And the Candidates are:

And the Candidates are: (drum roll please)… Dale Ruzicka

And Beth Pope. Whom we are hopeful is a real candidate and not a ‘groomed by the crooked establishment’ token. The reason we cannot simply jump on the Pope Train, is we were fooled before. We thought somebody who was running for office was a decent person and would actually ‘do the right thing.’

We were wrong.

So, let’s take a deeper look at both these candidates.

As you recall, Dale Ruzicka was already on the board and was found seriously wanting by several of us. He was elected in an unlawful election in 2020 with votes taken via email and maybe via phone calls. Who knows how these votes were taken, or if these people really voted, because they were received by Crystal Farrokhi, who campaigned for Dale. Yeah, no conflict of interest there.

Some memories of that time were Dale standing on our road looking at our properties and when asked who he was and what he was doing, said that he had been told by the Highway Department that some of the approaches were not done correctly and that the road district might be held financially responsible.

He said that to me.

I immediately went inside and called the highway department and spoke directly with Jesse Doyle, the superintendent, who informed me that no one from his office was out on our road, and if they had been it would be to check on one particularly property, not driving around and looking at all of them, and that if there were a problem with ANY approaches, that it would be the individual property owner that would be held responsible.

Basically, he said what anybody with more than two brain cells would assume.

Another moment etched in time was when Dale Ruzicka, having told us he had a lot of experience running committees, had several secret meetings that should have been public and we should have been notified of, and behind closed doors, he and the other two board members raised our yearly fee by 25%. This was our first indication that the road district was unlawfully imposing a special assessment.

And this was after we were told by the board in a very public email chain in 2020, that they would not raise our rate unless we agreed.

Dale was also on the board when lots of improvements were done on the road back in the area where he and Crystal lived. Reminder, road districts cannot improve roads, just construct and repair/maintain. And we know it was improvement because they widened the road unnecessarily and called it an improvement.

But wait!!! There’s more! Dale was also the main responder in the 2024 election email chain where the Board was asked when the bylaws were changed and just how Joel was ousted, because it certainly was not lawful. Just re-reading that thread will be an eye-opener as to just who Dale is.

So, having given serious thought as to the potential of Dale being back on the Board, and while we are very relieved that crooked Crystal Farrokhi is not running again (though we believe will still be very involved pulling the strings, as Dale has been in the last couple years) we made a list of who/what would be more appealing. And Dale did not make the top five.

#1 This fat cat, that does not belong to any of us, and whom is a complete stranger to us. We feel that he would be a better candidate and represent us better than Dale.

#2 This cockroach. While in the same general family as Dale, we feel it seems a bit more honest.

#3 This crazy clown. While there are many similarities, he just comes across as a bit more authentic.

#4 This potted plant. Which appears to be dead. While we had said that we would sooner vote in a potted plant than Crystal Farrokhi, it occurred to us that we would sooner vote in a DEAD one over Dale Ruzicka.

And #5 Burnt Toast. So much more integrity than Dale Ruzicka.

A board consisting of Dale Ruzicka and Matt Christensen and Bob Hummel would be more of the same unlawful shenanigans we’ve had for so long. They would continue to make decisions in their echo chambers and not taking our advice of seeking real legal help. We told them the meetings had to be open to all of us, and rather that just read the law (which is pretty clear… I mean.. I figured it out in one reading), they doubled down and didn’t even provide minutes.

They likely just called Dana at the auditors office, who likely told them that they didn’t need to have open meetings and they were doing everything just fine. Why do I think this? Because Dana seemed a bit surprised when I literally read the law to him. Like he had never read it before.

I do wonder if Dana got a copy of that letter from the State’s Attorney that took three pages of circling the airport before she finally landed her plane and said, ‘the road district broke the law and the matter is being sent to the Open Meetings Commission.’

And there are still several formal complaints going through the initial investigation.

What else can we expect from such a board? Well, they will certainly be doubling down on the “In no way can Concho Trail withdraw from this rogue district… even though they were right about every damn thing, and we are crooked AF. We will continue unlawfully imposing a special assessment, calling it a levy, which also would not be legal in this situation, improve our area of the road so our property values are increased,… oh, yeah… we still won’t replace the Concho Trail road that we had destroyed for absolutely no reason, because… well, we don’t have to. I mean, legally we are responsible for that road, but the residents would have to hire a lawyer to make us do it… <shrug> and we can hire another shyster lawyer with unlawfully acquired road district funds.’

You may be thinking that Dale can’t be that bad. That Dale certainly would have made the list of the top 10, right?

#6 A busted balloon.

Gotta say that this almost seems apropos. When a balloon is overfilled with air, it just explodes. Also when a balloon is filled with air and something comes along and pops it… like the sharp point of truth.

#7 We had a 3 way tie for #7.

Toenail Fungus, snot and ear wax… Any of these would be a better choice than voting for Dale. We can honestly say that none of these have lied to us, misrepresented us to the county, or lied to the commissioners.

