Once
again a neighborhood citizens group has had the
nerve to question the swift and under‑publicized
actions of Cave Creek town hall and has generated
the wrath of the political action committee. Once
again citizens feel that despite having attended
meetings, read the newspapers, and even read the
minutes of council meetings to try to be well‑informed,
as well as participated actively in many meetings,
they have not been included in the “inner circle”
of decision making in this town.
I
note “once again” because this has happened before
with the Stagecoach Village Project, wherein citizens
took an active role in listening, discussing, recommending
and agreeing upon a process resulting in written
stipulations. However, when town staff found some
of those agreed upon stipulations unworkable, the
stipulations were ignored and without communicating
the changes to the local neighborhood impacted,
they just took the action they felt was needed.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
The
result was a significant number of Cave Creek citizens
assembled and spoke up at a town council meeting.
These citizens were deemed “whiners and complainers”
by the town staff and a surprisingly similar group
of others currently offering very negative editorial
comment on the
assembly of neighbors expressing concern on the
water tank location selection process. What a coincidence.
Once
again, the group protest is more about the lack
of communication by town staff on issues impacting
their immediate community. And once again, PAC folks
are taking nasty shots at the group and saying “the
issues will be resolved in a logical fashion,” when
indeed they seem to be resolved in a back room and
not in front of the people. It was further noted,
“this issue will not be resolved by committee.”
Well, certainly not. It seems it was attempted to
be resolved by a very small group of town staff
and their political advisers.
Citizens
of Cave Creek, until you demand that your elected
representatives direct town staff to assure more
effective communication with the neighborhoods being
impacted by some of these major projects, the projects
will be designed and built without your knowledge.
The very few will continue to make decisions for
you. They are in fact the “activists.” This small
group of self‑ordained people seem to feel
that only they know what is best for this town.
In fact, check out the definition of “activists”
that one of the PAC folks submitted to another local
paper last week; it fits the PAC folks almost perfectly.
All
those who rise to question and complain chance being
mowed down by the “retired Marine
combat pilot” and his wing men. I know; been there,
done that.
Bob
Moore
Cave
Creek
