Airplane noise: Worse then ever!
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented flight path changes on September 18, 2014 to/from Phoenix Sky Harbour and Scottsdale Airports as part of the NextGen navigation system. Planes are now directed to fly over more populated regions across the valley and noise complaints from irate local residents have soared. The City of Phoenix launched legal action against the FAA when negotiations failed to resolve the issues.
As a winter resident in North-East Valley, I was shocked by the impact of these flight path changes to Carefree, Cave Creek and North-East Scottsdale. I thought our location, far from the airports, would keep us immune from the noise problems experienced elsewhere. Was I wrong! Flights from Sky Harbour begin flying over our region beginning at 5:45 a.m. and continue throughout the day and evening. The noise problem in the North Valley is exasperated because we live at a higher altitude and outbound planes are accelerating to climb as they fly overhead. It feels like we live next to a runway. Also, planes inbound to Scottsdale Airport are now directed right over Spur Cross/Desert Mountain at lower altitudes with flaps engaged causing elevated levels of noise.
Despite the call from public and local officials to a return to the former flight paths, the FAA have dug in their heels. The FAA says the new paths are safer, more precise and save fuel for the “airlines.” But the FAA should remember what John Adams said “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and “happiness of the people”; and not for private interest”
Peter Guest
Scottsdale, Arizona
High Watermark
The Democrat version of presidential debate more closely resembled a breakfast club with the majority of participants joining in a mutual admiration society while wallowing in Marxist dogma. It was sad and scary to watch, realizing that this band of various shades of socialist were actually competing for the presidency of the United States of America. Verbal back slapping and kudos for one another and Barrack Obama, poo pooing of serious considerations and the massive failings of the current administration indicated their collective lack of grip on reality.
The clear winner of the evening was Mrs. Clinton, who started her run a decade ago, with Bernie coat-tailing her a strong second. The campaign’s dynamics have not changed. Mr. Sanders is un-electable and Hillary, relentless in her pursuit, may, like Obama, continue to campaign even if the voters reject her. Joe’s empty seat at the table may change in the polls with the Dem’s predictable debate results. But, if he enters the fray, bye, bye Bernie.
Trump, Carson, Cruz and Rubio as the current Republican poll leaders, face both an historical crossroads and great opportunity in the aftermath of this leftist love fest. Much political ammunition can be mined from the debate exchanges, they should use it. The American Confederacy ended on a hot July day in Gettysburg, Pennsylvanian at a place known today as the High Watermark. After the hard-fought battle then began the long slide to defeat for the rebel cause.
Should Mr. Trump or whichever of the other hopefuls becomes the Republican standard bearer; election day 2016 must be the “High Watermark” for the progressive surge that has swept across America in the last decade, relegating American socialism to the scrap heap of history. American principals have been maligned, the rule of law mocked, our borders erased, our people divided and our status on the world stage diminished. Much can be recovered with a decisive Republican win.
Randy Edwards
Cave Creek
Court consolidation
I hope this finds you well and smiling as the circus continues to take top billing in your neck of the woods. Here in Prescott, all we talk about is the $73,000,000.00 unfunded liability owed the Arizona Public Safety retirement fund.
You should see downtown Prescott on almost any weekend. People and their best friends (dogs) swarm a friendly Court House Square to partake of free fairs, festivals and entertainment. At Christmas we even witness the reading of the Christmas Story directly from the Bible. No ACLU member to be found!
I cannot help but respond to the back slapping about the success of the Cave Creek/Carefree Municipal Court consolidation. You may recall in 2009 I brought this suggestion to Carefree which was pooh-poohed by the Mayor and Gary Neiss as garbage. Which is the same word I could use to define how Bob Coady and I were treated over the matter.
Small people trying to make big decisions. Watching the goings on in Carefree with amusement, I believe resurrecting the Carefree commercial core is something that requires a much higher power than any elected official can relate.
Linda and I extend our warmest wishes to you, Don and all the good folks at the Sonoran News.
Peter Koteas
Prescott
Obama should give his peace prize to Putin.
Part of Pres. Obama danger to this country is his inability to admit when he made an economic or military error. His famous expression is to double down. Anyone of your readers can Google the following:” General Wesley Clark Seven Countries In Five Years”. Gen. Clark viewed a memo about these 7 countries so soon after the attack on the World Trade Centers that it had to have been written prior to 9/11/2001. Syria, a place where both Christians and Jews could live in peace was on that list. Now thanks to Obama, thousands of innocent Christians and Jews are being viciously slaughtered! So for Obama to repeatedly say that the Assad’s government must go has nothing to do with what Assad has done. All that we have to remember is that every country we have toppled has resulted in total death and destruction. 3/4 of those “Syrian” refugees, which we created, are not even Syrian!! By intervening on disposing of Syria’s poisonous gases, Vladimir Putin averted WW III with Russian and China. Now Putin is blasting the hell out of the ISIS after we either purposely or unintentionally armed them.
