Noblesse Oblige
The distinctions could not be more clear; anyone claiming to be undecided at this juncture is a fool. The Democrat platform apparently stands for infanticide, in the form of abortion on demand, men marrying men, women marrying women, disarmament, open borders and shades of that great theologian Nancy Polosi, the erasure of God from our culture. And, lest we forget, tax the rich. So, no God, no gold, no guns, no traditional marriage and no sovereignty. Oh, and no Israel. Is it any wonder these people of repressive tolerance re-nominated Obama?
It is interesting to note that the cry for social justice – read that as redistribution – comes chiefly from the wealthiest of the liberal left (those deeply entrenched in their tax shelters.) Origins in the spirit of the old British system of Noblesse Oblige, a conviction that the privileged rich are obliged to assist the poor and down trodden. But, unlike the English nobility of old, in America the country squires and the brownstone progressives prefer public funds to private financial support. Why use their money when they can use ours, and if having lied enough to get elected, they can take credit for their generosity. Noble Barry's largess, sold to us in a total absence of candor, reeks of the slavery of Marxism.
I'm obliged to vote for Romney.
Randy Edwards
Cave Creek
Mayor; Vice Mayor; Carefree Town Council members
Since the expiration of my term as a member of the Common Council in 2011, I have purposely avoided any involvement in town affairs or meetings to allow the duly elected/appointed officials to carry on their duties without interference, critique or comment. In reading the October Common Council Agenda, I feel obligated to express my opinion as it pertains to item #15.
I have intentionally chosen this method of communicating what I consider to be an obvious misunderstanding with regard to the suggested resolution regarding the intent of HB 2826 which amended section 16-204 of the Arizona Revised Statues relating to election dates; Common Council Agenda Item 15 (Resolution 2012-08).
It is obvious in its wording that the Act was passed to provide consistency in Arizona elections for the primary purpose of increasing voter participation and decreasing the cost to taxpayers. By its spirit alone, and since it is not mentioned in any form, it is very doubtful and highly unlikely, that the intent of the Act was to extend beyond a reasonable period the term for elected officials.
I can find no specific reference in the Act to elections currently being held in odd numbered years as is customary in Carefree beyond the methodology for elections held prior to 2014. The reference to the future, 2014 and beyond, states that all elections beginning in 2014 must be held in even numbered years.
In light of the stated intent and purpose of H.B 2826, it is my opinion the most responsible course of action that the Carefree Common Council could take would be to modify the term of office for all duly elected officials elected in March/May 2013 to expire immediately after the Common Council meeting in December 2014. It seems to me a reduction of five months in term would better address the previously sited intent and purpose of the Act rather than eliminate an entire election cycle as proposed in Resolution 2012-08 by almost doubling the term for elected officials. If one didn’t know better, resolution 2012-08 may appear to be designed to skirt the widely approved voter term limits mandated by the Carefree electorate. This most certainly would contradict the primary reason for H.B. 2826, i.e. increasing voter participation.
A more conservative course of action (a five month reduction in 2013 terms) would also exhibit respect for the overwhelming majority of Carefree voters that soundly defeated staggered four year terms for office holders and also, by a wide margin, decided on instituting term limits for elected Carefree office holders. By reducing the term of 2013 elected officials by a mere five months, the Fall dates set by the Arizona legislator for 2014 and forward would then mirror the verbiage as stipulated in Section E lines 7-28.
As a citizen of Carefree, I ask that you simply do the right thing.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Koteas
Carefree
Prop 204 – A bad deal
For those of you who have tossed and turned at night worrying over the merits of Prop 204, here’s my take:
204 would raise the state sales tax 18% in perpetuity – that’s forever.
204 would allocate $100 million to be spent on roads, rail, transit and other transportation projects – in other words – nothing to do with education.
204 prevents the Auditor General, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee or the Governor’s Office from doing any performance audits on how the money raised is to be spent. So much for sunshine and accountability.
In Arizona, the percentage school boards spend on instruction and in the classroom has decreased every year for the last seven years.
It begs the question; “What do they do with the money they already have?”
As many of you know I’m for public education and performance improvement, both for students and teachers. I spent six years as a Board Member and Treasurer of a Charter School striving for those goals.
This proposition however, is a grab bag of pet projects and does not guarantee improved performance.
Vote NO.
Reg Monachino
Cave Creek
Media intervention
The election is drawing near. In all of my life, I can’t remember a more important election. There have been some great political battles in the past and a huge movement for change when Jimmy Carter took office after the fall of Richard Nixon. I even voted for Carter. I believed the government and its representatives needed to change and I thought this country bumpkin would bring integrity and honesty back to the presidency. He did; the only problem was he had no clue about economics and how to lead a country. The result was economic disaster.
