My View
By Don Sorchych | March 3, 2010
Carefree recall • Coady innocent of Fulcher’s assertionsRecall that past leaders of Carefree, Mayor Wayne Fulcher, Vice Mayor Lloyd Meyer and long time council member Greg Gardner were thrown under the bus by voters. All three would have been required to run off for a council seat. Clearly, their egos were way big for a run-off – after all who did the voters think they were?
I’ll tell you who the voters thought they were. They were the bosses of the town and three GOBs (Good Old Boys) and their rabble of followers got the ax.
So the boys quit and left four followers to continue their reign of terror. Current Vice Mayor Glenn Miller was voted in on the primary ballot, thanks to his association with Bob Coady’s recycling reputation, although his reputation as a Chicago style enforcer was blatantly obvious.
Then last place primary finisher David Schwan (10th in a field of 10) was voted in and his GOB majority voted him an as mayor. Those followers were the already mentioned Miller, Bob Gemmill and Kiwanis President Susan Vanik. And true to the nature of GOBs, they have been a gang vote.
Apparently, Fulcher, no doubt following the dictums of his GOB bosses, filed a complaint against Coady as he left office.
Here it is:
May 20, 2009
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
Mr. Andrew Thomas
County Attorney
Maricopa County
301 West Jefferson
Phoenix, AZ
RE: Complaint and request for investigation
Dear County Attorney Thomas,
I am the current Mayor of the Town of Carefree. It has recently come to my attention that Councilman Robert Coady has maintained a separate checking account during this council term, under his exclusive signature for the Town of Carefree Recycling Program.
This account has existed without the knowledge of the Town and I have reason to believe that disbursements have been made from this account outside of town audit and control.
I have brought this situation to the attention of Councilman Coady in a letter dated May l5th of this year and have as yet received no response. As mayor it is my responsibility to affirm an audit of town finances which the mayor does each fiscal year after town council approval. The latest audit approval was on November 5th when the Town Council approved the audit covering Fiscal Year July 1, 2007 thru June 30, 2008. Councilman Coady participated in this meeting voting to approve the audit with the knowledge that he was controlling a checking account outside of town supervision and audit. Also At this time, I cannot verify whether there have been activities with this account unrelated to the Town of Carefree Recycling Program.
Accordingly I am requesting your office initiate an investigation of this account to determine what, if any, illegal activities have taken place.
Very truly yours,
Wayne Fulcher
Mayor
cc: Town Council, Gary Neiss, Betsy Wise, Tom Chenal/ Sherman and Howard
That the letter was a political hit piece was as obvious as the fact Fulcher was no more than an instrument of the GOBs, driven by partisan zeal and anger at Carefree voters for stuffing him into a run off election.
I read Coady’s bank book and found it to be absolutely straight and above board. There was no misuse of funds whatsoever.
Then Coady was harassed by Attorney Michael Herrod demanding the bank book. Herrod is a Kiwanian who later unsuccessfully offered himself for a judgeship and was not anointed. He just applied to be a judge again. The selection committee is to be praised for keeping their threshold high.
Coady and his attorney met with a Maricopa County Attorney investigator who saw it as a political attack, promised his report would say so and that he would ask County Attorney Andrew Thomas to drop charges.
This response was received by Coady earlier this week:
Maricopa County Attorney
ANDREW F. THOMAS
Wayne Fulcher
36221 N Peaceful Pl.
Carefree, AZ 85337
Dear Mr. Fulcher:
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has investigated MCAO Report 2009-000011. That report listed you as a contact for the Town of Carefree. An attorney has reviewed the report and has made the decision to decline prosecution.
After all of the information available was carefully considered the reviewing attorney determined that the filing of a felony charge was not appropriate. We must be able to prove all elements of a crime "beyond a reasonable doubt." lf we are unable to do so, there is no reasonable likelihood of conviction at trial. For this reason this submittal does not meet the charging standard for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and we are declining prosecution at this time.
Sincerely,
Annielaurie Van Wie
Deputy County Attorney
Special Crimes Bureau
Maricopa County Attorney's Office
CC:
Thomas K Chenal, esq.
7047 East Greenway Parkway
Scottsdale A Z 85254
David B. Smith, esq,
4310 N. 75th Street, Suite A
Scottsdale AZ 85251
The answer was actually a form letter, I have seen them before. It should have said, “We don’t take political cases and we apologize to Councilman Coady for putting him through seven months of tension, but then we didn’t file the complaint, one foot out the door Mayor Wayne Fulcher did.”
Where do angry ex-mayors go? Ed Morgan went to Arkansas and Fulcher joined Kiwanis. Then some kind soul put Fulcher on Cave Creek’s Desert Foothills library board. The requirements to serve the library have diminished, it is sad to say.
So here we are only six days away from the recall election. Based on past results given that voters gave record support to Coady and Peter Koteas, voted to retain two year terms and to vote for direct election of the mayor I would project John Traynor has already won, since over 1000 votes have been cast.
If this is the case, Schwan can join Kiwanis and his friend and advisor Huber Stevens can ask him to serve on our museum board, as Stevens does.
If you haven’t voted yet, consider that John Traynor is 100 percent for making Carefree a better place, and there is plenty of material in Carefree for good councilmen to work with. And he is not controlled by power groups.
We will post the election results online at www.SonoranNews.com on Wednesday, March 10 and for those of you who want to stop by the office, the results will be posted on the front door. Come in and say hello if you have a moment.