Adios
My last 51 years in the Desert Foothills are coming to an end.
When we drove up Cave Creek Road in early 1960 I said, “This is where we’ll live,” and never regretted it for a moment.
My first visit to the Cave Creek Post Office was pivotal. I met Betty Van Wyck who was President of the Cave Creek Mothers’ Club. She invited me to a meeting that afternoon and I left there having promised to open a kindergarten in my home in the fall. That soon lead to a very full life of community work in the Cave Creek Improvement Association and the Mothers’ Club.
One of the results was the 17-mile Desert Foothills Scenic Drive. The Cave Creek Road section was wiped out when the county widened Cave Creek Road to four lanes, but most of the Scottsdale portion remains intact. We didn’t think big enough when we only designated 100 feet on either side of the road.
The Cave Creek Mothers’ Club development of a kindergarten program soon resulted in the school board incorporating it into the public school system.
There have been many exciting events in these years. One day is worth relating:
One of our residents, Elinor Radke, a recognized bird expert, called to say some men were trapping Harris hawks in our area, taking them to California to sell to falconers. Very much a “no-no.”
The word went out across the valley and a “hot-line” was set up. Hube Yates reported a live rabbit staked out near his stables on Grapevine to entice hawks to the trap. Ellés Jones and I took that apart. Lou Formon, the deputy sheriff at the time, was on the watch too. We knew the hawkers had captured some and finally word came that some men were caught at the California border with their prey. These were recovered and since then, I’ve not heard of any more evidence of hawkers in our area.
I’m confident that the people in the area will continue to treasure the national flora and fauna as Curt and I have done. It’s in your hands.
I’m off on my next adventure – living with my kids.
Count your blessings.
Adios,
Corky Cockburn
“Citizens for Sustainable Fire Protection” should be called “Citizens for a Welfare Society”
I just received the latest flyer in the mail from the “Citizens for Sustainable Fire Protection.”
For those of you that don’t know, they are the “Vote Yes on Question 1” PAC.
Their flyer states “STOP the Freeloading” and “Bad for Freeloaders.” You see, the Vote Yes contingent wants you to believe that some Cave Creekers are getting a free ride. THAT’S SIMPLY NOT TRUE!
Many years ago I learned a concept in an Economics class called TANSTAAFL or “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” I’m here to tell you that there are no freeloaders in Cave Creek.
I’m offended at being called a freeloader because I don’t subscribe to Rural/Metro and have chosen to “self-insure” against fire. If I have a fire, it’s not a “free lunch”; I get a bill from Rural/Metro. That bill could be $1,000, $10,000, or $25,000, but it’s a bill that I must pay for Rural/Metro’s services. The subscribers are not offsetting my coverage, they just want us to pay for part of their fees, no different than welfare, food stamps, the bank bailout, and the rest of the tax and spend welfare type programs that have turned the United States from the leader of the free world to a third world bankrupt economy.
As far as I know, we still live in a democratic society where we get to make certain choices on our own, such as who we want to do business with and if we want to self-insure. The Yes PAC wants to take away that democratic ability of an individual to choose and wants to tax us and force us to do business with Rural/Metro. Maybe they should all move to one of those Middle Eastern countries where there is no freedom of choice. I think the fire service is free there. I’ll even help them all pack.
As in all political campaigns, when it turns to mud-slinging and lies, you know that they have nothing left to back their argument and so turn to attacking the other side. Just like Washington politics, you should vote for the side that throws out real facts, not mud.
VOTE NO ON QUESTION 1 and keep tax and spend welfare politics out of Cave Creek.
Scott Dahne
Cave Creek
Fighting for their lives
“We are fighting for our lives down here,” yell the Arizona border sheriffs.
As you move nearer and cross the mainstream media’s wall of propaganda and silence, you hear the facts.
“Things are just going from bad to worse now that our own federal government has sided with the criminals instead of law enforcement,” says Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.
The ACLU and its harassing lawyers use millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to launch lawsuits against Arizona sheriffs.
Sheriff Dever says we can help by supporting the Arizona Border Sheriff’s Project. Their support has meant so much to him and his family. “I don’t know what I could do without [it].”
To mail a contribution:
The Border Sheriff’s Project,
P.O. Box 27879,
Tucson, AZ 85726-7879.
We can also vote officials who won’t enforce the law out of office. Let’s unelect them. Vote them out!
Arden Druce
Camp Verde
Making sense of it
During the May 1, 2012 Carefree town council meeting I directed what I believed to be a simple, straightforward question to Councilman Martin Saltzman, Esq.: Do you think Vice Mayor Price violated the Open Meeting Law when, prior to the April council meeting, she telephoned all the other councilmen to talk about four-year staggered terms for council members?
Here is his response, word for word:
“One final. I’m not going to debate the legality of it. That’s why we have counsel. In my opinion we are all expressing lay people’s versions of this, even council members. I look to the town lawyer and I ask “is it or isn’t it?” Either it is or it isn’t. And I sort of always resent the implication that when a lawyer will say, “look, I have now researched it. It is OK. It wasn’t a problem.”
