My View

BY DON SORCHYCH  |  DECEMBER 17, 2014

Bookmark and Share

my viewFour excellent candidates

After many side roads, the challengers to the four slate councilmen have emerged. You may recall after much work, the political action committee (PAC) and volunteers achieved the difficult task of getting at least 293 signatures for each councilman to be recalled. In fact, although nearly twice the required signatures were turned in, Vice Mayor Adam Trenk and his Attorney Tim LaSota, went to court twice to throw out signatures.

The PAC, with numerous volunteers, repeated gathering signatures with one important difference. To a large degree they only had one signature per page, whereas in the first try there were up to 15 signatures on each page. Even if only one signature was unacceptable, in some instances the whole page was thrown out. Apparently Trenk and his lawyer decided not to go to court again. The only people who complained about one signature per page were notaries who had 10 to 15 times the number of pages to sign and stamp.

The big news of the day is four candidates have pulled packets to run against the slate. Susan Clancy signed up last week to challenge Trenk. Because she chaired the PAC to recall Trenk, for inexplicable reasons Trenk challenged her CCUSD governing board petition signatures and had her removed from the ballot for falling two or three signatures shy. She thanked him afterward for the favor and said it would give her more time to concentrate on challenging his seat on the Cave Creek Town Council.

The last three candidates pulled candidate packets on Monday, Dec. 15.

canfield cartoon

Steve LaMar, who served as planning commissioner for ten years and as councilman for four, will challenge Charles Spitzer. LaMar is a retired attorney and served for many years as a prosecutor in the Arizona Attorney General’s office. He is an avid horseman and has done much for open space and trails. It will be a delight to see him on council again.

Another well known name is Dick Esser who will challenge Reg Monachino. Esser served on council for six years and on the planning commission for six years. Esser was also vice mayor for a term and served on the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) while he was on council. Esser retired from ADOT.

You may also remember Mark Lipsky, who will challenge Mike Durkin. He lived here several years ago, left, and has now returned. Since his return he has regularly attended council meetings and occasionally speaks about town problems during Call to the Public.
During Monday night’s council meeting, Lipsky exposed a decision made by the town to discontinue supplying CAP and ground water to Rancho Mañana Golf Course. (See Linda Bentley’s front page article.)

The decision appears to have been made by David Prinzhorn, now the town’s engineer, utilities and public works manager, who was hired by Interim Town Manager Rodney Glassman, who was shoed in by the slate and left a trail of excessive and unbudgeted spending.

The great thing about these four candidates is they are NOT a slate, they are all independent thinkers who are expected to continue where the decent council left off.

From Sonoran News’ perspective this will be an unusual election. Since the start of Sonoran News, almost twenty years ago, we have held forums for council members and challengers. We made our suggestions afterward about who we would vote for. This time our choices are obvious. We have seen what a slate has done to the town, leaving much to be fixed. Time is short, since the next two issues will be online, but we will address the history of the years the slate has held the town prisoner. They have proved they can’t be trusted and told vicious lies about the Usama Abujbarah administration. They fired him and the town has been sued for $3 million. Defending the town against Abujbarah’s lawsuit is costing about $10,000 every month.

The upcoming council is experienced, smart, honest and trustworthy, which cannot be said about the slate. The slate’s combined lack of knowledge about what it takes for a town to run is absolutely astounding.

We now have an opportunity to support and help the new council to be elected. Each candidate needs 94 valid signatures to qualify to run in the March election. The petition signature process is entirely different for this effort. Signatures (without a notary) must be turned in to the Town of Cave Creek by January 9 so time is of the essence. Only if they are challenged will they be verified by Maricopa County Elections Department. If a signature is found to be invalid, only that one signature is eliminated rather than the entire sheet. Let’s help them get twice what they need to ensure they win in March.

If you want to take your town back the challenger candidates need your help and support. I am sure they will need volunteers.

Petitions will be available at Sonoran News Monday through Thursday during business hours. You may also contact the candidates directly to offer your signatures (you may sign all four nomination petitions).

Susan Clancy: 480-488-2986
Steve LaMar: 480-620-7983
Dick Esser: 602-703-4741
Mark Lipsky: 480-686-1166