Please help Tammi and Ray Villafane and share.
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This is from my friends Ray and Tammi Villafane. Please help in any way.
Okay, well I guess I’m ready to go public with this since I don’t really know what else to do and perhaps there is some sort of assistance out there for us but I don’t suppose one can find what they don't seek. This is just hard for me but I'm truly at wits end.
As most of you are aware if you’ve known Ray and I for any amount of time is that we have been providing public art and had our yearly pumpkin event in the Town of Carefree, Arizona since 2015. The amazing sand elephant playing chess against a mouse was created there, the balancing sand tortoises and Mabel the sand dragon as well as our annual Halloween event were all created there to embellish the town and encourage tourism. We succeeded with doing so as if you look on Google Maps, even prior to the town name coming up, you will find The Enchanted Pumpkin Garden listed. This past year, we put on the most amazing show ever.
However, that entity no longer exists and we have had no say so in the matter whatsoever. We are on a 3 year Contract to take the event over but the Town has unilaterally cancelled the event, is ignoring their Contract obligation to pay our Artists and expenses and is refusing to settle in an appropriate way to end the Contract. They took all the money from the ticket sales from this past year and kept it and just want to send us away without paying our amazing team. The Contract was through 2021 and obligated the town to pay for all bills associated with the event through 2020, wherein we would take over and pay for it 2021. Our wonderful team, nor myself or our Assistant Vicki been paid for the weeks and months we put into this show despite the fact that we have a Contract that states the town is obligated. The crazier part is, they even wrote the Contract taking on those obligations.
The Contract itself when exposed to the public will not read very favorably on the Town's behalf though either as it also required Ray to pay the town back in full for an event that they were putting their name on and claiming to provide to the public.
My husband is a passionate man so even when people are unfair to him, he tries to extract value and lessons from it.
His passion to raise the bar each year and continue to grow the show honestly put us in a place where we weren’t profiting at all the last several years but with the new Contract, we looked at this as an opportunity to build a great entity so considered it an investment. An investment that we have unilaterally had yanked away from us with no attempt for resolve or settlement.
We did even agree we would move on, if they just paid our people. They have flat out refused over the past 7 months and have even put their Attorney on the case who has done so many incredibly disingenuous things that it blows my mind that he is allowed to get away with them.
We were to go to Arbitration for any disputes. We attempted to contact that town for 8 weeks to determine an Arbitrator. Finally, we gave them a deadline in late January to choose. Rather than responding to us regarding the Contract that they wrote that has been in dispute, their Attorney instead bypassed our requests and filed a claim against US on our previous Artist Contract. One that was never in dispute because we fulfilled it but also THEIR Contract constitutes as a change in writing so is the actual valid Contract. They completely hid the Contract in dispute and made up a dispute against us.
They filed a lie to hide the truth.
If I weren’t living this, I wouldn’t believe how callous and deceitful a town entity would be willing to be especially one that we put on the map and increased their tourism for. Due to their Attorney’s tactics and playing games to waste time, money and resources our Attorney withdrew from the case because his fee’s got out of hand and we couldn’t keep up.
Ray and I have not had any income since October but were dead set on solving our own problem so we were packaging our event to sell it elsewhere and had even set up meetings and such so we could move forward but then this pandemic hit. We do public events so as you can imagine, that isn’t really optional during these times. I even wrote them recently basically begging for them to reconsider a proper settlement because we literally have no money, have not been able to pay rent in months and have kids at home and are chasing shut off notices.
We EARNED the money they owe us yet they refuse to pay. We have a Contract that even states they are to pay us and they are literally acting as though it doesn’t exist and are treating us as though we are invisible after all we contributed to their tourism.
Anyway, I know times are tough but I know people also have some time on their hands. I’m not even sure what the answer is or what I’m requesting with this but I just know its really starting to weigh heavy on me. I always try to bring my best self and best attitude forward everyday because I love to be an uplifter. I try to make my problems smaller because everyone has them but mine are no longer small. I don’t know if a petition to get the town to pay us is the answer but I know their Attorney plans to run us into the ground until we go away because he told us so. I guess we just need support or if anyone has some resources or knows of someone who could rally behind us so we aren’t going this alone, I’d appreciate that too.
Thanks for reading and I’m sorry this isn’t one of my more uplifting posts but it is my life right now.
Xoxo
Tammi
P.S. I should probably add that we have an Arbitration date for next month but the Attorney wrote us on Friday stating he can come up with plenty of technicalities to continue to drain this case financially. We are already leveled...in fact we are digging a basement.
