Carefree Truth
Issue #592, September 15, 2017
Spoiler Alert: The owner of the Easy Street South property is NOT Ed Lewis. John Traynor and Jim Van Allen are NOT telling the truth.
Ownership of the Easy Street South property in downtown Carefree is quite easily ascertained by checking the Maricopa County Recorder's website, where ownership of all the property in Maricopa County is listed. It took a matter of minutes to find and to print the two 2017 deeds relating to this property. I have these deeds in hand. I have scanned and attached them to this email in their entirety. Herbert also published the most pertinent pages to a link for those who don't wish to download the attachment or don't wish to read through the entire deeds. http://carefreetruth2.com/deeds-for-the-lewis-easy-street-property-2016.html I am pasting the signature pages of both deeds onto the body of this email.
Dated January 17th, 2017, the DEED IN LIEU OF FORCLOSURE, Affidavid Exempt ARS 11-1134, begins: "For good and valuable consideration hereinafter set forth, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, Butte Carefree South, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company ("Grantor") do hereby grant, sell and convey to Mt. Whitney Ventures, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company ("Grantee") the following described real property situated in Maricopa County, Arizona, together with all rights and privileges appurtenant thereto:
See Exhibit "A" attached hereto and by reference incorporated herein (the "Property")." The notarized signature page shows the Grantor as Butte Carefree South, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company. By: Butte Easy Street, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company. It is signed by Edward Lewis, Its: Manager.
(As there is a large blank space at the bottom of each, after viewing the notary pages of the deeds, please continue to scroll down for more of this Carefree Truth newsletter.)
Issue #592, September 15, 2017
Spoiler Alert: The owner of the Easy Street South property is NOT Ed Lewis. John Traynor and Jim Van Allen are NOT telling the truth.
Ownership of the Easy Street South property in downtown Carefree is quite easily ascertained by checking the Maricopa County Recorder's website, where ownership of all the property in Maricopa County is listed. It took a matter of minutes to find and to print the two 2017 deeds relating to this property. I have these deeds in hand. I have scanned and attached them to this email in their entirety. Herbert also published the most pertinent pages to a link for those who don't wish to download the attachment or don't wish to read through the entire deeds. http://carefreetruth2.com/deeds-for-the-lewis-easy-street-property-2016.html I am pasting the signature pages of both deeds onto the body of this email.
Dated January 17th, 2017, the DEED IN LIEU OF FORCLOSURE, Affidavid Exempt ARS 11-1134, begins: "For good and valuable consideration hereinafter set forth, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, Butte Carefree South, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company ("Grantor") do hereby grant, sell and convey to Mt. Whitney Ventures, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company ("Grantee") the following described real property situated in Maricopa County, Arizona, together with all rights and privileges appurtenant thereto:
See Exhibit "A" attached hereto and by reference incorporated herein (the "Property")." The notarized signature page shows the Grantor as Butte Carefree South, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company. By: Butte Easy Street, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company. It is signed by Edward Lewis, Its: Manager.
(As there is a large blank space at the bottom of each, after viewing the notary pages of the deeds, please continue to scroll down for more of this Carefree Truth newsletter.)
The second deed, notarized January 30, 2017, is a SPECIAL WARRANTY DEED which conveys the property from Mt. Whitney Ventures, LLC to Carefree Residential, LLC., and the notarized page is signed by William Cleverly, It's: Manager.
Mt. Whitney Ventures is a subsidiary of INCA Capital Real Estate Financing. Individual properties within Mt. Whitney are set up as separate LLCs. In this case, the Easy Street South property was set up under the name Carefree Residential, LLC. Mr. Cleverly is INCA's CEO. This property very clearly no longer belongs to Ed Lewis.
Before the design/development team, Lawrence Gabriele of Azil Development and Robert Stehlik of Starworks Global Development, made their presentation at the August 29th Council meeting, Town Administrator Gary Neiss explained that the current owner, INCA, who purchased the Easy Street South property from Ed Lewis, has been working with Mr. Gabriele and Mr. Stehlik, who plan to purchase the property from INCA and develop it, should their proposed project be approved.
After their presentation, John Traynor stood up and read from a letter written by Mr. Neiss. Mr. Traynor quoted, "The current owner of the southern property previously owned by Butte Properties blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." "I was under the impression that this was a done deal, and now I am hearing that there is no closing, and a closing won't occur until after the Council agrees. Kind of awkward. This is a public document and it contradicts what facts were drawn."
