My View
By Don Sorchych | July 15, 2009
Carefree council meeting
The Carefree council meeting on Tuesday, July 7 was owned by Good Old Boys (GOB) and GOB supporters. Although many who spoke talked of civility, the speakers themselves were anything but cordial.
It is telling that no one spoke for the recall of Mayor David Schwan. Those who are for the recall know how nasty GOBs get and they stayed home or sat silently.
If anyone is wondering where the hearts and minds of Carefree voters are, they need only look at the recent election standing. In the March 10 primary election, Schwan got the least votes (569) of the ten candidates. Then Mayor Wayne Fulcher, Vice Mayor Lloyd Meyer and Councilman Greg Gardner dropped out, or Schwan would have been toast.
In the General Election in May, Schwan got 552 votes, 311 votes behind Freshman Peter Koteas.
So the GOBs who scream how unfair a legal recall is, ignored history and tradition and voted Schwan in although Koteas got 863 votes and Bob Coady received a winning 800 votes in the primary.
Having four controlling votes, the council ignored Coady’s ten years of experience, huge successes in recycling and voted in the bottom of the barrel, Schwan. None of the eleven speakers brought that up. Tell me the council didn’t make the political decision that quitter Gardner predicted, which was the GOBs would choose the mayor.
There was frequent use of the term petty to describe the particulars of the recall. I’ll tell you what petty is and that is Fulcher’s memo to the Attorney General and County Attorney about Coady’s recycling bank account.
Then a Kiwanian lawyer named Michael Herrod, who lives in Scottsdale, filed public information requests about the same issue and has harassed Coady.
The speakers at the council meeting were fond of calling Ryan Ducharme a “carpetbagger” because he lives in Chandler. Ducharme is gathering signatures for the Schwan recall. No complaints about “carpetbagger” Herrod. According to the lame speakers, going after other than GOBs is good citizenship while GOBs, their heroes, can do no wrong and should never be recalled.
There were also considerable complaints about Rod de Szendeffy, a sizable property owner in Carefree who is funding the recall. The GOB’s claimed de Szendeffy built a garage that was too high and then lost in court.
What actually happened is the town approved his plans and then upon inspection said it was too high. Unfortunately for de Szendeffy, towns can get away with being wrong without legal recourse.
That de Szendeffy was harassed by the town is a given and we wrote about many such instances over the years. You see he wasn’t a GOB, so he was victim of GOBs’ fun and games.
The parade of 13, way short of a majority of voters, started with Schwan at the podium even though he has pleaded his case repeatedly through the Scottsdale Republic. He swears the claims against his mayoral duties are bogus as well as other misadventures he has been cited for in the recall. I would say to Schwan, if he is worried about the expense of an election, as he claimed, all he has to do is resign and save the money.
The worst offender and liar is Huber (Yes, that is his name) Stevens who had one term as mayor, came in the last in the next primary and dropped out.
Stevens used to use his wife Ruth as his P.R. firm when she was secretary at the Carefree Chamber. She only had his real estate business cards and gave them to newcomers.
Now he is camping out at a Cave Creek business, which he calls his “office” and apparently snares people looking for a realtor. Wonder if the owners know?
But Stevens lied about Ducharme. In fact he libeled him by suggesting Ducharme didn’t graduate from U of A and hasn’t worked in two years.
He didn’t graduate from U of A. He graduated from ASU with a 4.0 average. Ducharme works regularly; can Stevens say the same?
We all know Stevens is the leader of at least one PAC. We know he is infamous for bullying people. We know he is a GOB through and through and shady as well. He used the term “shady” describing Ducharme.
There was discussion about Schwan voting for the three minute rule in Call to the Public. When Schwan spoke he took exactly three minutes. So far so good.
He also asked the audience to stop applauding after he and Shirley Arnold spoke. He obviously liked the applause.
But why did he allow the sarcastic Brit, Arthur Gimson, four minutes and 19 seconds? And Greg Gardner talked for four minutes. Lynn Hitchon talked for three minutes and 45 seconds. Bill Rintelman spoke for three minutes and 32 seconds. Bob Gimmell’s wife Jo, talked for three minutes and eight seconds.
Want to bet if you weren’t a GOB you would be cut off at three minutes?
Schwan didn’t have the backbone to cut off those praising him. The 13 people made Schwan sound like the second coming; he has no demerits, none.
If Schwan is so great a mayor, why didn’t the election results show it? It is OK with the 13 GOBs that their four councilmen ignored Bob Coady for mayor after exemplary contributions to Carefree and 800 votes on the first ballot?
Anyone who isn’t hopelessly partisan would see the political nature of their four votes.
To the victor goes the spoils is how these people think and act.
I suggest anyone who has an interest in Carefree go to town hall and pay Town Clerk Betsy Wise five dollars for the CD of this meeting. You should hear the venom spit out about the recall and worse about Rod de Szendeffy, Ryan Ducharme and Sonoran News.
The de Szendeffy family members are decent pillars of their community, with years of activity with the Boy Scouts and kids to be proud of. Rod is a long time property owner in Carefree and his wife Carol Lynn is a superb lawyer and has served as a magistrate here and in Carefree. But they have for years been demonized by GOBs.
I already spoke of the lies told by Huber Stevens about Ducharme, who graduated from ASU with a 4.0 grade point average, a major in Business Management and a minor in Communications. And yes, he regularly works as a political consultant and is anything but “shady,” an assertion by Huber Stevens.
Don’t listen to flakes with an agenda to rule with back door dealings! Clean house and move on.