Okay, well I guess I’m ready to go public with this since I don’t really know what else to do and perhaps there is some sort of assistance out there for us but I don’t suppose one can find what they don't seek. This is just hard for me but I'm truly at wits end.
As most of you are aware if you’ve known Ray and I for any amount of time is that we have been providing public art and had our yearly pumpkin event in the Town of Carefree, Arizona since 2015. The amazing sand elephant playing chess against a mouse was created there, the balancing sand tortoises and Mabel the sand dragon as well as our annual Halloween event were all created there to embellish the town and encourage tourism. We succeeded with doing so as if you look on Google Maps, even prior to the town name coming up, you will find The Enchanted Pumpkin Garden listed. This past year, we put on the most amazing show ever.
However, that entity no longer exists and we have had no say so in the matter whatsoever. We are on a 3 year Contract to take the event over but the Town has unilaterally cancelled the event, is ignoring their Contract obligation to pay our Artists and expenses and is refusing to settle in an appropriate way to end the Contract. They took all the money from the ticket sales from this past year and kept it and just want to send us away without paying our amazing team. The Contract was through 2021 and obligated the town to pay for all bills associated with the event through 2020, wherein we would take over and pay for it 2021. Our wonderful team, nor myself or our Assistant Vicki been paid for the weeks and months we put into this show despite the fact that we have a Contract that states the town is obligated. The crazier part is, they even wrote the Contract taking on those obligations.
The Contract itself when exposed to the public will not read very favorably on the Town's behalf though either as it also required Ray to pay the town back in full for an event that they were putting their name on and claiming to provide to the public.
My husband is a passionate man so even when people are unfair to him, he tries to extract value and lessons from it.
His passion to raise the bar each year and continue to grow the show honestly put us in a place where we weren’t profiting at all the last several years but with the new Contract, we looked at this as an opportunity to build a great entity so considered it an investment. An investment that we have unilaterally had yanked away from us with no attempt for resolve or settlement.
We did even agree we would move on, if they just paid our people. They have flat out refused over the past 7 months and have even put their Attorney on the case who has done so many incredibly disingenuous things that it blows my mind that he is allowed to get away with them.
We were to go to Arbitration for any disputes. We attempted to contact that town for 8 weeks to determine an Arbitrator. Finally, we gave them a deadline in late January to choose. Rather than responding to us regarding the Contract that they wrote that has been in dispute, their Attorney instead bypassed our requests and filed a claim against US on our previous Artist Contract. One that was never in dispute because we fulfilled it but also THEIR Contract constitutes as a change in writing so is the actual valid Contract. They completely hid the Contract in dispute and made up a dispute against us.
They filed a lie to hide the truth.
If I weren’t living this, I wouldn’t believe how callous and deceitful a town entity would be willing to be especially one that we put on the map and increased their tourism for. Due to their Attorney’s tactics and playing games to waste time, money and resources our Attorney withdrew from the case because his fee’s got out of hand and we couldn’t keep up.
Ray and I have not had any income since October but were dead set on solving our own problem so we were packaging our event to sell it elsewhere and had even set up meetings and such so we could move forward but then this pandemic hit. We do public events so as you can imagine, that isn’t really optional during these times. I even wrote them recently basically begging for them to reconsider a proper settlement because we literally have no money, have not been able to pay rent in months and have kids at home and are chasing shut off notices.
We EARNED the money they owe us yet they refuse to pay. We have a Contract that even states they are to pay us and they are literally acting as though it doesn’t exist and are treating us as though we are invisible after all we contributed to their tourism.
Anyway, I know times are tough but I know people also have some time on their hands. I’m not even sure what the answer is or what I’m requesting with this but I just know its really starting to weigh heavy on me. I always try to bring my best self and best attitude forward everyday because I love to be an uplifter. I try to make my problems smaller because everyone has them but mine are no longer small. I don’t know if a petition to get the town to pay us is the answer but I know their Attorney plans to run us into the ground until we go away because he told us so. I guess we just need support or if anyone has some resources or knows of someone who could rally behind us so we aren’t going this alone, I’d appreciate that too.
Thanks for reading and I’m sorry this isn’t one of my more uplifting posts but it is my life right now.
Xoxo
Tammi
P.S. I should probably add that we have an Arbitration date for next month but the Attorney wrote us on Friday stating he can come up with plenty of technicalities to continue to drain this case financially. We are already leveled...in fact we are digging a basement.
Organizer and beneficiary
Tammy Shepard
Organizer
Beaverton, OR
Tammi Villafane
Beneficiary