Public input?  Not likely

Again we are treated to the almost recreational duet of the Cave Creek mayor making denials and the town manager baldly admitting something.  This time it is gargantuan water tanks in the Zerkles’ neighborhood; last time it was the mayor and other council members who were present for a candidate’s night, denying emphatically that the town was taking over the troubled Sabrosa Water Company. The following week, the town manager admitted, under oath, to the ACC Commissioners that indeed Sabrosa was part of the water kingdom of Cave Creek. 

Citizens acted in reliance on those untrue statements by the mayor and his fellow candidates, and re-elected them.  Now we are in debt to WIFA, the state water authority, for about $65 million for water and sewer facilities.  Our latest town budget was for over $40 million.   Since we have about 4,500 citizens in town, that translates to about $24,000 per man, woman and child.  I ask you, fellow residents, how is each of us going to pay that bill?  Town debt is our debt.

I am astonished how, even this week, fellow residents were shocked when told that this has happened.  Most folks in town are not aware that week after week, under emergency votes that barred a citizen referendum, these huge purchases and loans have been made.  And there is no longer an attempt to hide the fact that most of this infrastructure will serve others than Cave Creekers, as the county areas experience growth.  The development of Continental Mountain was just one such new intended customer.

The real point remains that there is no valid public process for informing citizens before these votes happen.  Most do not even know that an agenda is posted shortly before each meeting in the post office. Certainly none but the inner circle have seen the contracts, development agreements, ratification of negotiations, and estimated costs that are in the council package that is given to each councilman.  There is a package at the town front desk, for all 4,500 of us to go look at a few days before the vote.  Often where the hot button material should be, the reader finds a single sheet, “to be inserted at the meeting” or similar.  Even citizens who ask for a package–and that is your right as citizens–may not see key information.

This is a really bad way for laws to be made.  There is no reason items could not be scanned and placed on the town Web site well ahead of a meeting.  There is no reason why the actual documents could not be printed in enough quantity for at least the people who find out about the meeting and make the effort to attend.  It is a pointless ritual to sit and listen to a surface discussion of very large and expensive issues, when the listener is uninformed.  And reading about it after the vote is not the same as encouraging genuine public participation.  This process has to change.

Mr. Zerkle’s statement : “The sheer arrogance and insensitivity these statements project toward town residents and legitimate neighborhood concerns is almost beyond comprehension,”  demonstrates the true lack of balance.   Are all 4,500 of us, or at least the 3,000 registered voters, expected to come in and sit through a discussion where they have not been informed?    There must be a balance somewhere, but contemptuous remarks to an icon like Nan Byrne is a slap to the whole community.  If this council does not make a better attempt to communicate to all of its citizens, they will meet us at the ballot box before long and we will create that process for them.

Sara Vannucci
Cave Creek