DECEMBER 22, 2010
Blaine’s hat • Elections
• Immigration
Those of you who read www.sonorannews.com last week already know Blaine Keith’s hat came home and there is a picture of Blaine with his hat on to prove Christmas came early at Blaine’s, Martha’s and Grace’s hacienda. Thanks to Jim Blean for reading Sonoran News and remembering the hat was there, at his home.
Elections
For the past 17 years or so we have hosted council candidate forums for Cave Creek and Carefree. In Cave Creek we will have the event at Cave Creek town hall. The Carefree Resort and Villas has been asked for a convention suite for the Carefree forum. We will provide dates in the next few editions.
The format will be the same as previous years. Carefree Architect Shelby Wilson will be the master of ceremonies while I keep time for candidate answers to questions from the audience. We hope you will join us.
This will be the first year for mail in ballots in Cave Creek although Carefree has voted that way for a number of years. Cave Creek will mail ballots to about 3,500 voters and Carefree will mail ballots to about 2,600 voters.
Primary elections will be held on March 8, 2011 and ballots will be sent on Feb. 10. Early voting begins on Feb. 10.
Fire protection
Our online survey, although with low participation so far, has results surprising to me.
The question is, “Would you vote for a property tax to fund fire protection in Cave Creek?”
So far 60 voted yes, 28 voted no and three votes are undecided. There were two comments, one con and one pro. Although there are ways to circumvent the poll we can trace voters to their URL to assure there is no double voting.
I have promised to leave the poll online for a while until we get a satisfactory number of votes. So, imagine voting for real and choose a position.
Town Hall provided more data from Rural/Metro which indicated the 60 Cave Creek percent participation numbers I received were old and newer reports indicate a 43 percent participation. Reviewing that report we find it to be incomplete so accurate participation is yet unknown.
There are those who criticize and those who support Carefree’s sales tax method of one percent to pay for fire protection. At $1.3 million fire service represents over 50 percent of the town’s budget and critics argue the overall cost to Carefree has doubled, but they also had less than 50 percent participation. In addition, the town is paying for the fire station and fire engine previously supplied by Rural/Metro.
To thwart that comparison, Cave Creek Town Manager Usama Abujbarah says he would not buy equipment or build a building and would seek bids. He maintains the cost to individual taxpayers would be no more than what they are paying for the Spur Cross Ranch bond. There is that comparison again, which flies in the face of promises made when the north part of town was annexed and the bond was passed.
And his clincher is that the typical home owner would pay only half of the current cost of a Rural/Metro subscription.
What do you think?
Immigration
The Arizona Republic loses no opportunity to praise illegal aliens, which they incorrectly call “migrants.” To that end, on Dec. 12, they published a special report called, “Global Immigration.”
The 16-page report was co-authored by the chief illegal alien propagandist and illegal alien apologist, Daniel Gonzalez. Perhaps to lend credibility, old hand Dan Nowicki was the co-author.
Even though the term, “illegal alien” randomly appeared in the report “migrant” was more commonly used despite it is wholly inaccurate and a non-dictionary interpretation. Illegal aliens are better called crooks, burglars and thieves. After all they broke into our country illegally, use illegal identification and are supported by despicable organizations like LULAC, MALDEF and la Raza.
Organizations who hire them are like the Mafia, doing illegal things to benefit themselves. If they weren’t hired and didn’t get social services they would leave.
Illegal aliens have no compunction about stealing social security identities and using counterfeit identification. In countries like Mexico, where most illegals come from, you would be jailed and fined for what illegals do here.
Yet the Arizona Republic saves its venom for patriots like Russell Pearce, the author of SB 1070. It anticipates huge problems if his promise to eliminate anchor babies passes and is upheld. The time is way overdue to eliminate anchor babies as has the rest of the world but most politicians unfortunately consider it the third rail of politics. Few have the courage and thick skin of Pearce.
Democrats and some Republicans in Washington were racing to give a partial amnesty with the so-called DREAM Act. Others are trying to pass amnesty itself during the lame duck session.
Because Washington continues to wink at border encroachment, the United States has the biggest problem of illegal immigration of any country in the world.
According to the Arizona Republic, the U.S. has 42 million immigrants in the country and an estimated 11.1 million illegals. The estimate is way low according to many, considering that between the year 2000 and 2006, 850,000 illegals broke into the U.S. annually and that doesn’t count the many who overstayed their visa.
But the 16-page expose, country by country, showed an ending to liberal views by many countries where they awaken to the unraveling of their social fabric. There is an increasing interest in Arizona’s SB 1070, tightening of immigration laws and increased enforcement.
Although the demands by Islamists are a serious issue in Europe, it is only beginning to be felt here. Demands by Islamic immigrants to make their religious views part of the legal system where they reside has fueled concerns and it should here as well.
Not only should our border be closed by fences and border patrols, but employers of illegals should be prosecuted harshly. There should be an absolute prohibition on amnesty of any kind. Then ask yourself should anyone trust our government enough to have a guest worker program? With a 30 year history of looking the other way, not only should the borders remain sealed but all immigration should be reduced substantially and be governed by strict regulations regarding who comes here.
