If nothing else, May’s Cave Creek Town Council election was a referendum on transparency — or more accurately, the lack of it — in local government.
Plans to alleviate the town’s $60 million debt were murky. Financial documents pertaining to the town’s 2007 purchase of a local water company were inaccessible. Allegations of cronyism and back-room deals circulated among residents who had come to feel increasingly estranged from their elected representatives.
That disillusionment manifested itself when the mail-in votes were tallied, as four challengers were elected to the seven-member council, unseating nearly 50 years of experience in the process. Change, the newcomers promised, was imminent.