“And people not willing to let go of that and looking for some nefarious kind of, you know, to what end I don’t know, but that’s it. And if I don’t announce. And I also resent the fact that someone is telling me that if I don’t say something that they are going to impute something to my silence. The heck you will. So.”
I couldn’t make any sense of that. So I downloaded from the Internet a Jabberwocky - English translation program. I typed in what Councilman Saltzman had said. Here is what the program generated:
“It is obvious that the vice mayor violated the law, but I better not say so because that would upset the mayor. And I want to move up to mayor some day and don’t want to hurt my chances. So I’ll just dance around like Muhammad Ali and hide behind the second of the town attorney’s two answers to the question. I’ll also sound as indignant as possible and hope nobody notices that I am dodging going on record about the vice mayor’s legal violation.”
I have no idea how reliable the Jabberwocky - English program is. But that is what it came up with.
Jim Peirce
Carefree
Bucket Brigade
I would like to join the vocal chorus in voting “NO” on a property tax for sustainable fire protection in Cave Creek.
I agree that additional studies could have been conducted possibly uncovering the best alternative means of fire protection harkening back to the early days of the old west and Cave Creek’s heritage as a wild west town, the “BUCKET BRIGADE”. A method important in firefighting before the advent of hand pumped fire engines, whereby firefighters would pass buckets to each other to extinguish a blaze.
How did a town which prides itself on keeping Cave Creek Cave Creek even consider something as foreign and bureaucratic as a property tax anyways?
When we can rely on Cave Creek (literally-when it is running) and our neighbors to fend off fires. Every citizen of Cave Creek could purchase their OWN 5 gallon bucket at Walmart (keeping it local), because we would not want to involve the local town government in the allocation of resources. Then when a fire is detected an appointed 55 percent free rider could run to the old Rural Metro fire station and ring a giant cow bell, alerting the town of imminent danger. Citizens could then bring their buckets and begin forming a line at Cave Creek in SPUR CROSS, another government boondoggle, protecting open space for future generations with OUR tax dollars. Alternatively as a last resort, public Town of Cave Creek water could be used (which is more expensive because it must be tested for public safety and the fact that we live in a desert). All 4,951 cave creek citizens can then assist in putting out the blaze by forming a giant water bucket brigade. Hopefully, everyone is friendly with their neighbor because we are in this one together or living at your house after ours burns down.
So I ask the 45 percent that currently pay subscriptions for fire service in Cave Creek to vote “NO” on question 1. That way when no one pays for fire service we will truly live in the wild west! Yipee Ki Yea Mother Bucket!
James Hartman
Cave Creek
Students forbidden to pee at Cactus Shadows High School
CSHS management staff is at it again! Recently, we received a voice mail from Steve Beebe regarding the student cars parked in La Buena Vista. He stated that all of these cars are impeding traffic flow and creating problems. The Scottsdale Police and Scottsdale Mayor are now involved with the situation. Further, if students continue to park their cars in this community, they will not receive a pass to park on campus next year. OK ... I get it. If I lived in that community, I would not be happy either. However, there is not adequate parking on the school campus, plus passes are $100/year and some families may not be able to afford them. So, CSHS, please find a solution rather than threaten.
That's not the real reason for the e-mail, though. Apparently, one of the boys' bathrooms was vandalized recently. Subsequently, the students were informed that the boys are not allowed to go to the bathroom on campus anymore. (I don't know about you, but personally, I would have some real "holding" issues with that!) The directive was somewhat altered later to this: When a boy goes to the bathroom, security is called. Because CSHS cannot identify the individual(s) responsible for the damage, we must keep everyone out of the boys’ bathrooms!!! The horror!!! I am sure that the next issue will be indecent exposure. Some poor kid will be so afraid to go to the bathroom that he will pee on a tree.
When is this school system going to choose the battles they really NEED to fight?
You are welcome to use my comments, but please don't print my name. This family has endured four long years at CSHS and we have only a few days left until graduation. I am grateful that my other two graduated in a different state.
Name withheld by request
An open letter to the Utah State Legislature
Dear Utah State Rep./Senator,
Shortly after President Obama announced that "Gay Rights are Human Rights" and that he would initiate sanctions against countries that did not protect and promote homosexual "rights", police in St. Petersburg, Russia arrested two gay-rights activists for breaking a law that prohibits the promotion of homosexuality and the dissemination of gay propaganda to minors. I suppose President Obama is willing to put at risk all the progress the United States has made with the ex-communist country, since the honorable Ronald Reagan Presidency, to please his LGBT constituency.
In between Mr. Obama's reckless and immoral proclamation and threat, and the Russian arrest, Diane Schneider of the National Education Association (NEA) teachers union, made her own reckless and immoral proclamation before a committee at the United Nations. She declared that a priority should be made to teach homosexuality to middle and high-schoolers worldwide, and that anyone opposed to homosexuality is "stuck in a binary box that religion and family create." (see www.parentalrights.org.).