Now we have a choice between Obama and Romney, contrasts to be sure. Over my lifetime I have learned to be wary of both major political parties and have found both seem to have their own agenda for America, agendas that are not always the best for the American public.
However, more disturbing to me is what has happened to the American public. We have become a society of apologists, victims, and zombies. We have become a society where it has become much easier to “go with the flow” than question a government that rules our lives. I fear a major contributor to this journey into the abyss is the news media.
I’m not sure when the news media made the collective decision to shape American policy. I think it might have been during the Viet Nam war when the tragedy of that conflict came into our living rooms every night. From there propaganda spiraled out of control to the point that now a major network NBC, heavily promotes “Lean Forward” which openly bashes the conservative movement. Why are they doing this? Who or what is the motivating factor that would cause a news organization to take sides in such a blatant manner?
When I was young I became interested in the political process because of people like Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Walter Cronkite. They were educators of the political process and, while I’m sure they had their personal biases, they did not force them on the public. Today, it appears we have a White House and Congress that spew rhetoric with no accountably demanded by the fifth estate. Why?
Why are we bombarded with perceived gaffs from Romney speeches rather than what really happened in the Middle East and why our diplomats are being murdered?
I’m looking forward to the debates. I think they are the one forum left for candidates to explain who they are and what they plan to do for America. We don’t know the questions, but we hope the playing field will be level. It’s time for the American public to use their brains and listen to their gut when deciding America’s future. The direction of this country is in our hands, not the hands of the network talking heads.
Scott Haberman
Cave Creek
Choice for school board
School board elections are important. Choose wisely. We have had a fair share of decisions made over the last four years affecting our students, schools, and parents. We closed a school, increased class size, funded all day kindergarten one year and didn't the second year. We have lost close to 300 students. We have four charter schools. Closing a school was supposed to stop that. Many of these decisions have been voted in without supporting data to analyze the long term effects they will have on the district. Transparency, discussions, community involvement all need to come back into the districts' decision making process.
I am endorsing three candidates for the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board. All three have the qualities needed to govern. Each is running because they understand planning in the long term for students’ needs. They understand budgets and living within the limitations of those budgets. They are independent thinkers and will commit to doing their due diligence before making a decision. I am endorsing Karen Tuffs, Janet Busbee, and Jay Kules.
Susan Clancy
Member of the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board
Freedom of the press
The main stream media press, although it may still have the right to be free, is so biased it no longer appears to be free. It is so biased, in fact, if Obama only suggested something similar to a gag order restriction to them, it appears they would support that or, maybe, already are supporting that. Even though it would restrict them. There is a considerable difference between the goals of wartime restrictions and political preference restrictions. The former is national security while the latter is political dominance.
This president has extended his power grab to the point he has made the legislative branch of government nearly irrelevant, if not totally irrelevant already. But the sad part is, overall, they seem to not mind and a large portion seem to support his advance in power. With the upholding of the affordable healthcare act by the Supreme Court the judicial branch may be doing likewise.
Therefore, in the final analysis those at fault are the American voter with the help of the main stream media. Apathy within the ranks of the electorate is, and has been, the problem for over a century and perhaps longer, however, within the last two decades it seems to have gotten much worse. Unless something is done, and soon, it will certainly be too late. Anytime the electorate puts “political party” over country the nation is in deep, very serious jeopardy of eliminating personal freedoms. That is exactly what is happening. An example is, a century ago would it have been possible for a mayor of a city to pass a law restricting the size of what someone could drink? Or that babies must be breast fed? Does that even come close to freedom of choice? The liberal progressives support freedom of choice when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to other freedoms for everyone?
The problems affecting the United States today are not Democrat, Republican, Independent or even libertarian they are American. This is not political party survival it is instead the survival of our great nation. Furthermore, anyone thinking otherwise is literally uninformed. This election is about whether this nation remains at least partially free (it has not been totally free for over a century) verses becoming quickly socialistic Communist, Marxist or Fascist if Obama is reelected. We can continue with a president or succumb to becoming dominated by a dictator even though he still holds the title of president. Those, it seems, are the choices between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Vote wisely in November, if not, it could be your last chance to “freely” exercise that right.
Don Bitler
Scottsdale
Rate the candidates with this checklist for prosperity
As a departure from my usual rants, I’m providing the checklist below as a public service. It is a checklist of what absolutely has to be done at a minimum to restore prosperity to the United States, to stop the debt death spiral, and to end wild economic cycles. It can be used to rate political candidates, especially Obama and Romney.
