canfield taxes cartoon

Carefree and Cave Creek Citizens:

Bravo to Cave Creek for dealing successfully with the unnecessary expense of a town court. If only Carefree was as competent in cutting similar costs rather than the usual self serving agendas. Carefree supplements their court by approximately $200,000 annually. But sadly, Carefree is just too tainted by special interest groups to deal with the needed financial responsibilities.

Two years ago, Councilmen Stavoe, Koteas and I attempted to deal with the excessive costs that Carefree incurred with the Town Court. After having to navigate numerous obstacles, we were told by Mayor Schwan and Judge Scull that transferring jurisdiction of the court to the County was not possible. In fact, according to the mayor if we continued, Judge Scull would bring charges of judicial interference against Councilman Koteas and I. Furthermore, Mayor Schwan stated on the record that he had personally spoken with Maricopa County and they had refused to even consider taking over the court.

I have to wonder why the rules should be different for Cave Creek over Carefree. Or, is it because certain Carefree council members as well as the citizens are never given the real facts? I can understand Judge Scull’s opposition; he was looking to protect his own job. But what about Mayor Schwan? It would seem he obviously MISSPOKE, but why? He certainly took the same oath of office as we did to represent and protect Carefree. My question to Carefree citizens is just whose interests does the mayor represent? Certainly not the citizens!

Bob Coady | Former Carefree Councilman

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Spur Cross Road closure continues

July 15, 2011

Dear Town Council Members:
The intersection of Cave Creek Road and Spur Cross Road remains the most dangerous intersection in town, due to the lack of responsibility by the town engineer, Wayne Anderson. Wednesday, he stated, he was the person responsible for signing the traffic control permit to close Spur Cross Road and the current monstrosity that is present. He also stated that this water main project was for Walmart. Before their doors are even open, this global giant superstore has closed or impacted downtown small business, struggling to survive in Cave Creek.

This week a three person crew has worked on this project, in one location, not involving the Spur Cross intersection, but on culverts 300 yards to the west. This shows that the responsible town manager and his employees did not review this project for safety concerns or the impact on closing Spur Cross Road. A fire, medical, or any emergency may result in death, due to this closure. Not one person has addressed this problem since I originally contacted Town Hall. Wayne Anderson told me to contact Jessica Marlow, utility manager, for a completion schedule. She has not returned my phone call as of today. With the lack of proper leadership on the town's behalf, I ask you to fire the person or persons responsible for this project and stop construction immediately. I suggest you place more competent people in a position that handles such a project that will address the safety and concerns of all Cave Creek citizens and those who dare to take their life in their hands driving through Cave Creek.

Again, I remind you that over 50 percent of our commercial core is for sale or for lease. It's time for positive results in this town, not for the negative impacts town hall has delivered. Our business was severely impacted with the first time this road was closed a year ago. Why was this project not completed then? With the exorbitant property taxes and sales tax we pay, you would think the town would support our commercial core community instead of closing it down.

James Sheehan | Owner of Spur Cross Station

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Obama orders launched fast and furious

This action by Obama and Holder is affecting the confidence of the free world, the free markets – everything is affected by these unconstitutional acts!! When is enough, enough?
Didn't Obama claim he had no idea this was going on?

Border agents and a lot of civilians have died in this crime against humanity. What is going on in American today? How can “We the People” be seeing this happen? Who does these kinds of things, all in the name of trying to elude to an outcome that would let the federal government claim that guns in America are the problem and that they need to be taken away?? What in God’s name is going on? God Bless all who have suffered by these acts, may they find peace in the Heaven of the Lord. Amen!
Sincerely,

Tony Newbill | Wickenburg

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Internet tax

Just curious about Internet purchase tax law in Arizona. Arizona does not currently have a law to tax Internet purchases from out of state vendors, but extract a tax on same through a use tax (AZ Dept of Revenue Brochure 610). Thus, if the legislature does decide to pass an applicable measure to tax these purchases then all will be DOUBLE TAXED.

Personally, I would rather see Jan Brewer use more common sense and not give away money in the form of corporate tax breaks since 62 percent pay no taxes at all on the federal level.

Chuck Hovey | E-mail

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President Obama and Capitol Hill Democrats’ out-of-control spending

The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated.

