EDITORIAL FOR MAY 13-14, 2008

 

I’m CAVE MANager Paul Lotsof.  If you’ve been following the goings on at the Benson City Hall you know that there is turmoil there as never before.   The mayor is being investigated and one or maybe two council members are being recalled.    You might be wondering how we got into this mess so let’s take a closer look.

 

It was about a year ago, in May of 2007,  that Dianne Tipton got elected to the Benson City Council.   Her campaign literature promised “to make all council members accountable to the people that elected them”.  To quote further from her campaign leaflet, “I feel that many of the current city council members have too many huge conflicts of interest”.  

 

On June 11, 2007, one week before Dianne Tipton was sworn in as a council member, City Attorney Ann Roberts submitted a couple of proposed contracts so that she could continue as City Attorney, a position she had held for over six years.   The council approved the continuation of Roberts’ employment.   Several days later, Roberts sent a  contract to the new mayor, Mark Fenn, for his signature.   But there was one problem.  The copy that Fenn signed was a little different from what the council had approved.   A few days later, Dianne Tipton compared both the wording that the council had approved and the contract that Fenn had signed, and Tipton spotted some changes.  Those changes had potential to cost the city many thousands of dollars over the life on the contract.   Tipton cried foul.

 

  Roberts’ supporters claimed that the discrepancy was just a clerical error.  Tipton insisted that it was “accidentally on purpose”.   Roberts solved the problem by resigning but that wasn’t where the story ended; not by a long shot.  The council decided to give Roberts a very generous consolation prize in the form of the city prosecutor’s job.  This was to be a part time position–about twenty hours a week at a salary of $54,000 a year plus benefits.   That didn’t exactly leave Roberts eligible for food stamps and she had nothing to kick about.

 

The plot thickens.   Dianne Tipton is the manager of two trailer parks in Benson.   She works without pay for her son, Jay, who owns the parks.   One of the tenants in the park was a woman named Tamara Hansen.   Often landlords and tenants don’t get along and that was certainly the case with Dianne Tipton and Tamara Hansen.  In June a heated argument ensued and Hansen allegedly  threatened to kill Tipton.   Tipton told Hansen to get lost and served her with an eviction notice.     That annoyed Carl Haupt who is a close friend of the Hansen family.

 

The plot thickens further.    Last fall, Dianne Tipton began to receive complaints that  Mark Fenn was overstepping his authority as mayor and was trying to push some of his pet real estate projects through the approval process.  Fenn is a real estate developer, and if the complaints were true, he was pursuing the very type of conflict of interest that Tipton had campaigned against..   Tipton demanded an investigation.

 

That was the last straw as far as Carl Haupt was concerned.  In January of this year, this 82 year old hiking enthusiast decided to hike around Benson with recall petitions in his hand.  Haupt was going to undo the general election and remove Tipton from office.

  Under the Arizona Constitution, all it would take to bring about a recall election were the signatures of 108 voters or 25% of the number of people who voted in the May 2007 election.   Collecting 108 signatures is child’s play especially when someone is willing to help collect the signatures.   The someone willing to help turned out to be Jim Crawford who is Ann Roberts’ uncle.   Crawford’s long political career had started with a recall election thirty years  earlier so he knew the procedure.

 

If you look at the signatures of the voters who signed the Tipton recall, you’ll find that a large percentage of them are members of the LDS Church which Carl Haupt attends..  Most of the remaining signatures belong to good -old- boy cronies of Crawford.

 

 Apparently delighted with his success in arranging the recall of Dianne Tipton, Haupt and Crawford then set their sights on Councilwoman  Kathy Suagee who also has been highly critical of Mayor Fenn.  She also must be kicked off the council.  Last month a second recall effort began..  This time the petition carriers included Mary Lopshire, Judy Lester, Ammi Taylor and Jan Daggett.   It was Daggett who circulated most of the recall  petitions in 1978 that led to Crawford’s first election.   History repeated itself royally.

 

So what happens next?  There will be a recall election in early September during which Dianne Tipon will be portrayed by her opposition as a divisive demon who needs to be removed from office and replaced by someone supportive of Mark Fenn and the family of Ann Roberts.   Very likely, in November there will be a  recall election for Kathy Suagee’s seat.  She also will be portrayed as a divisive demon.   The only problem is that Tipton and Suagee are two ladies of high ethical standards and not demons.   The Wednesday Wonder will continue to print slanted articles that portray both Tipton and Suagee as vindictive villains..

 

By contrast, I will be highly supportive of both Dianne Tipton and Kathy Suagee because I know that both are honest and have the best interests of Benson in mind.

 

I’m CAVE MANager Paul Lotsof and the opinions you’ve just heard are mine and not necessarily anyone else’s.   If you’d like a copy of this editorial, go to our web site, CAVE-FM.com.   CAVE-FM.com also has many other features pertaining to Benson’s current political situation.   If you’d like to express your opinions, you may contact me via CAVEFM.com

 

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