America’s C-130 gun ships had the chance to destroy ISIS forces in Iraq when they celebrated victoriously , but didn’t! And while your readers are at it, they might want to Google: “28 Pages 9/11 Commission Saudi Arabia” and find out who helped to orchestrate the 9/11 attack that has stripped us of our Constitutional rights and made Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve and the Military Industrial Complex even richer.
Joseph DuPont
Towanda, Pennsylvania
Kate’s Law needed to end sanctuary cities
It’s not every day Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz agree on immigration policy, is it? Both Senators lent their names to the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, legislation by David Vitter (R-La.), and to their credit, so did Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
While not in its original form, this revives the effort to defund lawless sanctuary cities across the United States, making it clear that the American people should not subsidize the bad decisions of localities that enable illegal immigration criminality and damage lives.
This bill incorporates provisions from Sen. Cornyn’s Stop Sanctuary Policies Act, as well as Sen. Cruz’s penalties to be imposed on illegals who commit crimes upon reentry to the U.S. For those who do not know, it is named for Kate Steinle, who was murdered by an illegal alien in San Francisco in July, 2015; her killer had been deported five times. A similar law was introduced by Rep. Matt Salmon and passed the House in July.
The problem is that, currently, taxpayers are subsidizing cities that refuse to enforce immigration law. So why keep doing that? The legislation simply denies funds to sanctuary cities, and begins the process of restoring law and order to these areas. The message to cities is simple: If you want funds, enforce the law.
The bill would also impose mandatory minimum sentencing on the very illegals that participate in President Barack Obama’s “catch and release” scheme.
If states like Arizona will not be allowed by the Supreme Court to address these issues themselves, then the Feds are the only ones left to act. It would send a direct message to Obama that Republicans will exercise their Article I prerogative to fund only what is in the best interest of the American people.
Politically, this might show that even if Republicans disagree on how exactly to solve America’s immigration problems, that the next President will decisively act to protect Americans from foreign threats.
Because taking on sanctuary cities will be no small task. Three hundred and forty such localities exist according to the Center for Immigration Studies, meaning that many millions of Americans are in range of criminal aliens that could and do harm them. Criminal aliens should have no safe haven to blend into among a population of illegals, a standard worth enforcing as Republicans choose a nominee in the coming months.
President Obama has already threatened to veto such a bill, but that should not discourage Republican lawmakers from acting. Let him veto it, because he can show the American people that he cares more about voting blocs and donors than the safety of the people he is obligated to protect.
Likewise, every Democrat that obstructs this will have to answer for it to their constituents, as this issue is ready made for contrast between law and order candidates and those who pander at the expense of people like Kate Steinle, who have paid the ultimate price for their inaction.
Support of Kate’s Law is the least policy makers can do to make reparation for the many who have suffered at the hands of such an irresponsible policy. Sanctuary cities are getting people killed, and it has to stop.
Dustin Howard
Americans for Limited Government
A fourth letter to America
Recent remarks by several presidential candidates from both major political party’s shows clearly that America no longer understands what our Constitution and the Bill of Rights stand for. Hearing them say, “it’s the law,” or “it’s the law of the land,” makes some of us almost sick to our stomach.
The fact is that the Judicial Branch of our government has shredded those two great documents and substituted some so called rights that are definitely not anywhere to be found in those precious documents.
Now when politicians say, “We are suppose to defend the Constitution,” they don’t mean the original documents, they mean whatever the Federal Justices have ruled on regardless of how ungodly those decisions were. And if you have the internet, and want to see how ungodly things are, look up “Baby Malachi” on any of the search engines. Every American owes it to humanity to do that! And this includes looking at the dismembered body of Baby Malachi.
So where are the “checks and balances” America? How did we not insist that our representatives and senators in the Legislative Branch take action and impeach the ungodly judges who decided to throw God out of our schools and all government places under their new invention of “separation of church and state”? Or when they voted to give women the right to kill their unborn baby, although God says “Thou shall not kill”? Or the latest decision from the Supreme Court giving same-sex couples the right to marry? The Court made that latest decision, regardless of the fact, that God considers sex between two males, or sex between two females, evil, wicked, and a grievous sin worthy of death.
A scene of God’s Ten Commandments Monument being hoisted up, in the middle of the night, to be removed from the grounds of an Oklahoman court house, or it might have been the State Capitol grounds, is deeply etched in my mind. America has abandoned God!
Manuel Ybarra, Jr.