Today, our national debt exceeds at $14.3 trillion. When will the out-of-control spending stop? President Obama and Capitol Hill Democrats act as if there is no end as to how much they can spend while billing our American taxpayers for their wasteful spending.

Under President Obama and Capitol Hill Democrats' plan, they give billions of dollars to the worlds' richest countries and then ask some of these same countries to borrow it back.
In 2010, the U.S. gave a total of $1.4 billion to 16 foreign countries that held at least $10 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. Four of the ten richest countries receiving foreign aid last year include China - $27.2 million; India - $126.6 million, Brazil - $25 million, and Russia - $71.5 million. Mexico also received $316.7 million and Egypt received $255.7 million.

There are some 192 countries around the world. The USA sends foreign aid to 150 of these nations. The top 10 countries the USA sends to include: Colombia $461.2 million, Mexico $316.7 million, Egypt $255.7 million, Philippines 128.2 million, India $126.6 million, Russia $71.5 million, China $27.2 million, Brazil $25 million, Thailand $16.75 million, and Turkey $8.2 million.

President Obama's administration is giving ACORN a $79,819 grant despite a federal law that prohibits the government from giving money to ACORN.

The U.S. State Department announced that the Obama Administration has agreed to contribute $4 billion to the United Nations Global Fund to fight AIDs, Tuberculosis, and Malaria from 2011 to 2013, a 38 percent increase over previous commitments.

When will out-of-control spending end? Let's start right NOW!

Oscar Y. Harward | Monroe, North Carolina

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Protecting our Forests

This year’s Arizona fire season has already set records as the worst in state history. Weather conditions, coupled with the unhealthy state of our forests, served up the perfect recipe for multiple catastrophic mega-fires.

The Wallow Fire in eastern Arizona ravaged over 538,000 acres in the picturesque White Mountains, surpassing 2002’s Rodeo-Chediski fire as the largest in state history. The Horseshoe 2, Monument, and Murphy Fires have blackened another 300,000 acres in the southern part of the state and destroyed over 60 homes. And fire season isn’t over yet.
Arizonans are now rightfully asking how things got so bad and what can be done to guard against future catastrophic fires?

Simply put, our forests are unhealthy. Decades of mismanagement have left us with a congested forest, creating a massive wildfire fuel problem. The sad thing is that we have known for a long-time how to fix this – we must treat the forests with a combination of thinning and prescribed burning to remove the fuel that has built up over the years. Yet, the number of acres treated each year is just a fraction of the acres consumed by fire each season.

While touring the aftermath of the Wallow Fire, I saw first-hand the success of forest thinning projects in and around the communities of Alpine, Nutrioso, and Eagar. I also heard reports of similar successes in areas affected by the Horseshoe 2 Fire. In treated areas, the fire was far more manageable, dropping to the ground, making firefighting safer and more effective. This helped save countless homes and businesses, for which I am grateful.

However, it’s important not to forget this point either – what attracts people to these areas in the first place? For many, it’s the tree-covered mountains, wildlife, and other treasures in the larger landscape.

Landscape-scale restoration is urgently needed to protect and preserve not just communities, but and the backcountry as well. Arizona could be headed in this direction with the launch of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) in northern Arizona and the Firescape Project in southeastern Arizona.

The goal of 4FRI is to strategically treat roughly a million acres across four national forests dominated by Ponderosa Pine over the next 20 years. Bear in mind, that’s about as many acres as burned in Arizona just this fire season. The goal of the Firescape is to create fire-resilient landscapes across the mountain ranges that make up the Sky Islands. Streamlining the environmental analysis process to accomplish landscape-scale restoration planning and implementation is sorely needed for these projects and others being planned across the nation. Implementing these efforts in Arizona and addressing environmental requirements should be a priority for the Obama Administration if we are going to protect the forest that remains.

From a fiscal perspective, the federal cost for this work pales in comparison to the true costs of a catastrophic wildfire. The costs of fighting the fires and reconstruction afterward far exceed the prevention costs. It’s like a medical situation, where preventive care can save you a lot of money in the long run, but it does require an up-front commitment.
And this is about more than just fire prevention. The proper management of forests will make them healthier, with better flora and fauna, and an ecology that is sustainable.
The work ahead to recover from the fires this season is daunting.

