Shelby Wilson steals show at candidate’s forum
By Curtis Riggs | February 18, 2009
In Carefree long enough to have an attitude
CAREFREE – The irony of Monday’s Sonoran News Carefree Town Council candidate’s forum is the views of the 10 candidates on election processes and what makes Carefree special were not nearly as strong as forum moderator and prominent Carefree architect Shelby Wilson’s.
In response to candidate Susan Vanik’s assertion that politics are not discussed at Kiwanis Club of Carefree luncheons, Wilson, a former Kiwanis president, responded, “I don’t know much about Kiwanis, but I’ve been there a few times and I think the Kiwanians do talk politics.”
When putting in his two cents in response to Vice Mayor Lloyd Meyer’s comments about the Carefree Water Company, Wilson told about his $100-a-day leaky toilet.
“That’s why we now go outside,” he said about the response to the rates at his house.
“So how many people are here to attack Bob Coady?” he asked at one point when trying to get under the skin of those behind the politic action committees formed to unseat Coady.
He ordered Mayor Wayne Fulcher to “stop that Wayne” when one forum attendee accused the mayor of talking down to her.
Wilson’s strongest opining of the evening came in response to long-time Carefree resident Laura Shutt’s concerns about the large number of Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies who show up at minor traffic stops and make them “spectacles.”
Shutt asserted seeing that many cops tarnishes Carefree’s image.
Wilson agreed and went on to tell about his Canadian friends who won’t return to Carefree because of the police presence.
“It does look like overkill,” he said. His office staff prepares a calendar about where the deputies will locate their speed traps on any given day.
“I don’t think it presents a good image,” he said about the high profile used by MCSO at minor stops.
He told about the time he tried to get to his Camp Creek home just after the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire only to be stopped by a line of deputies toting automatic weapons trying to keep people out of the area.
“My office has been burglarized three times and I never even got a call back from the sheriff’s office,” he said about his frustration with the inconsistent law enforcement.