“I want that park built,” Councilman Buck Buchanan said at a tense Camp Verde Town Council meeting Wednesday, April 4. “And if it comes down to the fact that we have to go to court, then that’s what we have to do. I’m not going to sit here and listen to a very small amount of our citizens in this town dictate to us what we need to do with our public park.”
The town council wants the sports complex to be constructed as planned. It’s close to resolving the lawsuit brought by Cheri and John Wischmeyer, who live on the edge of the proposed building site close to State Route 260. Despite extensive negotiations, including more than an hour of discussion at Wednesday’s meeting, the two sides still can’t quite get to an agreement.
At a previous meeting on Feb. 28, the Wischmeyers personally handed Mayor Charlie German a lawsuit filed in Yavapai County Superior Court, alleging that German was in conflict on the park issue by owning property close to the construction site, and that the park plans had been developed outside of public meetings. A judge dismissed both charges, but still called for the town to find a way to resolve the main thrust of the Wischmeyers’ issue with the park project: That the town had promised them a 100-yard buffer zone between their property and the park complex. The town argues it is creating that buffer zone, but clearing some of the brush in that zone, as well as developing a swale for water drainage for the park complex within the zone, has caused concern among the Wischmeyers and fellow park-adjacent resident Carol German.
“Now you’re asking us to trust you,” John Wischmeyer said during the Wednesday meeting. “On Feb. 8 and 9 of this year, heavy machinery came to my house next to my fence and made this huge dirt ditch, and this huge highway thing, with no announcement of what was going to happen. They came and just mowed through there.”
The Wischmeyers requested that if a ditch on the edge of the park is necessary for drainage, it should be farther away from their property or underground. But council rejected the idea of a culvert, worrying about the liability and costs that would be incurred from it.
Town Manager Russ Martin has met repeatedly with the Wischmeyers since the inception of the lawsuit. He has already agreed to try and move the swale a little farther from the Wischmeyers’ house, though still within the buffer zone.
Another issue fought over at the meeting was vegetation. Martin had proposed numerous native desert plants that could fill the buffer zone in order to separate the Wischmeyer property from the park. The Wischmeyers instead wanted a close row of cypress trees between their property and the park that could act as a hedge. But the council vetoed that idea, stating that cypresses, which do not grow in the valley naturally, would be too expensive to irrigate. They did express a desire to figure out what native plants the Wischmeyers would accept and try to be accommodating.
“There’s been a lot of accommodations,” Charlie German said. “You get the impression that we’re being obstinate, and you know we haven’t been.”
Part of the reason for the continued strife is the town fears that even if their demands are met, the Wischmeyers may not drop their lawsuit. When Martin and town council asked about it, the Wischmeyers expressed a desire to hold on to the threat of legal action in order to make sure that the town held up its end of the bargain. This has rankled council, who point to the Wischmeyer’s history of previous lawsuits against Camp Verde for other issues as reason to believe they will find a way to cause trouble for the town even if the town gives them what they want.
Former Yavapai Superior Court Judge Joe Buttner spoke at the meeting in an attempt to ease that concern, suggesting that if the town and the Wischmeyers come to an agreement as terms for dismissing the case, it could be legally binding for both parties. This possibility has left the parties hopeful that an agreement could be made that neither could reneg. “I think that you put a stipulation in the agreement, and I think everybody should be happy with that,” Cheri Wischmeyer said. “I know we would be. I think that’s the easiest way to protect both sides.”
At the end of the meeting, council voted to keep discussing options with the Wischmeyers. Though some council members expressed a desire to fight the case in court rather than give in to demands they felt were unreasonable, that hard-line approach had faded somewhat after discussion of the potential legal fees involved with a court battle.
Councilman Brad Gordon dissented from that vote, saying he didn’t like letting a small group of residents hold up the construction of a public park that benefits the whole community.
“I think this sets up a core precedent for going forward with any other municipal properties, to have each individual neighborhood choose how to do our designs,” Gordon said.
Since the vote, the Wischmeyers have been in contact with the council, taking some members out to the property. Both sides seem to believe that this issue will be resolved before the next court date on May 7.
“We do have an ethical, moral and legal responsibility and right to actually build the park as we had planned,” Charlie German said, expressing hope that an agreement could be reached, but nevertheless resolve that construction would start even if the Wischmeyers remained displeased.
For their parts, the Wischmeyers expressed a desire to find a way to move forward with the park as well, hoping that their concerns could be met before doing so.
“I think they want to resolve it,” Cheri Wischmeyer said. “I think we want to resolve it. I think everybody wants to be good neighbors.”
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