Mitt Romney says he wants to restore a "great America." I hope he means an America that is pro-religion and family, like Russia; and a pro-constitutional America.
If anything is taught at all in the public schools about homosexuality, it should be limited to a simple definition in the 12th grade psychology textbook under Crimes Against Nature; along with incest, pedophilia, necrophilia, human trafficking, beastiality and suicide. Those at war with religion and family are also at war with the Constitution of the United States; that provides for restriction of the civil liberties of criminals.
Michael W. Jarvis
Salt Lake City, Utah
P.S. Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is proud of himself for shooting down the U.S. military's tolerant Don't Ask Don't Tell policy that allowed unbrazen homosexuals to even join the military. Now brazen homosexuals are allowed in and BHOJ sights are trained on the United States' Defense of Marriage Act. That's what happens when you tolerate a malignancy. Abraham Lincoln warned us that: "As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
cc: Utah's Congressional Delegation
Mayor Francia's letter
I must respond to Mayor Francia's letter published in the online edition of Sonoran News last week. Whilst attempting to diplomatically straddle the issue, he erroneously states that "town-wide fire coverage ... is the one point on which both sides agree ..." We already have town-wide coverage. It is the method by which we pay for it that is in dispute. Currently, we have a choice to either insure against the cost of extinguishing a fire (by subscribing) or of being presented with a bill for the entire amount in the event of a tragedy. Sadly, the Mayor uses the ubiquitous "equitable" when describing the need for coverage. Whenever I see that word, or its sibling "fair", I advise folks to grab their ankles and brace themselves, much as they would at the end of a date with Kobe Bryant. It's gonna hurt.
Indeed, the Mayor suggests it could be paid for via a service fee. Our jug-eared President tried this with Obamacare by insisting the costs were a penalty and not a tax. It is a distinction without a difference.
Further, we keep seeing the 45 percent subscribe vs. 55 percent don't misinformation. Time and time again we have shown that these figures are invented. As I have written before, at a February Town Hall meeting Fire Chief Kraetz told our hapless Town Manager that he had given him erroneous numbers. Yet the pro-tax people persist with this disinformation, even going so far as to cite the Town of Cave Creek as the source of this baloney on their never-ending postcards.
That they have to resort to smoke screens and propaganda speaks volumes on the validity of their argument.
Don't just vote no on May 15; vote Hell No!
Gary Kiernan
Cave Creek
Like father like son?
Israeli Psychologist Dr. Sam Vaknin comforts me in that I'm not alone in my worries about the mental health of "el duce" Barack Hussein Obama II.
Obama's obsessive revisionist attempt to raise capital gains taxes under any guise he can, is only his way of compensating for almost being laughed off the stage when he suggest the same thing in a debate with Hillary Clinton. Then there was the big lie about how he was against Mandatory Health Insurance to win the primary! All one has to do is search Sam Vaknin on Youtube.Com and hear him talk about Obama's alarming Narcissistic behavior, and then go to SNOPES.COM (sponsored by GEORGE SOROS) and see how Snopes claims Sam is not saying what he is saying on Youtube!
Obama's parents hated America. His father was jailed for trying to overthrow another Government. Look at Obama's record! Everything he has done has been to weaken us, economically, militarily, energy-wise, Industrial-wise and spiritually! What don't his supporters comprehend? We can't survive another 4 years of this!
Joseph DuPont
Towanda, Pennsylvania
May 2 editorial
Dear Mr. Sorchych,
In response to your editorial of May 2: a foundation would be comprised of residents who have a high degree of expertise. It could reach out to sister towns, universities, good government organizations and other experts in order to research and present unbiased information on important topics such as best practices in development, infrastructure and finance. Elected officials, who have to make a living and do not have time to thoroughly research every topic, could greatly benefit. For example, had this foundation been in place it could have prepared an in -depth analysis of the question as to whether to provide town wide fire protection, how much it would cost and possible ways in which it could be paid for. Officials and citizens would have an additional resource that they could use to make fact based decisions.
Michael J Chutz
Faith in humanity
There is plenty of bad news but when did you hear some really heartwarming news? News that gave you back your faith in humanity?
My husband filled up his gas tank at the Safeway at the Summit and headed home to Cave Creek. Upon arrival he reached to unload his pockets to find his wallet missing. Then he remembered putting it on the roof of his car at the station. What chance was there of finding it? But back he went looking on the road and in the bushes. No wallet.
So, he started canceling his credit cards. The $150 he had been carrying was gone for sure.
A few hours later there was a knock at the door. There stood a Mexican laborer holding up a wallet. Carlo had picked it up at the intersection of Tom Darlington and Cave Creek roads.
All of the credit cards and the cash were in place.
We should have more like Carlos in our lives.
Jacqueline Goodspeed
Cave Creek