Mayor Peterson said, "I don't understand the point". Mr. Neiss said, "Let's read what it says. 'The current owner of the southern property previously owned by Butte Properties has been working with a local design team', that's these folks here that INCA is working with." Councilman Farrar pointed to the INCA COO in the audience, Justin Ferrandi, and said, "INCA", adding, "Say 'Hi' to Bill Cleverly for me." Mr. Neiss told Mr. Traynor, "We explained that earlier in the presentation. So, that's what that says." Mr. Traynor retorted, "I won't argue with you. It said what it said. Forget what the words were. It said what it said." "I'm sorry, but I read what I read. People can say anything."
This is Mr. Traynor's description of that scene, copied and pasted directly from his highly agendized newsletter. "I then read from the staff cover letter on the Agreement, an "Information Summary" which stated that, "The current owner of the southern property previously owned by Butte Properties (Ed Lewis) has been working with a local development team to build luxury residential rentals rather than condominiums." The Mayor said something to the effect, what is that, I don't know what it is, who wrote it? I said it was written by staff, and when pressed further I then located the sign-off line and read, "Summary prepared by: Gary Neiss, Town Administrator and it was so initialed. Mr. Neiss tried to interrupt me, but I told him I didn't want to hear from him. People can say anything they want, make up excuses, but written public documents are a different matter. [At best it was a clumsy mistake, at worst it was deliberately misleading.]"
As you can see on this video, Mr. Traynor's newsletter description of that scene was not even close to accurate. Mr. Farrar asked who wrote it, not the Mayor. Neither the Mayor nor Mr. Neiss interrupted Mr. Traynor; both spoke after Mr. Farrar. Gary Neiss did indeed explain the facts to him, which Mr. Traynor chose to ignore and continues to deny. https://vimeo.com/233934033
Before the design/development team, Lawrence Gabriele of Azil Development and Robert Stehlik of Starworks Global Development, made their presentation at the August 29th Council meeting, Town Administrator Gary Neiss explained that the current owner, INCA, who purchased the Easy Street South property from Ed Lewis, has been working with Mr. Gabriele and Mr. Stehlik, who plan to purchase the property from INCA and develop it, should their proposed project be approved.
After their presentation, John Traynor stood up and read from a letter written by Mr. Neiss. Mr. Traynor quoted, "The current owner of the southern property previously owned by Butte Properties blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." "I was under the impression that this was a done deal, and now I am hearing that there is no closing, and a closing won't occur until after the Council agrees. Kind of awkward. This is a public document and it contradicts what facts were drawn."
Mayor Peterson said, "I don't understand the point". Mr. Neiss said, "Let's read what it says. 'The current owner of the southern property previously owned by Butte Properties has been working with a local design team', that's these folks here that INCA is working with." Councilman Farrar pointed to the INCA COO in the audience, Justin Ferrandi, and said, "INCA", adding, "Say 'Hi' to Bill Cleverly for me." Mr. Neiss told Mr. Traynor, "We explained that earlier in the presentation. So, that's what that says." Mr. Traynor retorted, "I won't argue with you. It said what it said. Forget what the words were. It said what it said." "I'm sorry, but I read what I read. People can say anything."
This is Mr. Traynor's description of that scene, copied and pasted directly from his highly agendized newsletter. "I then read from the staff cover letter on the Agreement, an "Information Summary" which stated that, "The current owner of the southern property previously owned by Butte Properties (Ed Lewis) has been working with a local development team to build luxury residential rentals rather than condominiums." The Mayor said something to the effect, what is that, I don't know what it is, who wrote it? I said it was written by staff, and when pressed further I then located the sign-off line and read, "Summary prepared by: Gary Neiss, Town Administrator and it was so initialed. Mr. Neiss tried to interrupt me, but I told him I didn't want to hear from him. People can say anything they want, make up excuses, but written public documents are a different matter. [At best it was a clumsy mistake, at worst it was deliberately misleading.]"
As you can see on this video, Mr. Traynor's newsletter description of that scene was not even close to accurate. Mr. Farrar asked who wrote it, not the Mayor. Neither the Mayor nor Mr. Neiss interrupted Mr. Traynor; both spoke after Mr. Farrar. Gary Neiss did indeed explain the facts to him, which Mr. Traynor chose to ignore and continues to deny. https://vimeo.com/233934033
John Traynor
Councilman Jim Van Allen is also knowingly putting forth the false information that Easy Street South is still owned by Ed Lewis. He wrote this statement in a Letter to the Editor in the Sonoran News: "Some of the issues I raised…all of which were responded to by the team of Developer, Architect, Town Administrator, or the Mayor. 1) Had the Developer closed on the purchase yet? Answer NO. Ed Lewis still owns the parcel." This is not what he was told at the Council meeting when he questioned it. Mr. Van Allen, who can be seen below grilling the developers, continues to ignore and deny any answers that conflict with his own consistently negative agenda.
