Dear Editor,
Home on the Range is an iconic American folk song written by Brewster M. Higley in 1872. We all know the familiar words: “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.”
In 1857, Edward Beale first trudged through Kingman, Arizona, with his experimental Camel Core, and in the early 1870s, cattle were driven in to take advantage of the lush grasslands, making Kingman the home of the Open Range. In 1882, Lewis Kingman founded the city of Kingman as a railroad town.
When I look at Kingman, Arizona, today, I see some interesting historical similarities and abnormalities. Kingman has evolved in the grip of an ongoing crisis of urban development. The deer and the antelope are still around, but those who are at play are our local politicians, the Kingman City Council, for which the town’s people always have a discouraging word, and the skies are very cloudy each day.
After the questionable passage of Proposition 417, Kingman’s new General Plan promotes radical uncontrolled growth, and Kingman’s citizens are disturbingly yoked with a huge “camel on their backs.” An alleged greedy developer, Angle Homes, is devastating our open-range grasslands into urban ghettos where the cows are lawfully still allowed to roam. However, today, Kingman’s people are the real “cash cows” being milked to subsidize the transformation of the open range into tight urban housing gridlock with a total disregard for basic infrastructure, safety, environment, or quality of life. The people of Kingman are being used, herded, controlled, and moved like livestock by the cattle dogs of both the City and the County government with absolutely no cattleguards to protect them.
Statistics prove that every new home raises each of our electric and water bills. The urban density is choking the unmaintained streets and throughways. People are dying every day because we do not have a sufficient infrastructure of doctors and medical services. We, the people, go through each and every day chewing the cud, ruminating the bad taste of indifference from city and county leaders, rich landowners, and railroading home builders.
Under the proverbial cloudy sky, the people of 2024 Kingman will no longer tolerate being played by establishment politicians. We refuse to be yoked by the camel being put on our backs or milked like cash cows. We can no longer tolerate being herded and controlled by conscienceless governmental cattle dogs. It is time to spit out the curd, establish our cattleguards, and take the open range back.
My name is Elliot Chalew, and I am a very concerned citizen of Kingman. I am not a cowboy, but I am a shepherd and a switchman with a passion for watching over, protecting, and helping guide the good people back on the right railroad track to safety, prosperity, and secure open-range quality of life.
Please join our community group, CAUSE (Citizens Against Uncontrolled Social Environment). Together, we can make sure the skies are not cloudy all day.
Elliot Chalew
CAUSE (Citizens Against Uncontrolled Social Environment)
chalew@gmail.com
