Cave Creek is 37.72 Square Miles and Only 27 miles from Phoenix!
This week you may receive the Voter Pamphlet for the August 28 Election.
You have important choices for leadership in the coming years. The brave souls who have put themselves forward have significant differences. What a candidate understands, and how they view our Town and value our ideas really matters.
Since 2016 your Planning Commission has been hard at work seeking clarity on what the people of Cave Creek want for these 37.72 square miles.
What we have been told is that without exception Cave Creek is a precious place in Arizona. There is an intense desire to have the Town remain rural. Open space is important. Trails are part of our social and transportation network. Dark skies are an important element of the environment. There is an important understanding among the citizens that “WESTERN” in Cave Creek includes cowboys and cowgirls, artists, bikers(of a few kinds), and overarching all of this is the desire to keep a Creeker attitude of acceptance and respect for each other and the land.
Proposition 406 takes these ideas and offers suggestions (some gently, and some in great detail) in the form of a General Plan, it’s how you, as citizens, envision our way forward. The Town is required by law to do the task of gathering and reporting what you think, but we were not WRITING LAW, OR WRITING RULES. The General Plan suggests how your ideas can be realized.
So here’s an intersection. Will you choose leaders who understand what you have brought forward as contributions to the General Plan for the past TWO YEARS, or will you trust leaders who reject what you think and have shared? The Planning Commission didn’t make this up! We wrote what the citizens shared with us.
Looking ahead, it is easy to see what is viewed by developers for “that space behind Black Mountain.” South on Cave Creek Road you can see what Phoenix thinks! West on Carefree Highway you can see what Phoenix thinks! The evidence is there. There is money to be made through subdivision and commercial space. You may have noticed that the first step is to clear and level the desert.
As candidates share their thoughts please listen for their ability to articulate a plan. To state that “I like open space” is not a plan, it is a statement. “Dark skies are important” is not a plan. “I support rural “is not a plan. Listen for a plan.
You as the citizens of this gem in the Sonoran Desert have articulated a plan, and your Planning Commission has presented your ideas and planning systems in support of reaching your goals. Proposition 406 is for your review and a decision. Vote for Proposition 406. When passed, the leaders you choose will have your goals to strive for, your ideas to use as situations change, and planning elements which contain the thoughts of the people who love this Town. The alternative is to revert to the 2005 General Plan, a time when development was running amuck. It’s up to you!
Paul Eelkema
Cave Creek
