Dear Editor:
Last week, our residents’ group – Carefree Citizens For Responsible Government – filed several hundred signatures to qualify two ballot initiatives meant to reform the Town of Carefree and its elected government. We are looking forward to the upcoming campaigns and to Election Day.
The first measure, the “Good Government Act,” will protect all private property located within Carefree town limits. The campaign gathered nearly 340 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, likely in November 2022. Based on the last election cycle, only 203 signatures are necessary for qualification.
If passed by voters, the Good Government Act would allow the Town to exercise eminent domain to seize private property only after a two-thirds vote of Town Council members and after securing approval by a vote of registered Carefree voters.
Residents from all over Carefree have rallied to support our campaign, which seeks to render null and void the Town’s ill-advised plan to exercise eminent domain to seize land in The Boulders for use as the site of a massive 300,000-gallon industrial water tank to be built literally yards from residents’ homes.
Why did we go to such extraordinary length? In a nutshell, because Town leaders wouldn’t listen to us by choice, so we had to do the work necessary to make them listen. Residents all over Carefree have told us over and over that they’re disturbed by what the Town is doing – suing residents to seize their property – and trying to destroy the desert to jam an enormous water tank beside homes where it doesn’t belong. This measure will put a stop to the politicians’ plan.”
The second initiative measure will amend the Town’s municipal code, invoking term limits for Carefree Council members and the Mayor. Our campaign gathered more than 400 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. Again, only 203 signatures are necessary for a measure to qualify.
Carefree previously had enacted term limits, but that measure was ruled to be unenforceable in court. The new initiative follows the Arizona Legislature’s action to grant towns the legal authority to implement term limits. Members of the Town Council and the Mayor would be limited to two two-year terms in office.
We believe that residents of Carefree have had enough of career politicians and backroom deals. This measure will ensure that no politician builds his own kingdom at Town Hall, and it will give Carefree the opportunity for new vision and new blood. Those are good things and our town needs them.
We will see you at the ballot box.
Maureen “Mo” Benedetto
Chair, Carefree Citizens For
Responsible Government
