Editors at Sonoran Truth:
Sorchych finally got his chance to attack me publicly when I began doing legal access work (one of the areas of concentration of my local legal practice) for some men who had purchased a huge amount of private ground that include the most of the top of Continental Mountain, as well as an entire valley on its south slopes and more ground o the north side.
Before coming to me, they had decided to clean up an old mining road going uphill to the east from near Fleming Springs, and then extend it with more road up over the top of the mountain. While I wish they could have found another route, I had no ability to change that at the time, and was hired instead to “perfect” legal access along Fleming Springs the historical route of access into the large canyon east of Fleming Springs on the south side of the Continental Mountain.
Believing at the time a lower stretch along Fleming Springs Road was already legally perfected, we started with the upper stretch of the road that ended where it fed into what had been the 100 acre Fleming Springs property (then recently cut into 5 large parcels by clients of Janet Mohr, with her ending up with one of those parcels). It went past about a dozen houses, most of which were in favor of the planned improvements and did not oppose our legal demands for recognition of legal access. In fact, only two property owners opposed our efforts, Dr. Amaro, a local chiropractor, and his neighbors who owned an old home next door.
Immediately after my clients did the roadwork on their own ground on Continental Mountain (just before or after they first came to see me), Sorchych began continual attacks on them and me, that lasted for months. Warning of the need to counter his distortions with the truth, they allowed me to publish two pages in the Foothills Sentinal, one defending them and one defending me. In the one defending me, I certainly did not hold back, but went on the offensive.
After some additional months, we actually published a full 4 page discussion in the Foothills Sentinel called A Mountain of Misinformation to counter the ongoing deliberate lies and distortions by Sorchych over those prior months.
This was allowed by the Foothills Sentinel in large part because a gutsy woman named Cheryl Duncan being put in control over the paper by its generally disinterested and distant owners. She did a lot more to fight Sorchych’s lies and distortions, but left the position in a year or so.
I cannot find the text of either the first two full pages or the later 4 full pages we published in the Foothills Sentinel, but they would do much to show.
Thus began the public battle between me and Sorchych, and set an example for publishing the truth in the other paper. For years after that, people would come to me to talk about their experiences with Sorchych. One of the most interesting was Gary Schmidt, who had led the fight to save Spur Cross Ranch from its planned overdevelopment, and provided Sorchych the primary information that Sorchych used to champion the cause, only to have Sorchych later turn on Gary viciously.
Gary told the story of wondering aloud at this, soon after it had happened, when a woman friend told him: It is simple, it’s the alpha dog syndrome. That story was relayed by Gary and/or me to Amy Silverman, and, along with Sorchych’s wolf hybrids, was part of the basis for the name of her New Times article about Sorchcyh. My attached letter to her was sent when I had learned from Gary that she was going to do that article. It primarily addressed a move made by the Sorchych puppets at Town Hall, which later got the Town in trouble with the state for its blatant failure to comply with the Growing Smarter Act.
Noel J. Hebets, NOEL J. HEBETS, PLC
127 East 14th Street, Tempe, Arizona 85281-6704
Office: (480) 488-4889 Fax: (480) 488-5875 Cell: (602) 361-2482
Email: Noel@NoelHebets.com Website: www.NoelHebets.com/