“Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.”
~ Stephanie Klein, Straight Up and Dirty
In the sphere of ideals and ethics, there is one perennial truth—Truth
with a capital T— that somehow always emerges when society is plagued by gaslighting
and disinformation, no matter how pervasive or convincing said untruths may be.
I believe this. I've seen this happen many times in my lifetime. The arc of justice always bends toward truth, as they say. One can't serve both truth and political aspirations based on lies.
What is happening now in the USA in regard to political
truths and untruths is no different. The notion that former President Donald J. Trump actually
won the 2020 presidential election because of some hazy, nefarious election
fraud that has been disproven dozens of times in courts of law and through
legitimate, professional audits is one untruth that should never have been given
any credence by national or state legislators.
Started
by Donald Trump’s desperate gaslighting to avoid prosecution of his many civil
and criminal indiscretions, the notion of a stolen 2020 election is now supported
by conspiracy theory-driven citizens and by elected “leadership” who cynically promote
the lie in a vicious cycle of unending disinformation and contentious political
discourse.
Politicians
promote Trump’s untruth, primarily because it keeps corporate and individual
donations flowing into their PACs and furthers their political careers. Some
politicians in leadership roles, such as Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, appear
to play the issue both ways. She claims she’s only responding to the people’s
concerns and that it’s only fair to investigate despite Arizona’s three
official investigations yielding little to no evidence of election fraud. That’s
actually just a notch or two above the politicos who wholeheartedly embrace the
former president and support the big lie shamelessly, hoping to whip up voters
and gain a majority of Congressional seats for the Republican Party (for the
GQP faction, at any rate) during the 2022 midterm and the 2024 general
elections.
The
“big lie” is a highly toxic, cynical notion that poisons the atmosphere and the
wells of democracy. Here in Arizona, we know a lot about clear skies and groundwater
because the human presence in our delicate high and low desert environments
depend upon safeguarding the Earth and managing what substances are allowed to circulate
in the air and penetrate the soil. Poisoning our atmosphere and our drinking
water is an apt analogy for what the questionable Cyber Ninja audit is
provoking here in Arizona.
We
can easily extrapolate that without attention to the truth of the matter, that
we can’t stabilize crucial environmental issues in Arizona. Neither can we have
viable state governments if our entire federal system is at risk. Arizona faces
a critical juncture in our shared national history. There really is no other
option but to embrace the proven truth of the matter, otherwise our reputation
as a credible state in a credible democratic republic is tarnished.
Karen
Fann and several other Arizona Republican legislators have chosen to
metaphorically poison our political sphere rather than gracefully concede to the
indisputable fact that Joe Biden won the presidential race in Arizona (as
Governor Ducey and a few mainstream Republican politicians surprisingly did).
I
won’t review all the names and details regarding the Cyber Ninja audit. There are
many fine local and national political journalists and pundits who write for and
/ or appear on national and local news venues, and many, if not all, have social
media accounts. These esteemed investigative reporters, associated with both
mainstream and alternative news venues, have covered the AZ audit in detail and
continue
to dig out salient facts about this travesty almost daily. If you’ve not
already followed the Arizona audit story in the news or researched it online,
please do so.
I
have not followed Karen
Fann’s entire political career and so cannot speak to every facet of it. I
presume she may have brought some good things to the table for Arizona citizens
along her path from city council member to mayor to state representative to
Arizona Senate President. (One can hope, since that’s what government officials are supposed
to be doing, right?)
But
I have been present and observant during a couple of prominent decisions she
has made, one local and one with national implications, and I note the conflict
and the political maneuvering, then and now.
Karen
Fann served as councilman and mayor of Chino Valley between 2002-2009. I lived
in Yavapai County near the town – county boundary of Chino Valley from
1993-2009. While not a town resident, I did pay attention to the actions and
decisions of the mayor and town council because their actions often affected county residents too. And so, in 2003 when Embry Riddle
Aeronautical University in Prescott proposed to build a “stop-and-go” airstrip
for takeoff and landing practice for their students on the Perkins Ranch in
Chino Valley, specifically on parcels of land near the Garchen Buddhist
Institute, a world-class Tibetan Buddhist retreat center and near other dissenting
neighbors—ranchers and other homeowners— I sat up and took notice.
