Dear Editor,
For almost 18 months, I have been exposing the many community issues in Mohave County, focusing specifically on Kingman, AZ. The major theme has been that elected community leaders have categorically and defiantly REFUSED to listen to the people’s voice and have done so with reckless disregard and brazen deception. The specific issues have been Uncontrolled Growth and Inadequate Infrastructure. I have enumerated in great detail a plethora of current and pending community problems, all the while our elected officials, both county and city, have hidden behind the misleading ideology of Economic Development. My former publications “General Plan or General Scam” and “Status Quo or Status Foe” expose the infidelity and the lack of integrity of Kingman’s new unethical and illegitimate General Plan
On Nov. 27 and Dec. 4 of this year, a Public Notice appeared in the Miner Newspaper. The notice states that the county (which includes the city of Kingman) was OUT OF COMPLIANCE with the Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 11, Chapter 6, which governs the aspects of Planning and Zoning. Although the law requires these Public Notices, it does not, in practice, create retroactivity. As you may be aware, Kingman’s major home builder, Angle Homes, flooded both the city and county with many applications to rezone private lands to build thousands of new homes across hundreds of acres in multiple locations. This would create an intolerable urban density and fully over-tax our diminished infrastructure. The people of the city and the county have overwhelmingly protested these zoning applications, which have been largely approved.
We all know that ignorance of the law is never an acceptable excuse for violating the law. With that concept in mind, the following should apply:
1) All of Angle’s unapproved rezoning applications prior to Nov.27, 2024, be deemed null and void and revoked due to the fact the city and the county violated the applicable ARS Statutes.
2) All city and county P&Z Commission recommendations and rulings on the rash of Angle’s new applications before Nov. 27, 2024, shall be deemed null and void.
3) All rulings of the county Board of Supervisors and the Kingman City Council on the aforementioned zoning applications before Nov.27, 2024, shall be deemed null and void.
4) Angle Homes and its subsidiaries must (if so desired) reapply for said applications to the collective P&Z body.
5) Subsequently, the Board of Supervisors and the Kingman City Council must also adjudicate (once again) on said applications. In other words, the entire step process must begin once again now that the notices of non-compliance have been publicized, and the governing bodies may proceed within the parameters of the law.
Economic Development is the process of improving the quality of life and economic wellness of a community. It is not to be abused so as to only serve the quality of life and economic wellness of a few special interest groups.
You and I both know that (as rank-and-file citizens) this rapid, uncontrolled growth reduces quality of life and economic wellness.
It has been with this threat that I have consistently and rigorously pleaded this case in the court of public opinion. The response from the people has been overwhelmingly uncompromising and forceful as the people struggle in opposition to our governing leaders.
There is a sad irony to all of this and an undeniable conclusion: Instead of Economic Development, what “We, The People,” must demand is “Leadership Development’. Please Remember this every day, and do not forget that OUR quality of life and economic welfare are under serious threat.
Please join CAUSE (Citizens Against Uncontrolled Social Environment)
Elliot Chalew
chalew@gmail.com
