Let’s buck the tide
We have not had an opportunity to make such a meaningful contribution to our Cave Creek lifestyle since we came together to save Spur Cross Ranch 10 years ago. Voting yes on Propositions 400 and 401 lets us once again buck the tide of well-intentioned – but misguided – interventionists who would have us believe we can maintain our safe, well-managed environment with no effort and no guaranteed revenue stream.
The approval of the General Plan Amendment and rezoning of the 20 acres southeast of the Carefree Hwy/Cave Creek Rd. intersection, will allow the most successful retailer in America to contribute the largest amount of sales tax revenue per acre foot of any business in town – without a single negative impact on any of our existing businesses. This revenue will allow us to meet our normal infrastructure growth and maintenance needs without imposing a property tax, and will help ensure the acquisition and permanent preservation of the 4000 acres of open space we recently annexed.
The consequences of pushing Home Depot away from that location are obvious in hindsight: the lights eat up the night sky and the heat off the enormous footprint rolls out every evening; with no compensatory revenue stream. Walmart, adhering to Cave Creek’s environmentally sensitive building codes, will not repeat any of these offensive practices. They will create a business that exceeds the strictest national “green” building guidelines, while providing us with an “in-town” source of groceries, necessities and sales tax revenue. Walmart is not only the good neighbor we need, it is exactly the kind of neighbor we all should want.
Carole Perry | Cave Creek
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Please vote “yes”
Proposition 400 and 401 are on the ballot because Walmart purchased the 20.5 acres south of Carefree Highway and east of Cave Creek Road to build a store.
Residents of Cave Creek should support both propositions. A retail store will increase the sales tax revenues the Town needs to remain fiscally sound, which is the only way the Town can continue to support open space, the trails system, streetscape, and the other aspects of our community that makes it so unique. By allowing a store to be built on this property we will finally have a grocery store in Cave Creek, something many residents have wanted for years. It will employ 200 to 300 people, which we need during these difficult economic times. In addition, we need a corporate citizen who will financially support the community and its activities, such as the Film and Arts Festival. The store will be in the same area as Home Depot and Lowe’s, so the Town Core will remain unchanged.
Please vote “Yes” on Proposition 400 and 401 and help the Town preserve its unique nature.
Gabe Royer | Cave Creek
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National Healthcare
Wake up America!!
All Americans who want Nationalized Health Care should be careful of what they wish for, they just might get it. I just spoke to my friend in Montreal who was finally treated for inflammatory breast cancer in March, after a 5 month wait. After all her treatments (chemo, radical mastectomy of both breasts and radiation), they just took X-rays and found nodules around her thyroid. Could this have been caused by a long wait for treatment? We will never know. Now guess when she will get the results of these X-rays: in approximately 3 weeks if she’s lucky. This happens in a province of approximately 6 million people. What do you think will happen in a country of 300 million??? You will get the nightmare that you didn’t wish for!! All these promises during a campaign sound very good and well, however has anybody lived in a country that has this health care system? Do they know how it really works? People in a National Health Care System accept it because they are now used to it and don’t expect anything else. For them it is the norm. But whenever I talk to my friends and family in Canada, they do not praise that system, they just accept it and many are disillusioned by it. That’s the way it is they say and that’s that. Is this what we want? No choices available, and long waiting lists for surgeries and doctor appointments? And by the way, surgeons are limited to how many surgeries they can do per month. Another friend’s surgery was postponed again because her surgeon had reached his quota. Usually Americans make their own choices. Right now the choice will be made for you if this plan goes forward.
E. Zanella | Desert Hills
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Palin Death Panels only an exaggeration
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post Writers Group has revealed his ignorance of economics by joining the chorus of critics blasting Sarah Palin for her Death Panels comment. To understand this reality you only have to stop for a moment and reflect on a basic fact of economics; if you have a finite good like quality health care and an increasing demand from people getting sick, then at least some of the most expensive health care services (heart transplants, kidney transplants, etc) must be rationed, either by price or by the private providers or by a government bureaucrat. It may be an exaggeration to characterize the rationing by a government bureaucrat as a Death Panel but only a fool would suggest that there is any other logical outcome.