Councilman Jim Van Allen is also knowingly putting forth the false information that Easy Street South is still owned by Ed Lewis. He wrote this statement in a Letter to the Editor in the Sonoran News: "Some of the issues I raised…all of which were responded to by the team of Developer, Architect, Town Administrator, or the Mayor. 1) Had the Developer closed on the purchase yet? Answer NO. Ed Lewis still owns the parcel." This is not what he was told at the Council meeting when he questioned it. Mr. Van Allen, who can be seen below grilling the developers, continues to ignore and deny any answers that conflict with his own consistently negative agenda.
Jim Van Allen
Ignoring facts that don't jive with their agenda is the historic standard of behavior exhibited by both Mr. Van Allen and Mr. Traynor. Had the ownership of this property been of genuine concern to these two, rather than yet another cheap attempted "gotcha", all they had to do was check the Recorder's website, like I did. But obviously neither had any interest in inconvenient facts that could blow apart this latest attack on Mr. Neiss and the other Council members. Both pretend to wrap themselves in blankets of self righteousness, the super hero protectors of the citizens. They promulgate a divisive "them vs. us" narrative, feeding the residents harsh sound bytes with no basis in fact. Mr. Traynor was the Poster Boy for projection when he wrote, "[At best it was a clumsy mistake, at worst it was deliberately misleading.]"
It's a sad day for our lovely town when posturing, self promoting cohorts of this caliber continuously attempt to gain power and prestige by demonizing other Council members and the staff, spreading malice with such glee.
Lyn Hitchon
Prepared by Carefree Truth
Visit our website at www.carefreetruth2.com If you know anyone who would like to be added to the Carefree Truth email list, please have them contact me. Feel free to share Carefree Truth with others on your list. Visit www.carefreeazbusinesses.com to see more info about businesses in Carefree. Please support our merchants.
Ignoring facts that don't jive with their agenda is the historic standard of behavior exhibited by both Mr. Van Allen and Mr. Traynor. Had the ownership of this property been of genuine concern to these two, rather than yet another cheap attempted "gotcha", all they had to do was check the Recorder's website, like I did. But obviously neither had any interest in inconvenient facts that could blow apart this latest attack on Mr. Neiss and the other Council members. Both pretend to wrap themselves in blankets of self righteousness, the super hero protectors of the citizens. They promulgate a divisive "them vs. us" narrative, feeding the residents harsh sound bytes with no basis in fact. Mr. Traynor was the Poster Boy for projection when he wrote, "[At best it was a clumsy mistake, at worst it was deliberately misleading.]"
It's a sad day for our lovely town when posturing, self promoting cohorts of this caliber continuously attempt to gain power and prestige by demonizing other Council members and the staff, spreading malice with such glee.
Lyn Hitchon
Prepared by Carefree Truth
Visit our website at www.carefreetruth2.com If you know anyone who would like to be added to the Carefree Truth email list, please have them contact me. Feel free to share Carefree Truth with others on your list. Visit www.carefreeazbusinesses.com to see more info about businesses in Carefree. Please support our merchants.
Correction
One who did receive it was Councilman Mike Farrar, who sent the following reply:
Lyn,
Thank you for a very accurate description of the facts; however I just wanted to point out one correction. INCA Capital, et al, did not purchase that property from Ed Lewis. INCA Capital was the funding source for Lewis and when Lewis defaulted on that note, INCA foreclosed and received ownership of that property.
Mike Farrar
Thanks for the correction, Mike. The first deed was a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure. I used the word "purchased" when referring to that ownership transfer in a later paragraph in error.
Lyn
Lyn,
Thank you for a very accurate description of the facts; however I just wanted to point out one correction. INCA Capital, et al, did not purchase that property from Ed Lewis. INCA Capital was the funding source for Lewis and when Lewis defaulted on that note, INCA foreclosed and received ownership of that property.
Mike Farrar
Thanks for the correction, Mike. The first deed was a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure. I used the word "purchased" when referring to that ownership transfer in a later paragraph in error.
Lyn