My View
BY DON SORCHYCH | NOVEMBER 27, 2013
Trenkster’s hangman’s noose
This morning, Wednesday, Nov. 27, Susan Clancy and Hani Saba picked up the paperwork required to form a political action committee (PAC) for the purpose of initiating a recall. The PAC will be identified as Cave Creek Caring Citizens.
Propaganda in the philosophy of Herr Goebbels has been going on for a while by Vice Mayor Trenk and Mayor Vincent Francia. Most recently an online propaganda voice for the slate published an Adam “Trenkster” Trenk editorial. Of course, Trenkster blamed me for all the ills of the town with no mention that he is largely responsible for a three million dollar lawsuit against the town. Add attorney fees and the personal liability Trenkster and his bobble head slate face and the number goes up substantially.
If you read last week’s Sonoran News you found two diametrically opposed views of the town government’s lack of progress, by Trenkster who is the master controller of the slate and the mayor, in Guest Editorials by Steve LaMar and Hani Saba. LaMar and Saba are factual while Trenkster views the world through his self-absorbed prism. He doesn’t have a clue of the accomplishments during Former Town Manager Usama Abujbarah’s fourteen years and the town’s excellent progress. Nor does Francia understand it was Abujbarah who got him his unearned reputation, not his fast fingers.
Trenkster was invited to preach and tell a fictitious story by none other than Sara Vannucci, who has an interesting background as an attorney. She gave him 1,885 words to damn me and Sonoran News. We are careful to print editorials based on fact, not the fancy of a rookie with little knowledge of the history of this town. Obviously Vannucci is the propagandist, not Sonoran News.
I had a chat with former Councilman Dick Esser the other day and he is furious about two statements attributed to him by the Trenkster. Esser’s answer to the allegations by the Trenkster will be in the Dec. 4 issue.
Trenk wrote, “Last week I had coffee with former Councilman Dick Esser, and he confirmed that Abujbarah’s firing was long overdue for a litany of reasons (too bad he never had the courage to say it publicly).”
I have talked to Esser for years and he never said that, and as far as I could tell he was an Abujbarah supporter. But Esser will elaborate in his article.
Then Trenk wrote, “The old guard also worked to sweep previous town manager’s mistakes under the rug, forking over millions of taxpayer's dollars to Herb Thompson (who was friends with Councilman Esser)…”
That is completely false; Esser’s relationship with Thompson was simply a business one where Esser paid Thompson to replace an air conditioning compressor, period.
However the Trenkster avoided the real problem, which was his supporter Kim Brennan, who while serving on council was Thompson’s realtor, told Thompson what to charge the town for the property in question, a clear conflict of interest and possibly illegal as well. He also didn’t mention his friend Brennan violated open meetings laws twice while she was on council and that is why I brought those facts to the public’s attention. Elsewhere in his rant he claimed I criticized Brennan and Grace Meeth because they criticized Abujbarah. Meeth is another story. She went from a pretty good council woman to trying to force a restrictive government on citizens; my comments had nothing to do with the town manager. Just as the Trenkster distorted Esser’s comments and history, he does it about everyone he disagrees with. Let us remember he is from New Jersey and if you ever read about New Jersey he is playing the politics he grew up with. His history with this town is limited while I have been in Cave Creek since 1990. This newspaper has been in business since Feb. 1995. Trenk, his slate and easy-switch mayor are a huge blight on the town and that is widely recognized.
His revenge about who knows what has driven him to try to destroy the best town manager we have ever had. Unfortunately not only will he pay a price but so will the town. He even had the temerity to send an email calling down a critic of his actions and telling him Abujbarah would never sue. So that action engineered by the Trenkster is monumental compared to accomplishments he bragged about. The things he called improvements will prove to be steps backward. For instance in his Vannucci-driven 1,885 word missive, the Trenkster claims the sellout of our court to Carefree will save us money. That is laughable. They based the decision on budgets and not actual costs and I believe the slate will pay negatively with voters by making Cave Creek citizens subordinate to a Carefree judge.
During the last council meeting, where the council extended Rodney Glassman’s employment for a month, the council ignored three of their supporters. Bob Moore, Scott Dahne and Everret Bell spoke against the added cost, but they were ignored by the slate-driven council. It makes no sense to keep Glassman around since he is spending an inordinate amount of taxpayer money and is no help in hiring a town manager.
The Trenkster bragged about articles appearing in the L.A. Times, News York Times and USA Today that were free advertisements for the town when they tried to pit Francia against Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane’s registered trademark of “The West’s Most Western Town.” Anyone with any common sense recognizes Cave Creek’s juvenile attempt was destined to fail, and it did.
Francia is so western he borrowed Trenk’s cowboy hat in an attempt to appear western. I wonder who Trenk borrowed the hat from?
So they were alone in the parking lot with maybe 20 bystanders and Scottsdale ignored the infantile embarrassment. Really something to brag about in their six month sojourn?
There is so much, much more but we will save it for the recalls.
