Sonoran Arts Leagues’ Summer Arts camp and enthusiastic support for CCUSD’s Celebration of the Arts award ceremony. They contribute to the town of Cave Creek’s Film and Arts festival and are active with Kiwanis in all things art related. Any time I need help with my students I could ask for their support, and they are always there with warm hearts and big smiles.
Having known Jim Bruce for many years I believe he would make an excellent choice for Cave Creek’s town council. The letters of his name lend themselves to the qualities he possess that make him an excellent choice for your vote for Cave Creek Town Council:
Just right, fair, in accordance with standards
Intelligent well informed with the power of knowing
Mastery of finance and legal issues
Balance to stabilize and make steady, able to compare value importance
Reach stretch out and get in touch with the community
Umpire ability to settle disputes
Community concern for public ownership, common ties and interests
Effective ability to get results and get things done
Citizens of Cave Creek do yourselves a favor and vote Jim Bruce for Cave Creek town council on May 17.
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Censoring free speech
Arden Druce | Camp Verde
The federal government’s plan to squelch critical speech on radio is now underway. The government has clothed this wolf in sheep’s clothing by saying it’s for the good of the nation. It didn’t mention that it is unconstitutional and very dangerous. The bottom line is the government wants no criticism of its actions to reach the public.
The mainstream media has been censoring free speech for a long time. Now the government wants to control free speech on the radio. The next step will be to eliminate free speech on the Internet. If one wonders how a country can be taken over from within, this is an example.
The unfairness doctrine, misnamed the Fairness Doctrine, has been exposed, so now government is using another approach. That approach requires panels of community activists to evaluate radio station content. If the Federal Communications Commission, stacked with Obama appointees, and it’s advisers are not heeded, stations’ licenses won’t be renewed. If President Obama’s latest nominee to the FCC is confirmed, Democrats will have a 3-2 majority. Talk radio would be made accountable to politicians, political activists and bureaucrats at the FCC.
A website has been created to provide information about the threat to talk radio under the name AmericanRadioFreeSpeech.com.
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Anna Marsolo a.k.a. the 'Town Snoop' and Adam Trenk
Name withheld by request
So it's finally out in the open and in print.
Anna Marsolo ... you remember her as the real estate gal who got the Rust's arrested and jailed for a minor sign ordinance violation.
She's the realtor who just didn't like the Rust's selling their business property without going through her so she got them arrested.
She's a 'dark sider' responsible for stirring the pot for years with her friend Grace Meeth.
Well SHE'S BACK with a lengthy print article dated April 22, 2009 supporting Adam Trenk for a Cave Creek Council seat. ANNA MARSOLO of all people talking about honesty and integrity and work ethic and spirit and blah, blah, blah.
Cave Creek finally got rid of the dead tissue council slugs and she's saying that her friend Adam Trenk should be elected. You've heard of Adam Trenk of course ... he's the guy who's trying to buy his way onto the council without paying his dues. This guy's got so many signs up that you can't even walk to the Men's bathroom at Harold's without seeing his name at eye level just before you open the bathroom door.
Well the cats out of the bag Adam.
'A vote for Trenk is a vote for the 'Town Snoop.'
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Comments on Barber Guest Editorial
Tim Nevins | Cave Creek
Mr. Barbers’ article about the “controversy” with same sex marriage, Ms. Prejean and Mr. Lavenderia proudly carries the torch for religious dogma and xenophobia. This isn’t a question of religion. The United States is a secular nation whose rules and laws should not and do not adhere to any religious dogma. Attempting to submit everyone to your own narrow personal religious beliefs is, in fact, “divisive,” whether Mr. Barber thinks so or not.
Ms. Prejean can be “biblically correct” all she wants, she should not assume that people will ignore her medieval views and select her to represent the United States in a beauty pageant.
The “desperate and most intolerant countenance” is the one Mr. Barber sees in the mirror every morning. I’d say shame on you, but you clearly have no shame.
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Cars
Ralph G. Smith | Cave Creek
When I was growing up, we had a number of very good cars. There were the Essex, the LaSalle, the Reo, the Hupmobile, and at the first of the Great Depression, the Pierce Arrow. They were all great cars, as I remember, or as I see them pictured with my father (and me, age 4 or so). The Pierce Arrow was built like a truck, and drove like one, but it was beautiful, and had room for a cot between the front seat and the back seat. And after the War (WWII to all you kiddies), I had a 1953 Studebaker, which was the best looking car I ever owned.
All, all are gone, all the old familiar grillwork, to the great junkyard in the sky (or in Korea or China, as the case may be). You see, there was no irresponsible big government to bail them out at the end of their companies’ useful lives.
I suppose those old car companies were like “old soldiers.” The car companies never died, they just run out of gas.
Now, I guess, President Obama will give the companies a buck or two (or maybe several billion) and tell them how to run their operations. After all, the government of Yugoslavia did it when it taught the Yugoslavs how to build the Yugo.
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Tell ‘em it’s a tax hike
Tim Phillips | President, Americans for Prosperity
Right now Congress is debating the largest tax hike in history. It’s up to you and me to stop it. And we only have one shot.
The big-government politicians and special interests might call it “Cap and Trade” and frame it as a market-based “global warming solution.” But you and I know better.
Amazingly, so does liberal activist group MoveOn.org, and they admit so in an illuminating email to their members: “If Republicans convince voters that clean energy legislation amounts to a new tax, Obama’s plan is toast.”
I wouldn’t count on the Republicans to achieve this; but the 500,000 members of Americans for Prosperity sure can – and we’ll make sure to turn up the heat on members of both parties to oppose this hidden energy tax.
I’m writing you today to ask your help in doing just that. Between now and Friday, we are running radio ads and holding taxpayer protest events with our seven-story tall hot air balloon in five key Senate states that will make all the difference when this devastating tax comes to a vote.
If we can raise $100,000 by this Friday, we can make sure – through radio ads, telephone calls, and old-fashioned door-to-door canvassing – that we continue to draw crowds of fired up grassroots activists. Energetic citizens – like the folks joining us for our Hot Air Tour launch in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – will send a strong message to Congress: NO NEW ENERGY TAXES. Please visit our website to contribute: http://americansforprosperity.org/042909-help-stop-energy-tax-today
Can you make this possible with a special contribution of $25, $50 or more today? Of course, any amount you could give would be tremendously helpful in beating this job-killing energy tax.
There’s no time to waste – the first votes on this scheme are expected this week. You can help us defeat “Cap and Trade” with a special contribution of $25 or more today.
Thanks for all you do on behalf of free enterprise.
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Carefree Crossroads
John Gosule | Carefree
With the election of Bob Coady and Doug Stavoe and the likely election of Peter Koteas who finished fourth in the March 10 election, the town will still be controlled by the “good old boy and Political Action Committee” power structure, if Miller, who was elected on March 10, and candidates Gemmill, Schwan and Vanik win. The latter four are aligned with the power structure of the past.
Vote for just two candidates: Peter Koteas and write-in candidate John Traynor. You do not have to vote for four candidates. "Bullet vote" by voting only for candidates you want. This will send a clear signal of protest for the actions of past Councils and PACs.
A new council made up of Coady, Stavoe, Koteas and Traynor would generate the type of respectful constructive conflict that results in an environment of sound decision making.
Open government with public input and support will move Carefree in the direction of being an economically strong, vibrant community again.
Remember when voting for a write-in candidate you must not only have the correct name but you must also mark the ballot properly with a black line from arrow to arrow.
Vote yes for direct election of the Mayor.
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