My View
BY DON SORCHYCH | MARCH 19, 2014
NRA • Recall • Town Manager
The current population of the United States is 317 million. With all the gun grabbing attempts, it is sad the National Rifle Association (NRA) has only five million members. Since gun owners are estimated to number between 70 and 80 million you would think gun owners would flock to become NRA members. We gun owners need all the help we can get to keep our guns, including the right to carry them and conceal them if we desire. By searching the Internet for NRA you will find anything you want to know about the organization. The price is right – a one year membership is $35 and a five year membership is only $25 per year. With the membership fee you get a choice from among four publications. I bought a lifetime membership for $1,000 years ago so it has cost me less than $20 each year and it is comforting to know NRA has my back. Joe Foss, the American ACE, Governor and head of AFC was also the President of NRA. I met Joe in Scottsdale when he getting off an elevator. As we shook hands he said, "The sonsabitches will never get our guns." Comforting that he was the NRA president at the time. What are you waiting for? Join the patriots and protect your second amendment rights!
Recall
It is a little early to get too definitive about voting in the recall but there are certain people who stood up for the slate of four candidates who we now know have not done one thing they promised. I have kept the flyers I received in the mail and one of them promised to bring transparency and fiscal responsibility back to Cave Creek. Well, neither left the town until their majority slate was elected. We never had to fight to get documents from the town until the slate was elected. They still owe us a number of emails requested over six months ago. They routinely clear documents through Town Attorney Fredda Bisman who was let go by Scottsdale and Cave Creek until the slate was elected. She continues to try to force council meeting speakers to narrow their speech to her liking. All it takes is a frown from Mayor Vincent Francia for her to try to intimidate speakers to do his bidding. Transparency has been substantially reduced, not improved, so it is a false issue cited by ten citizens. Then there is "fiscal responsibility" cited by the crew of ten. The council voted unanimously to accept the budget developed under Town Manager Usama Abujbarah without a single change. Then Adam Trenk and his three lackeys improperly terminated Abujbarah stimulating a $3 million lawsuit. A few weeks ago the town already had paid the town attorneys over $55,000 to defend the town against the lawsuit. Then the slate spent over $90,000 to pay Rodney Glassman as interim town manager when Town Clerk Carrie Dyrek had agreed to hold the position on a temporary basis. The slate spent $80,000 for an unneeded program for road maintenance. They spent $20,000 for unneeded rearing chrome horses on Cave Creek at the entrance and exit of the town. The "banners" they are erecting are controversial, unsightly and unneeded also. Who are the ten people who ‘sold’ these assertions as urgent and why hasn't the town watchdog heard from them? Seven of the ten were council members who were previously voted out. One was a turncoat who believed the town should jump through hoops to satisfy him. Two were Cave Creek Planning Commission members who were nearly always dissident from their peers. The list of ten: Bill Allen, Tom Augherton, Dick Bartholomew, Rae Iverson, Gilbert Lopez, Grace Meeth, David Phelps, George Ross, Shea Stanfield and Jerry Whitmore. You have to wonder whether they will sign the petitions to send the slate packing since they met none of their demands or the one carried by Grace Meeth and her buddy Eileen Wright to recall Councilmen Ernie Bunch and Thomas McGuire.
Town Manager
It is too early to tell whether the new town manager is fish or foul, but some information is brewing. We have heard he and his disciple, David Prinzhorn, the questionable replacement for the much admired Jessica Marlowe, who resigned, are scheming to fire two well-known and important employees. Although I don't expect a new town manager to listen to Sonoran News, it is not only too early in his stay to make those waves, the people I am hearing about will become local martyrs; even though they may not be popular with slate backers, they are very popular in town. We still have not seen positive change. For example, town hall must still be sending open records requests to Bisman, even though there is no authority to continue the practice. That practice deliberately slows things down, including our news cycle. When Rodney Glassman was interim town manager, it seemed clear he was taking instruction from Vice Mayor Adam Trenk. We have asked repeatedly that we be given the same treatment as the Arizona Republic and their propagandist, Phil Haldiman. When you make a request you see a statement alerting you about the standing request for the Arizona Republic which grants them every email of record. We have made the same request numerous times with no effect. Another thing I receive constant complaints about is the four day work week at town hall. At the start of the recession the four day work week was instituted. The staff was returned to a forty hour work week, but the four days continued at 10 hours per day. That may be fine for town employees but not for citizens who need town services. Sooner or later we will seek a sit down with Town Manager Peter Jankowski and then issue a report card. We have a plethora of questions in our growing list.