The checklist is based on the indisputable fact of life that prosperity comes from:
1. Doing real work in a true market economy to produce things of real value.
2. Saving a large part of the income that results from the above.
3. Using the savings to create capital
4. Investing the capital in ways to improve productivity and increase the production of things of real value.
5. Maintaining this virtuous cycle in the face of all those who always want to stop it --namely, utopians, socialists, ignoramuses, crony capitalists, bandits disguised as bankers, power-hungry politicians, and citizens with no self-control.
The above has been turned on its head. The nation’s politics, economics and culture are all geared to penalizing workers and savers while rewarding debtors and moochers, thus strangling the nation of capital and investment, stopping the virtuous cycle, and transforming the country into a kleptocracy.
Here’s the checklist:
Return the Federal Reserve to its founding mandate of keeping the money supply in proper balance to protect the value of the dollar. The departure from this mandate is what has allowed politicians to buy votes with Monopoly money by giving people “free” stuff. The odds of this happening are about one in a thousand.
Repeal Davis-Bacon, Taft-Hartley, other counterproductive labor laws that hurt working stiffs, as well as President Kennedy’s executive order allowing public employees to unionize. The odds of this happening are about one in five hundred.
Restore fiscal sanity to the banking industry and eliminate the moral hazards that have created “too big to fail,” by outlawing fractional-reserve banking, repealing federal deposit insurance, dramatically increasing capital requirements on banks, transforming banks from stock companies back to partnerships capitalized with partner money, and repealing loony laws like Dodd-Frank. The odds of this happening are about one in five hundred.
Restrict welfare and entitlements to the truly needy – to those who don’t have the mental or physical capacity to make a living. The odds of this happening are about one in ten thousand.
Until the above restriction can be enacted, make Social Security and Medicare self-funding and stop using contributions to fund other parts of the government, so that what people contribute over their working lives matches the benefits they receive. The odds of this happening are about one in ten thousand.
End the government monopoly over K-12 schooling so that Americans can be educated instead of schooled – so that they know and understand all of the above and how the political system really works. The odds of this happening are about one in a billion, given the political power of the nation’s 4.2 million teachers, 1.2 million teacher assistants, 236,000 principals, tens of thousands of school board members, and countless numbers of support personnel.
I hope you found this helpful. Now bend over and kiss your *** goodbye.
Mencken’s Ghost
An Arizona writer
David Ortega for Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
Don't rely on that daily newspaper to provide sound reasoning for endorsing candidates at any level of government.
Their support for one of the biggest and most oppressive lobbyists for the beverage industry and head of the Arizona Restaurant Association is not really a surprise.
Unfortunately, most citizens are not aware of the actions this person has taken to weaken the health inspection regulations of the Maricopa County Health Department for restaurants and other businesses selling food and alcohol. So messed up is the system that the department is months and months behind in inspections. This does not serve the good and welfare of the public.
Over the last two years the spotlight on bars and entertainment businesses has been shining brightly on Scottsdale's Downtown. The head of the Arizona Restaurant Association has been a big part in helping liquor establishments to dodge their responsibilities and accountability, so necessary to encourage sound economic development and strengthen the free enterprise process.
Vote for David Ortega for Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, District 2, for integrity in serving all of the people, and for fair, open and equitable problem solving. I have worked with him for years on many community issues from the "Erace the Hate" campaign in our public and private schools to community development issues. David Ortega qualifies, hands down.
Nancy Cantor
Scottsdale
APS line in Cave Creek
I thought you may be interested in my emails to the individual running this project as well as his extremely vague response. I have no idea why this project has to even consider running lines south of Carefree Highway if the true intent is only to link the two substations in Cave Creek and Gavilan. My feedback was to keep the lines to the main roads, to continue with the red towers that already run along Cave Creek Rd. to Carefree Highway to minimize the eyesore along Carefree highway, and to then extend the line along Carefree Highway to the power lines that already lead to Gavilan.
My point is to keep the lines as short as possible and to keep it out of areas that are not already impacted by the commercial development along the main roads. All that I have been reading of late is that the cities and state do not want the power lines to run along the main roads as it lowers the property values of the lands they own along the corridor.
This is what I have to say to that:
Cave Creek Road and Carefree highway already have many commercial developments
The eyesores are already numerous with higher commercial buildings, business signage, parking lot lighting, traffic lights and heavy traffic
The above already limits the marketability of the land and really only makes it useful for commercial development
Adding power lines to the above would actually help commercial development of the land
If looking for residential sales, they should only sell the portions well in from the road and leave the areas along the road for commercial development only
The answer is NOT TO RUN POWER LINES through existing neighborhoods and school zones. That disrupts areas that are not already impacted by the high traffic and commercial businesses along the main roads. There is absolutely no reason to do this. Besides the decline in property values there are real, true health impacts to children and the elderly.
The residents in this area need someone to protect their interests as we clearly cannot count on the Town of Cave Creek or the state to protect our interests.
Suzanne Tabeau
Email