Coalgate, Oklahoma
Those #DamnEmails
Bernie and Hillary are tired of those ”damn emails”—after all, what’s a little classified information among friends?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not tired of hearing about Hillary’s damn emails—I’m tired of waiting for someone to do something about them! Even the liberals at CNN and MSNBC had trouble buying the Sanders-Hillary line on the email scandal. It may be hard to remember now, but when Nixon said he was tired of the damn Watergate investigation, did the press just applaud and leave him alone?
Saying Hillary won the DNC debate this week is like saying Luca Brasi established himself as head gangster in the Corleone family. What does it say about the Democrats that their two leading candidates are running to the LEFT of Obama?
After watching the Hillary and Bernie performance this week, I couldn’t help but wonder: which is REALLY the party of old white people? Watch:
Obama says Republicans are “down on America,” but actually, we’re just down on the Democrats! I discussed more about Obama, Hillary, the DNC, and 2016 with T. Boone Pickens in this podcast recently, and I think you might be surprised by some of the things we.
I’m speaking tomorrow with Jurassic Park producer Gerald Molen in Bozeman, MT—you can get tickets now to hear us talk more about the progressive agenda to subvert America and how we can win in 2016! Reserve your seat today.
Dinesh D’Souza
Follow me on Twitter!
Political debates
I did not watch either political debate, as I feel that when politicians’ lips are moving, they are lying. I consider the Republican and Democrat parties the two wings of the same loathsome Socialist carrion-eater.
Next, aren’t journalists supposed to respect the English language? I have yet to hear or read a statement from a reporter or author where the furniture in the debate room is correctly named: One STANDS on a podium (from the Greek noun for “foot”) and reads from BEHIND a lectern (from legere, Latin for the verb, “to read”). I did not see the candidates standing upon podia.
There, I feel better after having struck a blow for my adopted language!
J-P. A. Maldonado
Lafayette, Colorado
Dear Council Members
As a newer resident of Carefree, Arizona, I attended my first Town Council meeting on September 1, 2015. Unfortunately, the discussions regarding the Town’s gateway project had previously been held. All that remained was the final vote as to whether there should be two or four gateways to the Carefree business district. ALL residents should have been provided with notice regarding something as monumental as this project’s impact on the Town of Carefree and its residents. Perhaps a simple one page flyer to local mailboxes would have been enough to encourage broader discussions and possible alternatives to this contentious item.
If the Council feels something needs to be erected, maybe columns with specific artwork designations and without the use of an overhead banner (signage violation?), would have been a better choice in keeping with Carefree’s unique style. “Gaudy” is a word one resident mentioned at the meeting. Another resident referred to the banners as “Disneyland” type of structures in a letter to the editor. Gateways are usually synonomous with specific areas of large cities that provide entertainment, amusement areas, or large shopping centers located away from a city’s core services. Even Cave Creek, with its lively nightlife, elected to use very selective artwork to delineate its entrances to the town.
One board member promoted the use of gateways prefaced on “Why not follow the advice of the experts studies” with regard to traffic flow? Do any of these experts live in Carefree or are any familiar with the daily happenings for any length of time? Over the years, traffic studies have been conducted regarding the greater Phoenix/Scottsdale areas, some of which have proved wrong and with potential lawsuits following “experts” opinions. The Carefree studies showed that 80 percent of visitors drive to Carefree via Tom Darlington, yet the Board also approved a second “gaudy” gateway structure on Cave Creek Road. If you discount the people who come from the east on Cave Creek Road who are, for the most part, residents, motorcyclists and commercial trucks who are already familiar with the roadways, the actual percentage would more likely be closer to 5 percent rather than 20 percent use of Cave Creek Road for visitors. The “experts” who do not live here may not know these facts. The approved location on Cave Creek as an entranceway leads to an empty lot with a restaurant that is vacant part of the year on one side and a parking lot on the other side. This is meaningless to entice the public as an entrance to a business district. To erect any monument on Cave Creek Road is a waste of valuable dollars.
Let’s talk about the dollars. While some very generous business men have offered to provide some of the materials and manpower in an effort to save the Town’s reserves, a million dollars plus was the figure offered by a Council member as being possibly closer to the actual cost to Carefree. Do we really want to commit those funds to bury utilities to provide these useless arches?
What is the initial draw to Carefree? Currently Carefree residents travel through the Town for many goods and services necessary for daily living. The whole ambiance of our Town’s business district has been very isolated in its offerings with restrictions of business types, and currently caters to a very specific small market. Perhaps Town Council members should consider other options, while still maintaining the exclusivity of not allowing chain stores.
Individual mom-and-pop type of operations might attract a bakery, pottery shop, boutique specialty shops, gourmet burgers, coffee and pie, athletic wear, sandwich specialties, candle and gift shops, kichen supplies, veterinarian office, etc. Offering rent incentives to entice new businesses to the area could be an alternative. Year-round patronizing of business offerings would attract more dollars to our comminity and promote future business opportunities which is the real issue.
Sandy Harris
Carefree