The
crux of the matter is that there’s a full-service airport in Prescott, just
eight miles or so as the crow flies from the proposed site on the Perkins
Ranch. The question of placing an airstrip so close to an operational airport was
significant. And the flights would likely have affected people near town living
under the flight paths and not just those living ten miles out of town around
the proposed airstrip site. By any stretch of the imagination, the proposed
project was a matter needing extensive research and public debate. Let it also
be noted that Mr. Perkins had other more appropriate locations on his ranch for
the project but oddly insisted on a location that upset his neighbors, rather like
the narcissistic person now stirring up the nation with his “big lie.”
While
town government under Mayor Karen Fann seemed bent on keeping the issue quiet
at the time, an issue she disputes, there was the small matter that landowners
in the vicinity of the proposed airstrip had to be notified, and so word of the
project quickly went around, as happens in small communities. After the initial
kerfuffle in 2003 had died down because of staunch community opposition to the
touch-and-go airstrip, the issue popped up again like a bad penny in 2007 as a
proposed plan for a full-scale airpark in the same location, sponsored again by
the Perkins Ranch, Inc. One major environmental concern was that the headwaters
of the Verde River lay near the Perkins Ranch, and it was unknown if the
groundwater would support any major level of industrial use in the area. The possibility that industrial contaminants might pollute the groundwater was
a realistic concern too.
I’m
not a journalist, but I am a creative writer, blogger, book reviewer, and also a
political and environmental activist when the need arises. In 2007 I
accidentally became one of a few public faces of the resistance to the
proposed airport. It didn’t take much for that to happen in a small community. I was
just a concerned citizen but my visibility increased beyond some activists, simply
because I called in to a KYCA radio show on July 6, 2007 to question Prescott politician
Steve Blair, a personal friend of the Perkins family who supported the airstrip
and airpark plans. I also submitted a
letter to the editor of the Chino Valley Review (opposing the airpark) that was
published as an op-ed that summer. It gained the attention of many people,
including the Perkins family, and was mentioned by Mrs. Perkins at a contentious town
council meeting about the proposed airpark. I stayed in the loop and communicated
with various groups who opposed the project. Later I helped circulate petitions
to town and county residents opposed to the airpark (as did many other people).
During
the summer and fall of 2007 I sometimes emailed information to local news
venues to help keep them apprised of new developments. One in particular, Art
Merrill, owner / managing editor of Read It Here / ReadItNews.com, an
alternative news venue with both a print and online presence in 2007, invited
me to write an article. It ultimately appeared as: “The airstrip that wouldn’t fly is try, trying again,”
ReadItHere / ReadItNews, September 2007.
(And I thank him profusely once again for his astute editing and moral support.) While
the article doesn’t appear online now, even in archived pages via the “wayback
machine,” I do have a hard copy of the print issue on file:
Four years ago Chino Valley
citizens decided they didn’t want “progress” in the form of a private airstrip
on a nearby 1,100-acre parcel owned by Perkins Ranch, Inc. And especially not
if Embry-Riddle University flight students used the airstrip for incessant
“touch-and-go” landings. Though deterred by public opposition, the airstrip
hasn’t gone away; instead, like those eager flight students in their blue and
white airplanes, the airstrip has come around again for yet another approach.
ERAU
withdrew its interest after the private airstrip plan failed to fly with Chino
Valley residents in 2003, when the Town of Chino Valley formally denied the
Perkins Ranch request to rezone 3,840 acres of the 8,300-acre ranch because of
Perkins’ failure to provide a list of non-conforming uses and a development
plan. But they said the rancher-cum-developer, Tom Perkins, Sr., could
reapply if he corrected his paperwork deficiencies.
What
airstrip?
Perkins
Ranch soon tried to land the airstrip again, but from a different approach. In
August 2005, apparently believing that a 2001 pre-annexation agreement with the
Town “grandfathered” his right to construct an airstrip, Perkins hired a
contractor to compact, grade and blade an airstrip on Sections 13 and 14
without approved rezoning or a conditional use permit. Within a month, the Town
filed for a restraining order and an injunction against Perkins Ranch in
Yavapai County Superior Court, which held hearings in October.
The
Perkins Ranch entitlement to airstrip construction appeared to rest on a claim
that the ranch was merely “improving” an already existent airstrip. The
hearing examined Perkins’ airport application to the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA); Perkins had checked the box labeled “Establishment of
activation” of an airport, and left “Alteration” unchecked. The application
also lists “zero” as the monthly number of landings as of July 5, 2005. The FAA
application is apparently inconsistent with claims of a preexisting airstrip.
