Your View | May 20-26, 2009
I find it interesting that while you, Don, are trashing Adam Trenk for not supporting Cave Creek businesses you and Usama have been seen having one of your weekly lunches at the Blu Burger Grill at the Summit in Scottsdale.
Editor’s note: Since Sonoran News readers cover a wide geographic area, Sonoran News advertisers cover the same wide geographic area. Kudos to Blu Burger Grill for using Sonoran News to put themselves on the local map! As any small town business person knows, you do business with people who do business with you.
In the most absurd outcome anyone could envision, even in a nightmare, the selection of either Bob Gemmill or Susan Vanik as Carefree mayor ranks as the worst in our 25-year town history. Night sweats surely accompany that vision. Vanik, a 3-year resident and newly elected president of the Kiwanis Club, can barely sit through a budget overview meeting, leaving as soon as serious numbers were discussed. Gemmill, who has the attention span of a city slicker on holiday, rides the coattails of a truly admirable woman. Let's not confuse the good works of the wife with the amblings of the bored husband. Stories abound, yet it all comes down to votes.
Greg Gardner's boast that 'they' have already selected the mayor merits a reaction. As a whiny minor tenant of the AZ Wine property, he complained when Bob Coady campaigned in a public access facility, yet he supports the solicitations for pancake breakfasts and other machinations several times a year by his club. Where was Greg when Huge Stevens harassed a young campaign worker for David Smith in 2007? Hiding behind his curtains or his Kiwanis membership card perhaps?
"And to preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude." – Thomas Jefferson
I love the photo of the Bobcat on the lounge chair on a porch in Legend Trail! We live in the best place on the planet – the Desert Foothills!
The local elections will soon be over, thankfully. It never ceases to amaze me how nasty people can become during power struggles for the position of biggest fishes in such incredibly small ponds. Linda Bentley’s front page article about the AG’s office being unable to substantiate open meeting law violations reveals what a waste Terry Zerkle’s frivolous complaint really was.
Linda Bentley did a great job on her Trenk family articles the last two weeks. The last thing we need in Cave Creek is a council member who grew up in that kind of environment with those types of role models.
I sat through the annual Kiwanis mayoral address by Wayne Fulcher. At the time he painted a very rosy picture about Carefree’s financial situation, including reserves in the amount of somewhere near $1,300 or $1,400 per resident. Now their Rural/Metro contract is too expensive and they are cutting their concert series. What he didn’t say … was that the reserves were going to last about four months in this economy. Cave Creek Mayor Vince Francia, in the same meeting, gave a very realistic presentation, some might say gloomy, about their finances. Direct election of the mayor in Carefree would allow us to choose someone who will be realistic rather than delusional.
Joe Arpaio decided to lend his support to Adam Trenk. Does that mean, Don, that he is again persona non grata or are you going to forgive him just because you agree with his position on illegal immigration?
Don Francis, in his Guest Editorial on the subject of Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth” fought Gore’s fallacies with writings based on solid evidence. That our nation’s school children have the opportunity to read Singer and Avery in their science classes is wishful thinking, I suppose.
I am really enjoying the new column, “For the love of horses” in the Equine News section. Thanks, Sonoran News, for going the extra mile to add features of interest for those of us who really do love our horses.
Frontier town’s Memorial Day celebration is overdue – not just Frontier Town, but for the entire town. All businesses in Cave Creek are starting to think creatively about ways to bring people into town for not only Memorial Day weekend, but July 4th, and for good causes like honoring those in service.
Governor Brewer needs to do her homework and stop playing games with school funding and Arizona’s other critical budget problems. Tax increases will not fly here when we are all struggling to make ends meet.
As I watch the deterioration of Carefree’s infrastructure, I realize the soon to be past council have quietly avoided spending money, giving the impression of good stewardship. Not true, but if you read COINS, and not Sonoran News, that is what you bought into. I pray for a majority of new faces and a serious look at the staff who only knew, “Yes sir.”