We need to face reality

Toby Payne | Cave Creek

We need to face reality in Cave Creek. The Carefree Hwy will be developed as a Commercial corridor. We can continue giving the tax dollars to Phoenix as we did with Home Depot or to Carefree as they have Lowes. The city of Phoenix has requested that Cave Creek not develop (Zone) the Commercial Core on the north of Carefree Road at 24th St. just so they can make the south side commercial and then they would get the taxes.

Just east of the Walmart property, right now under construction is the YMCA, community center and the first phase of the community college campus which by the way is in Scottsdale. Initially, there will be 800+ students and eventually 3,000-4,000. The college district bought the land 10 years ago and extends from 56th to 60th St. on Carefree Hwy. I do think a properly designed Walmart Center would be a great thing for the town. Is it realistic to expect "Low Density Residential" to continue any where near Carefree Highway?

Growing up in central Phoenix, we never thought development would occur in the vacant desert north of Indian School! Growth is inevitable. As a community we need to look at the BIG PICTURE in order for Cave Creek to offer the open space and desert preservation such as Spur Cross, the trails and our western town core there is a price to pay; it does not come free. Do we want higher property taxes or do we wish to receive the retail sales taxes that Phoenix and Carefree have already found benefits them? When I moved to Cave Creek, having lived in Arizona all of my life, I could see that Carefree Hwy was a major highway and would be commercial. I elected to not buy near it. Just look at the new stoplights going in on Carefree Highway now.

The handwriting is on the wall. Let's empower our Mayor, Council and town planners to take advantage of these opportunities as they are presented; to facilitate the process on our terms on behalf of the entire community, and be visionaries of Cave Creek's future!

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Response to Thomas Klingaman

Jim Peirce | Carefree

What follows is a response to Thomas Klingaman’s recent letter listing Carefree Council “accomplishments”:

(1) The town center was changed at a cost of over $5 million from an area with barely adequate parking to one that is cluttered and without adequate parking. Many businesses are struggling and the rental vacancy rate is high. The small bank closed recently. The proposed Lewis Easy Street project threatens to destroy any character.
(2) The town pays for the “free” amphitheater entertainment. Due to the town’s financial condition the concert schedule has been cut back. Other than for a few annual functions, residents rarely use the facility. The area is a ghost town after dark.
(3) The restrooms are locked and unavailable much of the time.
(4) What Mr. Klingaman describes as an “attractive” fire station is, in fact, an eyesore not in keeping with Carefree and which almost exclusively serves calls in Scottsdale.
(5) The town bought a virtually worthless water company for millions issuing 7 percent non-callable municipal bonds resulting in absurdly high water rates to pay principal and interest.
(6) The issue of rezoning the northwest corner of Carefree Highway and Tom Darlington occurred only because Mayor Morgan refused to place an initiative on the ballot that would have eliminated the possibility of a special use permit there for a resort. Legal fees to defend against the special use permit application cost the town more than $1 million.
(7) The northwest corner of Cave Creek Rd. and Carefree Highway was rezoned from residential to commercial over objections from the neighborhood and despite a referendum against the change. The commercial zoning has provided an opportunity for Walmart to enter the area in Cave Creek, that was never consulted about the Carefree rezoning.
(8) The recycling program was started and run by Councilman Coady, who had little support and no interest on the part of the rest of the council.
(9) The Carefree Conference Resort is again in bankruptcy.
(10) I will not dispute that there was, “Most recently, an energetic and happy Christmas parade around the downtown.”
(11) The Lewis project, now years behind schedule, may never go ahead and, if completed, is highly unlikely to look much like the original grandiose proposal.
(12) The current town budget was hidden from the public at the April so-called “budget workshop.” Most councilmen know little or nothing about the budget’s contents. The water company manager wants to begin annual water price increases.

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An open letter to all Congressional Members

Ernie Bunch | Cave Creek

Help me understand "Cap and Trade." I want to be a good American, I really do! But tell me, how can raising taxes, making everything I do more expensive, help the environment?

You and the media tell me that CO2 is bad and we must do something. Have you looked at the atmospheric CO2 numbers yourself? The 1832 ice core samples showed 284 parts per million of CO2 in the air. In 2007 the reading was 384 parts per million. I'm not exactly alarmed by these numbers, and certainly not alarmed enough to send another $1500 per year average to the Federal Government.

You see, charging us more for fuel and electricity is doing nothing to lower atmospheric CO2. It will only slow the rate at which this number increases.