Roy Miller | Phoenix
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August 19 Bentley article
I am amazed at the facts presented and the insight received from the facts in her article, The Color Of Communism on Aug. 19. It has truly opened my eyes to what is really going on outside the focus of the public’s attention. It is frightening to any true citizen of the United States who wants America to stay a free, capitalist society.
The “shadow cabinet” really rings true as those who are in the appointed and confirmed cabinet are most likely figureheads who are just fronts and puppets to carry out what this administration wants, and they are of little value otherwise. To the White House, the Czars who were never confirmed and about whom most people know very little, are the ones who are implementing the major changes that will not be brought to full light until an appropriate time - when it will be too late. We are seeing the dismantling of “your father’s America,” and you soon will not recognize it if it is not stopped.
Please thank Linda Bentley for her article.
I am a registered, voting voter and citizen of Arizona, USA; which may once again be known as the Arizona Territory. However, I am not sure that would give any kind of real protection from what is coming if it is not turned and soon.
Norma Reynolds | E-mail
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Bootleg Medicine
Few of you can recall living during the Prohibition period in the U.S. The time was 1916 and the culmination of nearly a century of Prohibition movements were finally having their way. Religious groups considered alcohol, or at least, drunkenness, “A national curse.”
So almost half the states – 23 out of 48 – had adopted anti-saloon legislation. Many states prohibited the manufacture of alcoholic beverages as well and by January 1919 the states ratified the 18th Amendment which placed a national ban on the manufacture and transportation of intoxicating liquor. Enforcement was difficult until the Volstad Act of 1919 passed and gave the federal agents freedom to investigate and prosecute and further defined the law. Rather than curbing the consumption of alcohol it opened the way for organized crime and some cities and politicians actually flaunted the law and took advantage of the scarcity of alcohol and profited from that. Bootlegging became big business but not for the government but rather for the criminals. Cities like Miami in Dade County, Florida were open for business as usual under criminal elements. Criminals like Al Capone in Chicago became household names. The government lost control and the taxes that went with alcohol sales and by 1933 the “noble experiment” was over and the passage of the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition was ratified with 93 percent voting in favor of repeal. So much for the attempt to replace a problem by creating new laws to abolish it. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.
The establishment of a government run health care system is “needed” to correct the many flaws in our current system. The flaws are minor compared to the many controls, government expenses and inefficiencies that go with a complete makeover. It’s one thing to improve the system by identifying the problems and finding solutions. It’s quite another thing to create a whole new way of processing health care coverage. Prohibition didn’t work because it was an overkill and went too far. People resisted and did what they wanted under new management. A major healthcare reform will also fail because people will not give up their current system which works for them and their family. If need be there will be a whole new industry sprung up called Bootleg Medicine and it will flourish. The only question is who will control it. Certainly not the government if they mandate a government run health care system. Private health care will be against the law. Instead of experimenting with people’s right to consume alcohol we are now experimenting with people’s right to get the best health care for them and their families. Does anyone wonder why people are mad. I understand it and I know that people will not accept it and they will openly defy it. Is this just another example of people being pushed too far or what? I believe that anything other that Tort reform and extending open competition from health care providers that crosses state borders is DOA. What do you think?
Charles Salisbury | E-mail
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Attention Arizona and all bikers
To all Arizona Motorcycle riders: Every year, bikers as a community, band together to help several charities raise funds, food and toys for the needy in Arizona. We bring toys, turkeys and even donate cash to these organizations without ever asking the question, “Where are our donations going?”
It’s sad to say that a large percentage ends up in the hands of illegal aliens and their anchor babies! That means we are supporting the very problem we are trying to rid this country of, illegal aliens!
As we approach the season of giving, please stop and consider what your donations and efforts could do for the families of American citizens and especially the families of our active duty military! These are the families that need your help! Mothers and fathers deployed and overseas leave a big hole in the family unit! Income is often reduced drastically and the hardship of separation makes for long lonely days and nights for both spouses and children left to continue their daily lives.