Aerial photos of the area show no trace of any preexisting airstrip
construction, and Kelly Levine, the Perkins’ widowed daughter-in-law and major
shareholder of Perkins Ranch, Inc., testified there was no airstrip and no
planes landing on Sections 13 and 14.
Perkins
Ranch neighbor Betty Wells, who’s lived on Perkinsville Road since 1952, later
supported Kelly Levine’s 2005 testimony. Wells said she traveled the Chino
backcountry with her father, who worked as a trail guard and pumped water for a
sheep association.
“A
livestock trail wound through area ranches and [national] forest land toward
town,” she said, sweeping her hand across the peaceful landscape. “There just
wasn’t any airstrip.”
But,
Wells said, a few aircraft have landed in the area.
“My
husband’s cousin landed on the road a couple of times to bring us supplies when
Granite Creek flooded,” she recalled. “Two men landed on Narrow Gauge Road and
drove into Chino and robbed the old Valley National Bank once.”
The
hearing documented the unpopularity of the airstrip proposal with Chino Valley
residents. Mayor Fann’s testimony included public dismay about the project and
her conflicting personal belief that “the future of Chino Valley will have some
sort of municipal airport . . .”
Fann
testified that she suggested to the Perkins that Sections 23, 24, and 25 might
be a more appropriate location for an airstrip. She also cautioned the Perkins
about forging ahead with the project, warning that “even if [the airstrip]
received a 7-0 in-favor vote from the [P&Z] commission and a 7-0 in -favor
vote from the [town] council . . . I guarantee you every one of us would get
recalled and there would be a referendum that would be filed the next day
rejecting our vote . . .”
Airpark plus
Perkins
Ranch and the Town of Chino Valley reached a resolution, resulting in the ranch
setting up a third approach and hoping for a smooth landing. Perkins Ranch
applied for rezoning for development by January 2007, but word was slow in
reaching a public already disapproving of Perkins’ past touch & go’s.
Perkins
Ranch attorney David Ward followed to a “T” Chino Valley P&Z Ordinance #45
requiring landowners within 300 feet of the Perkins’ property be notified: no one lives that close, so there was no notification necessary. In May 2007, the
ranch notified landowners within 1,000 feet of Perkins’ property. Word of the
new proposal finally filtered around Chino Valley four months after the initial
zoning request and the issue inevitably took flight again. Mayor Fann was mum
on the new proposal—later blaming P&Z processes that precede publicizing
zoning requests—until she fielded airpark questions on her July 12, 2007 radio
program. [Note: July 12, 2007 KYCA 1490. Two days before the broadcast Fann
said she resented being made to “look devious” by resident outcry about lack of
publicity on the Perkins’ zoning request. Sounds similar to Fann’s waffling
about the controversial Cyber Ninjas audit, eh?]
No
longer calling for a private airstrip, the proposal now is for a “private
airpark with public usage.” Perkins Ranch attorneys say the ambitious
three-phase, 20-year plan “fulfills the stated purpose of the Chino Valley
Special Development Area (SDA),” although the SDA doesn’t specify an airport.
“SDA” is a Chino Valley 2003 General Plan land-use designation for low-density
residential housing coupled with commercial development. “General areas
allocated along Perkinsville Road, along the eastern boundary of the Town and
to the East of the Granite Creek floodplain have been designated as Special
Development Areas for future job centers,” the General Plan reads.
Opponents
expect the airpark to draw around itself more commercial and light industrial
businesses like those seen at the Prescott airport. But they also fear an
influx of heavy manufacturing plants, feed lots, automobile salvage yards,
quarries, mines and associated batch plants, concrete plants, slaughterhouses,
refineries, outdoor storage yards and junkyards and vehicle motor sports
facilities.
A wing and a prayer
Today,
this scenic SDA has only scattered residential occupants, one of he last
pronghorn herds in the area and natural aviators—a population of threatened
bald eagles that nest along the Verde River.
Garchen
Buddhist Institute, an exquisitely quiet 75-acre retreat facility sits on a
ridge overlooking the unfinished dirt airstrip. When I recently spoke with the
Institute’s spiritual leader, Garchen Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama known
internationally for his gentle humor and compassion, he seemed to have little
worldly concern as he sat cross-legged on the floor of the facility’s stupa, a
shrine symbolizing the Buddha’s enlightened mind.
