FEBRUARY 23, 2011
• Cave Creek election
• Carefree election
Elections in Cave Creek and Carefree are so simple this year. Although I deplore the mail in ballots they do make the process easier. Too easy maybe, since showing up on the appointed Tuesday brought out more serious voters, I believe. Won’t you miss the hustle, bustle and energy? I know I will.
Cave Creek is the easiest. Only Alice Kunka expects voters to accept a rookie with no knowledge of town government. We are supposed to sit while she hems and haws without a clue of what to say or how to vote. It was so easy on my mail in ballot to ignore her. On the other hand, as a newspaper guy, it is uncommon to get comedic relief during council meetings. But we have been there and done that.
Kunka is a nice lady who is incredibly optimistic, which is a good thing, but not a viable candidate for council.
The new council will likely have ex-Councilman Thomas McGuire replacing Adam Trenk, who is heading to a lobbyist occupation. It is karmic in view of McGuire’s loss to Trenk with his fickle card draw. However, Trenk’s latest vote to deny a public vote for a property tax, would never have happened with McGuire on council. McGuire is so liberal he lists to the left when he walks.
So the new council in the absence of Trenk and Ralph Mozilo will be decidedly liberal even if Shelly Anderson shows a conservative bent. Sounds like Ernie Bunch and Dick Esser will be lonely.
That is too bad because the council should not accept a property tax. The town liberals are writing an initiative to have a public vote for a property tax, which would be voted on next May. It must be voted down, but so far there hasn’t been much complaint, although there ought to be.
Should we forget town hall promised seventeen times the Spur Cross Ranch (SCR) property tax would be the last in our lovely little town? We know politicians lie but believed them in this case.
Think about it – if the town had approved the resort instead of preserving the area we would now be reaping the rewards of tax. So would Carefree if they had approved Michael Pelloquin’s resort.
So were we fools for believing politicians and activists? Yes, we were dunderheads to listen to the frail promises of politicians. Now we have gone full circle. We saved SCR and the property tax will go away in 2012. But we are still stuck with a .5 percent sales tax in perpetuity to pay for the maintenance and infrastructure of SCR.
Carefree
Carefree is much the same as Cave Creek as far as the elections go. It is a more a question about who not to vote for.
Let us start with the bottom vote getter in the last election – that would be David Schwan. Yet the GOBs managed to vote him in as mayor and convince voters he shouldn’t be recalled. The problem is there has never been a decent mayor so voters never had a good calibration point until Doug Stavoe became available, thanks to Bob Coady’s initiative providing direct vote for mayor rather than appointments chosen by GOBs.
It is notable Schwan was against the direct vote for mayor, against the supermajority vote for property tax and against term limits. He was in favor of four-year terms, which was rejected by voters.
So it will be your choice, not the good old boys of town. Stavoe is a decent, professional hard working family man who has retired from his profession as a pilot but most recently owned and operated Blue Sky Restaurant, later renamed 34 Easy Street. Stavoe has been the butt of dirty tricks and slander by Lyn Hitchon and those who lower themselves to write to her blog. In last week’s Sonoran News Linda Bentley reported that Hollis Pagliaro used her mother’s name although she had been dead since 1996. The things written by the deceased person were called untrue, irresponsible and reckless by Stavoe.
Pagliaro, along with Jo Gimmell of the English Rose Tea Room, also jointly manage the Carefree Business Group, LLC (CBG). They both appear before council and have been provided funding by council – taxpayer money of course. The business owners in Carefree I talked to had no idea about all of this and are furious. What we have here is the council majority funding two women in their camp. What a conflict of interest that is.
The question arises why Schwan, Miller and their followers are listening to these women as representing Carefree business owners. And since they fund the Carefree Chamber, why isn’t the chamber doing it? And why is Lyn Hitchon still a planning commissioner for the town? She is up to her neck in conflicts of interest and lies to justify what the GOB slate does.
So get rid of the sleaze in town and vote in a decent, law abiding, hard working family man the town can be proud of.
Schwan represents the head of the snake in Carefree along with his right fist, Glenn Miller. I told you about mischief after mischief by Miller. Stealing Sonoran News papers, lying to an MCSO official blaming Stavoe for attempts to get Scottsdale police rather than MCSO, when Schwan admitted twice in public it was he who made overtures to Scottdsale.
Then, according to town employees, Miller demanded that an employee at the water company be fired (he argued for a volunteer fire department) and that was before officials found he had called Bob Coady on the company cell phone. The employee is interviewing labor lawyers as we speak and he has a great case, whistle blower, age related termination and more. Did you know he is the only water company employee living in Carefree and was always the first to show up for emergencies?
So there you are! Two to fire and clean up Carefree. With Stavoe at the helm and Miller gone, a bright new day will dawn for lovely Carefree!