#8 A pile of garbage

Even a landfill, which stinks and breeds disease, fulfills a real purpose. It’s a necessary evil.

Dale is just an unnecessary one.

#9. AOC

An empty headed, opportunistic charlatan.

Oh, wait, that hits a little close to the mark, doesn’t it?

And finally #10!!!

A serial killer. Dead or alive, Jeffrey Dahmer is more trustworthy than Dale Ruzicka.

And his resume? Let’s read it together, shall we?

Let’s leave aside how poorly written this is. What we have is a lot of generic information. While he does mention some experience in other committees, he makes no mention of anything he did personally to promote the purpose. To make something better. In fact, any of us can remember his first 3 years, where communication between the board and the members decreased markedly.

You would think that a person with these credentials would be well versed in some of the most basic laws that every single state has enacted, and those would be the Open Meeting Laws.

In fact, Dale’s own files showed he had access to and knowledge of a great many laws that he simply ignored. He had highlighted an starred several… that he then broke. Kind of like a checklist.

Let’s look at Beth Pope.

I want to be perfectly honest here. We are hoping that Beth honestly looked at the situation and determined she wanted to help this rogue district start coloring inside the lines. That she feels the Board has screwed up and she wants to help bring the board and the members back together.

We would hope that she takes an honest look at the situation between the Board and the residents of Concho Trail and agrees with us that we should be allowed to withdraw (as the law states) and the focus of the board would be to represent its members equally.

Failing that, we would hope that she would recognize that we were in fact within the law when we petitioned to withdraw from the road district and start our own. That the Board of Commissioners were poorly advised by the state’s attorney when she said they could make a choice. The recent Attorney General Official Opinion again agrees with us that the commissioners had no choice and the states attorney was simply in error. We will be bringing that issue to the attention of Attorney General and then possibly a court. There was no room for misunderstanding that law.

Which says a lot about the state’s attorney, who misunderstood the law.

Let’s look at Beth’s statement and discuss.

Granted, it was a pretty low bar, but in the first paragraph, Beth easily outranks Dale. She tells us, “I believe in supporting our community and hope you find my experience in the area of accounting and exposure to the legal system will provide you with confidence in trusting me with this fiduciary responsibility for the next three years.”

Supporting our community? A breath of fresh air, if true. I have no reason to think it is not true, it is just that we have been burned by every trustee that was elected since 2018, except Joel… who was unlawfully ousted.

Every other trustee ran on “I just want to help my neighbors,” but really didn’t.

I honestly hope that Beth means it. And again, I have absolutely no reason to not believe her. None.

“I began my career doing accounts payable for the Turtle Bay Hilton in Hawaii.  After getting married, I put my husband through school working as a secretary for the Salt Lake Public Defenders Office, eventually becoming their Operations Manager.  This was my first introduction to managing other people’s money for the good of the community.  I met with both City and County Council Members to review, audit or reassess our budget as needed.”

Let me just say here that after reading the poorly written gobbledygook from Mr. “look at me” Ruzicka, this statement from Beth is a pleasant change. Well-written. In the above paragraph it is easy to see how Beth’s experience would directly correlate to the Road Districts business. Beth has some law experience. It would seem more likely that she would at least recognize there ARE laws that the board must abide by and work within. That’s already strides ahead of the current or recent boards.

Audit? Reassess a budget? I wish her luck in explaining these basic terms to the current board, and to the people who will likely be very involved, whether voted in or not. You have your work cut out for you, Beth. I suggest getting them alone. The echo chamber has put the Board in its current legal predicament.

“While my husband was attending graduate school in Tennessee, I worked as a legal secretary to a tax attorney where we defended many CPAs being sued by clients or the IRS.  I eventually went to work for one of those CPAs when we made another move to a small town.  On another move,  I ended up with the same law firm as before, working for a corporate acquisitions attorney this time.  It was my job to track the accounts, monetary or otherwise, being acquired.”

More experience in dealing with the law, and other peoples money. Gotta say again- just comparing statements, Beth’s is FAR better than Dale’s.

“We will have been here 8 years in September and know we all need to take turns serving on the Saddleback Road District.  My husband, Scott, who has worked 30+ years in banking consumer risk management and regulatory compliance, will be supporting me in this position.”

Sounds good. I don’t get the impression Beth is looking to run again and again and keep her claws in the board. It sounds like she believes in voluntary term limits.

Overall, I like what is being said here. We have a known quantity with Dale. We already had him in charge for 3 years. We had three years of secret meetings, unlawful money expenditures, unlawful fee increases, changing bylaws with no input, and numerous other issues.

Beth then says, “Please come by to meet me or let me know if you have any questions.”

Wow.

Well done, Beth. I wish you luck. Not just with the election… but being able to stay honest and trustworthy in the position, surrounded by those who are not.