Garchen
Rinpoche emphasized community dialog, cooperation and a spiritual outlook.
“When
I face an issue, I pray and recite mantra,” he said, whirling his ever-present
Tibetan prayer wheel. “I encourage people to use prayer before making
decisions.”
Kate Robinson is a substitute
teacher living [near] Chino Valley, a student at Garchen Institute, and a
member of the Professional Writers of Prescott.
~*~
My article simply gathered up a variety of already published info from news sources and new info in the form of interviews with people the proposed project affected. I wanted to tell a longer tale but my word count needed to be edited by half, so some interesting points were lost. Kept in the final publication was a portion of my interview with Garchen Rinpoche, the spiritual director of Garchen Institute, and a portion of my interview with Betty Wells, a long-time neighbor – rancher living near the Institute. Some interesting quotations from interviews with other notable citizens went by the editing wayside.
The
article didn’t please Chino Valley Mayor Karen Fann, whose alleged backroom
pre-annexation deal with rancher Perkins circa 2003 revealed by local
journalists may not have been widely known or possibly was mostly forgotten by 2007.
It was never entirely clear what had transpired between Perkins and Fann in the
first place anyway, as I recall, except there was some lapse in making the
transaction of the town annexing Perkins ranch property along Perkinsville Road
known to the public. She denies that it was a secret backroom deal and that the
lapse of public knowledge had to do with P&Z procedural issues.
Fann
managed somehow to call my unlisted landline number a day or two after
publication of the 2007 article (to be fair, I did work for the local school
district as a sub teacher at the time). I was surprised, especially since the
edited and published version of my article is fairly bland and non-controversial.
Fann related her extreme displeasure at my not having notified her about the
article before publication, probably the venue’s responsibility, not the freelance
contributor’s. I recall her saying I should have called her, but she used the
word “ask” often, as though she had wanted me to interview her rather than
report on what was already in the public record. She chided me as if I were at
her beck and call rather than presenting herself as a public servant, though
toward the end of the brief call she did try to sound diplomatic though clearly still
exasperated.
What
eventually arose from the situation in Chino Valley fourteen years ago, through
the concerted efforts of many people, was the truth of the matter. The airpark,
said to be a potential financial pot of gold for the community was shown,
realistically, to potentially create a few temporary jobs during construction, a very few
permanent positions afterward, and would benefit mostly the Perkins Ranch, Inc.,
during the first twenty years of its potential existence. The FAA never fully
approved the project because of the inconsistencies in the application and
because the proposed site is near the Prescott Airport. The Perkinses eventually
left their Arizona ranch to their surviving children and moved to their property in New Mexico. The Prescott Regional
Airport – Ernest A. Love Field has expanded since 2007 and a new terminal is
currently under construction in 2021. Fann Contracting is one of the construction companies involved
in that project (founders were Karen’s parents and her brother Mike now heads
that company). I understand that the Verde River is currently low and sluggish
in some areas as drought conditions persist throughout Arizona and the
Southwest in the summer of 2021. [edit September 2021 - there has been a rather decent summer monsoon season, rain measurement-wise, but the drought has not ended and the river is still in peril on many levels.]
Once
again, Karen Fann has embraced political waffling rather than being fully
honest about her role of allowing the Cyber Ninjas audit. She skims around at the edge of the cult and enables
it even while making distance from it. Perhaps a fourth authorized forensic audit might have been warranted to calm the misinformed segment of the public, but allowing a company with questionable or no qualifications to
do an audit tainted with conspiracy theory antics is astonishing. The buck
stops at Fann's desk, so ultimately, she’s responsible for the millions of taxpayer dollars
that must be spent on new election computers and devices because it can’t be
established that the auditors haven’t tampered with the electronics or
unintentionally compromised them. Ultimately, she is a co-conspirator in
Donald Trump’s big lie and will be responsible for any future violence by rightwing extremists when they finally realize he ain't returning to the White House.
If
Arizona finally manages to straighten up and fly right after this audit debacle,
it will again be due to the concerted effort of many people dedicated to
upholding the Truth. Your vote in upcoming local, state, and national elections
(and speaking out now) will be crucial in bringing Trump’s big lie back from
the stratosphere to be permanently buried in the landfill of the past where it
belongs. You decide!
 |
| ReadItHere / ReadItNews, September 2007 |