First is the work to mitigate the effects of flooding caused by the monsoon rains that are upon us. We must also try to mitigate the effect of the fire on the economy. In many of the Wallow fire-impacted communities, including tribal communities, this means getting in the forest and implementing fire-damaged tree removal while those trees still have economic value. Ranchers grazing on federal land will need help identifying alternate pastures on which to graze. Recreation on the national forest system provides much of the income for the communities most directly affected by the fire. Timely efforts to reduce the severity of the flooding, to restore watersheds, and to sustain wildlife are necessary to produce the conditions for accessing and enjoying these public lands.
Our work is just beginning.

Sen. Jon Kyl | Senate Republican Whip
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Protecting our girls from sex trafficking

Few things can rob a precious young girl of her inherent dignity more than to be a victim of sex trafficking. Yet according to the State Department's recently released 2011 Trafficking in Persons report, a staggering 27 million people around the globe annually are forced into the reality of modern day slavery. Of this number, UNICEF estimates that as many as two million children are subjected to prostitution globally every year.

The report ranks 184 countries' efforts to combat and overcome the trafficking of persons; this year's worst offenders include North Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But while it might be tempting to see sex trafficking as an international, or foreign, issue, it is not. Even as the United States for the second year in a row received the highest possible score, estimates suggest at least 100,000 children are victim to domestic sex trafficking annually in our country. And as one might expect women and girls are disproportionately hurt by sex slavery.

Linda Smith, former congresswoman and president and founder of Shared Hope International, has dedicated much of her career to stopping sex slavery. During a recent briefing on this issue she commented on the situation in the U.S.: "We found a silent slavery unheard of, unexposed and unaddressed. What I saw were girls ... that look so young that they were in the back seat of a car giggling, and it wasn't foreign, it was American girls."
What can be done to stop this atrocious and sleazy crime?

Part of the solution is simply calling this crime what it is. According to U.S. law any child under the age of 18 involved in prostitution is by definition engaged in sex trafficking. Unfortunately some groups become part of the problem by advocating for "rights" of youth sex workers rather than fighting to free them from forced bondage. For example, earlier this week, the UN issued such a statement, saying that rather than fight sex slavery and child prostitution, the UN would instead advocate for youth "sex worker rights."

Another critical part of the solution is decreasing demand. "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" is the name of a new internet initiative founded by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore dedicated to ending sex trafficking in the United States. Surprisingly (or maybe not), the initiative has its enemies. The Village Voice, a media outlet based out of New York City, has lashed out at Kutcher under the guise of debating data. In truth The Voice is part of the problem in that it lists sex services in its own classified advertisements.

Another important component to ending human trafficking is simply reporting suspicious behavior to law enforcement officials. One would think that in a particular way, groups dedicated to working with adolescents have an ethical, if not legal, obligation to report such situations to authorities. However, we know this common-sense approach was not applied by an organization that receives significant government funding each year.

Planned Parenthood receives over a third of its billion dollar budget annually from state and government funds, $363 million in the last year reported. In February, an undercover investigative sting discovered that six out of seven Planned Parenthood clinics did not report apparent child sex slavery to law enforcement. In fact, in one case, a Planned Parenthood staff member went so far as to provide advice on how the child prostitutes might "continue work" while recovering from an abortion. She advised the "pimp" that the underage girls consider working "from the waist up" for a period of time since they would be unable to have intercourse immediately following an abortion.

It seems counter-intuitive, if not deeply troubling, that such a group uses millions of taxpayer dollars a year to shape the minds of America's young people in matters of human sexuality. Perhaps the U.S. government should consider evaluating its major funding recipients on child protection protocol compliance, or better yet, simply stop sending taxpayer monies to the scandal plagued organization.

Sex slavery must end. But it is not just overseas anymore. That means it is our responsibility - here in our communities - to do whatever we can to assure that little girls are never forced to lose their innocence and dignity in this way.

Jeanne Monahan
Director of the Center for
Human Dignity
Family Research Council


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Cave Creek Municipal Court

Wow: a massacre! Two down, and one to go. I await the final outcome with bated breath.

Ian Moone | Cave Creek

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