My View
BY DON SORCHYCH | OCTOBER 15, 2014
Cave Creek • Carefree
Petition count and evaluation is finished in Cave Creek with the county recorders office next.
The preliminary report from the town's staff members who worked on the recall petitions indicated the review process was smooth and easy. The petition sheets were clean and organized, the number of disqualified sheets are:
Trenk, 3 sheets containing one signature each.
Monachino, 6-8 sheets containing a total of about 10 signatures.
Spitzer, 1 sheet containing 1 signature.
Durkin, 1 sheet containing 1 signature.
Based on the number of signatures submitted for each, it's safe to say all of them are going to be subject to recall election.
No objection was submitted from the recalled council members after each received a copy of their recall.
The county's deadline for completing their process is December 8; if the signature verification process is done in October or November the election will be on the second Tuesday in March.
The lawsuit of Usama Abujbarah against the slate continues with Mariscal/Weeks/Dickinson/Wright the winner so far with about $10,000 of taxpayer monies being collected each month.
The recall petitions gave us the opportunity to get the voter low downs on the slate and we find Adam Trenk is the runaway least liked in town. I really shouldn’t have said “in town” because few believe he lives here. Former Town Manager Usama Abujbarah has filed another law suit against the Town of Cave Creek, Trenk and his wife in federal court for First Amendment violations and he is being sued personally, so he won’t have town attorneys defending him. He has willfully kept where he lives in the shadows, apparently to protect himself from process servers. He has avoided town meetings even though he worked hard, dishonestly and probably illegally to be elected. It would seem to me the mayor and council should demand he publish his address. The public has a right to know where he lives. But if he continues the dodge ‘em game he will piss off even more voters who will want him gone.
Voters certainly realize his actions could well break the town financially. But what would you expect of a New Jerseyite?
Maybe Chicago or New Jersey will welcome him with open arms.
Carefree
Propositions 488 and 489 in Carefree give voters the chance to once and for all tell Mayor David Schwan and his yes men and women to get lost. Carefree has been essentially leaderless for years. Their situation would be improved immensely if they had a town manager form of government.
Although Carefree voters have repeatedly turned down overtures to lengthen council terms, Schwan and Co. continue to try to stay in office for life, like Herb Drinkwater in Scottsdale. But I haven’t seen any Drinkwater types in Carefree that qualify.
A Carefree reader brought in a sheet of paper being passed out at the Carefree post office by “a fat woman.” The term “truth” is misused to the max in her hand out.
The message is titled “The Truth About Props 488 & 489”
It should be titled “fables.” There are 8 items:
1. Council members are (in bold) “unpaid citizen volunteers”, not “career politicians.”
But with these two propositions they are trying to be career politicians.
2. Only five municipalities do not utilize staggered four year terms, and staggered four year terms are called a “gold standard.”
Really? Why did the founders establish two year terms for the House of Representatives?
3. The entire legislative body could be replaced.
Yes it could, but it never has happened in Carefree.
4. The propositions were citizen driven, not council.
What matters is who favors it and that is the council’s support of the mayor, who is all for the propositions. It was placed on the ballot by Michael Krahe, who sits on the planning and zoning commission with the fat woman handing out the flyers..
5. Term limits would not be eliminated.
The current term limits are three two year terms, is she suggesting it will be three four terms?
The next two statements are damning of the one and only community newspaper, the legendary Sonoran News. We, as a corporate policy, print the truth.
6. Sonoran News sabotaged the last vote on staggered terms. I think voters read what we write and recognize we write the truth. If that is sabotage, so be it.
7. Negative people who were backed by Sonoran News are blamed. We backed stellar people, most of whom were run off by her and the good old boys.
8. Because the mayor is elected, Prop. 489 is needed.
Actually neither proposition is needed. If they pass it will be a major set back for Carefree.
Mayor Schwan used his standing monthly column in a shopper to say, in fewer words, what the fat woman’s hand out said. His diatribe is titled “Community Service-NOT politics.”
The title would fool anyone because it is all about politics. All of his statements are foolish, untrue and political. He, like the slavish woman who passed out pamphlets, forget two year terms are and have been from the beginning, terms limits of the House of Representative.
Be sure to read John Traynor’s Guest Editorial and Letters to the Editor from former Councilman Jim Van Allen, Freddy Bentine-Brown and Gene Watson.
