Bad roads limit 911 access
by Brian DiTullio

CAVE CREEK – Not all town residents have 100‑percent fire protection, according to Rural/Metro Battalion Chief John Kraetz.

Kraetz spoke before Cave Creek Town Council at its March 19 meeting, informing them that, due to the topography and condition of certain roads, about 40 homes are potentially cut off from fire and emergency vehicles during and immediately after severe storms.

He noted specifically five houses on 71st Street south of Highland as examples of homes on undedicated, unpaved roads with severe dips that hinder emergency vehicles, even under the best of conditions. Since access to those homes is over private easements, the town cannot force the homeowners to fix or upgrade the road and cannot perform any kind of maintenance without permission.

“This is typical of several places in town where we literally can’t get to their house,” said Kraetz.

One of the affected residents, John Dey, told council he understood the problem, but pointed out turning the easements over to a government entity isn’t what he and many other property owners want to do.

“People don’t want to give up any more property for easements,” he said.

Mayor Vincent Francia, prompted by public feedback, discussed filling in one of the deeper dips on 71st Street with a load of dirt, asking each person who spoke to the issue if that was an agreeable solution for the time being.

“We might be able to avail ourselves of some of the dirt from construction ... if the property owners agree,” said Francia.

Those who spoke indicated that solution was fine with them, and the mayor assigned council members Ernie Bunch and Grace Meeth to be council liaison with the homeowners.

In other business, council continued an agenda item to delete a site plan stipulation for Stagecoach Village that would have had delivery vehicles using Vermeersch Road.

Applicant Ken Moore said they went into the project believing there was 33 feet of clearance to widen the road, but found onsite there was actually only 16 feet. This created several problems in terms of parking and access. Council discussed several options but ultimately chose to continue the discussion, by a vote of 4‑3, until the April 2 meeting.

Francia told The Desert Advocate on Thursday, however, there was no reason to continue the agenda item, as deleting the stipulation to use Vermeersch as a service access wasn’t being debated by council–only what the developer was going to do with other roadways.

“Council needs to realize you can only discuss what’s on the agenda and nothing else,” said the mayor.