I, for one, will never again participate in any charity event that cannot assure me that my donations are going ONLY to American citizens, and the families of our military! I would also ask each and every one of you, to ask the tough questions of promoters and groups who ask for your donations. Then be willing and have the guts to tell them NO, tell them why and put your wallet away and head for another ride.
With our faltering economy comes a responsibility to look out for our families, friends and other LEGAL neighbors, who’s ancestors fought and died to create the greatest country on earth, in less than 250 years. The only thing we owe illegal aliens is a boot in the ass! They owe us for over 30 years of mooching off of America!
Contact the local military bases, veteran’s organizations and veteran support groups NOW! Ask how you can help them for the holidays. As a member of RidersUSA, I have helped to create an annual Christmas party for the Veterans Home in Phoenix, the annual Flags for our Fallen event on Memorial Day at the Veterans cemetery, gotten involved with Packages from Home and participated in many events that benefit our troops and their families. I support AMERICANS! I implore you to do the same. Show the world we are united behind OUR citizens, first and foremost!
Live and ride free, or Die!
Buffalo Rick Galeener | Phoenix
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Health care
Its time for the people of Arizona to stop asking, “What’s in it for me?” and DO THE RIGHT THING!!!!
The public option for health care is the RIGHT thing for so many of the people who cannot get their own insurance.
We cannot allow the richest people in the world to spend $500 billion a year for illegal drugs and $0 dollars to keep our country healthy. This is a matter of priorities. I choose the people of our country. Obviously, your paper does not.
Dr. Andrea Freed-Krehbiel | Scottsdale
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Fuzzy math again???
As a U.S. citizen, I am extremely concerned about healthcare reform. I completely agree that something needs to be done to help those that need help. However, the cost of reform can’t be saddled on the backs of small business owners and struggling, already burdened, lawful taxpayers.
The original objective was to help those who don’t currently have health insurance. We need to focus on the U.S. citizens in need not on the whole. Washington is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
FACTS:
• Currently, 47 million are without insurance because: They can not qualify for it, they are unwilling to buy it or they feel it is too expensive.
• With the plan coming from Washington 30 MILLION WILL STILL BE UNISURED.
• That is a net increase of 17 million new insured people with an additional $1.4 trillion cost, billed to small businesses and taxpayers.
• Let us not forget the illegal aliens. They will also qualify under the National Plan as they did with the Cash for Clunkers Program.
Okay here comes the math, hold on!
New cost of the plan, divided by 17 million new insured people equals cost per new insured:
$1,400,000,000,000 divided by 17,000,000 equals $82,352,000,000 ($82 billion for each new insured).
Now with that kind of money, each new insured could buy a top of the line policy and still have billions left over to spend!
What we need are more affordable insurance options and a simpler way to shop for insurance – not new taxes that my business can’t afford. Congress needs to create an “UNINSURABLE” program and leave those of us alone that have and like our current options, and develop legislation that makes things better, not worse for Americas job creators.
On a personal note: I OWN MY BODY, I do not want to be forced to hand it over to our unfortunately inept government and pay them for it in more taxes!!!!
Beth Merrett | Carefree
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Czar of truth
Nostradamus holds no advantage over George Orwell in predicting our future. Sixty years ago Orwell saw with the clarity lacking in today’s media.
The BO White House has announced the appointment of one Cass Sunstein to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a wing of the OMB. This is clearly the seed-stock of Orwell’s infamous Ministry of Truth.
“I do not believe that the kind of society I describe (in 1984) necessarily WILL arrive, but I believe ... that something resembling it COULD arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere.”
– George Orwell
Randy Edwards | E-mail
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Hospice care under Glorious Leader
The latest news focus has been how we seniors must depart the scene. Barack’s contribution? His final solution: We’ll end up as low-cal “Soylent Green!”
J-P. A. Maldonado | Phoenix
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