You say electric cars are the answer? Well where is our electricity generated? The only truly clean and affordable electricity comes from hydroelectric plants. But we certainly can't dam any more rivers – that would be a travesty! Nuclear power costs less than one penny per kilowatt hour to produce, but we can't have that. It's not popular.

That's why almost every new power plant built in America is natural gas. But wait … isn't natural gas a fossil fuel? Doesn't that add CO2?

So now we're going to change to wind and solar. I've read that the generation cost for solar is in excess of 10 cents per kilowatt hour and also that we'll have to expand power grids to reach the generating sites for solar and wind. So we're putting up more poles, wires, and acquiring rights of way to expand this grid. How can you possibly justify supporting this when it hasn't been thought through?

On this issue there should be an historic bipartisan effort to defeat this Idiotic TAX. When the National Weather Service can't without a doubt tell us if it will or will not rain 38 days from tomorrow, how can we believe that 100 more parts per million of CO2 is reason to tax us into the poor house?

We know this is a tax, have known it is a tax, and will recognize it as a tax, no matter what you call it. Shouldn't we in fact be looking for ways to reduce atmospheric CO2? OH wait – third grade science class!!! Don't plants store CO2 and give off oxygen? Now that is truly a green solution.

If I sound like a smartass, then so be it. It's certainly better than being a dumbass who supports "Cap and Trade!"

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Affliction of the Left

Fred Groszkruger | Carefree

There is no wisdom on the left, no rational or critical thinking. There is only emotion. All arguments from the left are feelings-based, not logic or rational-thinking based. Rational arguments don't usually work on liberals, or hard-left-thinking, people. Otherwise there would be no leftist thinking people. Die-hard leftists, I've always maintained, are left-brain challenged. That is, they have a physical disability in that the hemispheres of their brains do not communicate the way nature intended. The right brain is clearly dominant. There could be an electrical problem with the corpus callosum hand-off of impulses between the right and left hemispheres, or with the axon-dendrite-synapse transfer of chemical/electrical signals. Or perhaps the problem lies in a defective amygdala ... I don't know, but there is definitely something that makes the world and fellow-citizen views of these people quite different from their counterparts on the right, and the views of whom are mostly indefensible, from a rational analysis basis.

As an example, conservative, or politically-minded people who embrace right-thinking philosophies, have 99 percent of what are commonly referred to as "think tank" organizations, such as The Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute, etc.

There are very few, if any, of what you would call "activists" on the right. Conversely, there are few, if any, leftist "think tanks." One could conclude from this that a “leftist think-tank” is an oxymoron. But leftists clearly dominate the ranks of the political and environmental cultism activists. I believe this accuracy serves to validate the concept that leftist equals emotion and feelings, whereas conservative, or "rightist" equals logical and rational thought.

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An end to negative politics in Carefree?

Councilman Bob Coady | Carefree

My sincere thanks to all of you that voted for me in this past election. Your overwhelming support for me and my positions are very much appreciated. As I have always said “this is all about you, the citizens.” Unfortunately, once again negative politics infected Carefree elections. This time, while all of the candidates remained above the mudslinging, political action committees more than made up for it.

Caring About Carefree, a PAC funded and supported by Gary Hayward, Irmgard Hayward, Hugh Stevens, David Schwan and most sadly the Kiwanis Club of Carefree Benefit Foundation, sent out mailings to our citizens accusing me of misappropriation of recycling funds.

After the primary election, the witch hunt continued. A lawyer, Michael Herrod, who lives in Scottsdale, but is a member of the Carefree Kiwanis, made a document request for any and all records from both the Town and myself, pertaining to recycling. Needless to say, this was a great deal of work for not only me, but our Town Clerk as well. This compilation is now completed.

So far, Mr. Herrod has refused to name the client he is representing. Whoever he is, he is most certainly no friend to Carefree. Mr. Herrod’s main interest is the Carefree/Cave Creek joint bank account for recycling. This particular account is what the Caring About Carefree PAC alleged to be “the smoking gun.”

I believe that the results of the past election have proven that the PACs attempts to manipulate our Carefree citizens in how they choose to vote has come to an ignominious end.

Since I had to gather all these documents together, I have decided that all of our citizens, should they decide, have the right to view this bank account data also. To that end I have placed it on my web site www.BobCoady.com. The bank account has been closed out now that recycling has ended in Carefree, but every penny is accountable as the bank statements prove.

