Supervisor Snider on October activities, Veterans Day and voting

It’s the time of year when I know I can leave some windows open to catch those delightful (low) nighttime breezes and my steering wheel won’t leave burn marks on the palms of my hands when I first start the car. Up north the leaves are starting to turn colors – as are the license plates on our streets and roads: it must be fall!

Although the current stress in our national economy, financial institutions and housing market has us all worried about investments, employment and retirement – there are some very worthwhile (and fun!) events taking place this month. In fact, if you sit at home on any given weekend in October, then you’re just not paying attention to a very full calendar of community activities.

For example, if you’d like to partake of some good, filling breakfasts while donating to a very worthy cause (helping the dependents of our deployed soldiers), VFW Post 1677 has the answer. Their regular Saturday morning breakfasts – featuring eggs, breakfast meats, pancakes and beverages for $5 a person – get underway on Oct. 4 at the VFW Hall located at 111 E. Second Street (across from the downtown Food City store) in Casa Grande. They are also selling snow cones on the following Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Safeway Store at Trekell Road and Cottonwood Lane in Casa Grande. Proceeds from the snow cone sale will go to aid dependents of deployed soldiers as well as cancer research.

Before I leave the subject of our veterans and the debt we owe them for their service to our country, I’d be remiss if I didn’t sneak in a heads up for your calendar in November. On Saturday, Nov. 8, Casa Grande will see an improved and expanded Veterans Day Parade: the route’s been moved from Cottonwood Lane to the downtown area, and a number of new floats and other entries have been added. It’s slated to get underway at 9:30 that morning – stay tuned for more information as we get closer to the parade date.

And, as it does every year, Pinal County will also host a Veterans Day event in Florence on Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. Regardless of where you observe this holiday, please join me in thanking all veterans – regardless of dates of service – for all that they have done, are doing and will do to protect our country. It’s their willingness to go in harm’s way that keeps our great nation free from tyranny’s grip.

Moving away from the calendar and back to some current events, I’d like to briefly visit the topic of our process to review and revise the County’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan. As many of you know from many of these columns and other media outlets, a draft of the newly revised Plan was released for comment and review some months ago. State law provides for a minimum 60-day public review and comment period, and that ‘deadline’ arrived in mid-September.

But the County Board of Supervisors is committed to the concept of having the best possible plan to put into place so that it can guide the county’s land use decisions during the coming decade and, therefore, we will be reissuing a second draft of a proposed Plan in mid-October and establishing a second 60-day review and comment period. I think the new version will be much stronger for the voluminous input from citizens and stakeholder groups – but we’ll see at the end of November. Please plan on checking out the new document at http://pinalcountyplan.com.

Back to the calendar before I close out this month’s column: on Oct. 11, the dedicated volunteers of the Eden Equine Rescue Center in the Maricopa-Stanfield area are holding their Fall Follies Horse Show. Proceeds from this fun event (fun to watch and fun to participate) will go to provide shelter and relief for distressed or abandoned horses in the western part of our county. For more information, go to www.equineeden.org or call (520) 568-9315.

My last word(s) for the month are focused on the Big Election on Nov. 4. Regardless of who is elected President of these United States – or to any other office at the local, state, or Congressional level – this election cycle will go down in the record books as an historical event. I’d like to think that part of that historic record will include the fact that voter turn out and participation at all levels was at an all time high as well. As I said earlier in this column, our country’s veterans have put their families and lives in jeopardy throughout the centuries so that we can participate in this grand exercise of democracy. I hope to see you at the polls.

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