Quite honestly, Carefree has more important issues to deal with. Let’s consign this garbage to the permanent trash bin. It isn’t even worthy of recycling.

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Scottsdale proposal would allow 100,000 planes

Bob Popow | Ironwood Village Homeowner & Resident | Scottsdale

For your information and as an update as to what potentially could happen to increase the weight limits at Scottsdale Airport to allow larger planes to use the Airport.

I, as an Ironwood Village Homeowner and Resident (some IV Homeowners do not actually live in Ironwood Village ... I do!) am opposed to raising this weight restriction and would obviously be opposed to Scottsdale Airport moving towards "Scheduled" Commercial Service. I have made this known for many years and it's time for a lot more people to voice these concerns.

Scottsdale Airport is a "Land-Locked" Airport because past City Councils along with past Mayors have opted for residential development completely around Scottsdale Airport as a means to raise revenues (taxes). That is the choice that was made and now the Mayor, City Council, and Airport Management all need to learn how to be good neighbors to us surrounding communities and live with "what they've got!" None of the residential communities surrounding Scottsdale Airport are going away ... so the Airport just needs to live "within it's boundaries" and within the restrictions that have been placed on it. Some of which are to protect us ... the surrounding communities.

As many of you know, the Arizona Republic, without any input from us whatsoever (they do not publish my opposing letters to the editor) has been publicizing this as a "good thing for Scottsdale and the Airport." Of course ... it's all only about MONEY. We should make our voices heard in whatever manner possible – E-mails to the Scottsdale City Council, Mayor, and City Manager would certainly be one way to do that. ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected]) Any other means that you might have would be effective as well.

If you sit back and do nothing ... then don't complain when the jets get bigger, noisier, and the frequency of planes landing and taking off gets expanded!

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Editorial Reply

John G. Ford | Citizen of Cave Creek

Don: I would like to respond to the your Editorial in May 13, 2009 edition of Sonoran News. I first would like to offer my personal opinion to this editorial as someone who represents his own beliefs. First I would like to support the comment that I am an employee of Southwest Ambulance which is owned by Rural/Metro Corporation. I personally do not understand why my employment is a factor with this election as I am making a personal decision as a citizen of Cave Creek and in no way am doing this in response to my employment. I truly believe I would be able to voice my opinion as a citizen without having to worry that retribution will be placed on my employer. I have only voiced my personal opinion to who I believe will be the best representative of me and my family for the future of Cave Creek which I have proudly called home since 1969.

I understand that I may not agree with everything Sonoran News writes each week but I support the views Don and his staff write in this paper that is a part of this town I live in. I would only request that I have earned the same respect for the personal views I have voiced. I am in no way associated with any group in the town and my opinions are mine and only mine. I believe I have earned the right to voice them as any other citizen in this great town have earned.

I have made clear who I support in the runoff for the Town of Cave Creek Council and that is Jim Bruce and Adam Trenk. I have supported Jim Bruce from before he made his decision to become a candidate and through this entire election cycle. I also have decided to support Adam Trenk because I do believe he wants to do what is best for the town of Cave Creek.

This decision may not have been received well by everyone but I think that Adam truly cares about this town and age should not be a factor in this process. I faced this same obstacle when I was young in this community and promised I would never let this happen to another strong representative of our community. I have listened to all those that ran for the office of council and Mayor and after the first election Vince, Ernie, Ralph and Steve got elected as I had hoped but Jim and Adam did not. Now I am only continuing to support Jim and Adam.

Don, I appreciate your opinion and I hope that you will support my right to voice my opinion. Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

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Can the president overturn the decision of the court?

Jack C. McVickers | Scottsdale

President Obama has guaranteed the American public that he will not permit any Gitmo inmates to be free on U.S. soil. How can he guarantee this? What if an inmate is found innocent by a jury for lack of evidence and the judge orders his release? Does Obama really believe that he has the power to overturn the decision of the jury and judge? But more importantly, why are the media and the members of Congress not calling him to task on this?

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Enemy combatants

Wes Cooper | Cave Creek

Since Mr. Obama wants to relocate the enemy combatants from Gitmo into the U.S., I recommend those enemy combatants be sent to Hollywood, where Mr. Obama's staunch supporters will undoubtedly welcome them with open arms. Barbara Streisand, Alec Baldwin and the ilk will certainly want to step forward and ensure their new neighbors are well provided for.

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