Flagstaff Today - News and Photos

PHOENIX — Politicians on either side of the aisle are already positioning themselves to succeed U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi in the event he resigns.

Sure that a federal investigation into his involvement in a land-swap deal will lead him to abandon his seat after a more than three terms, the political community been busy the past week preparing for a vacancy.

Unlike Senate seats, for which the governor appoints a replacement from the same political party as the person who resigned, House seats are filled through a special election.

“If he resigns before the end of his term, Democrats are ready and more than willing to fill that seat,” said Alice McKeon, spokeswoman for the Arizona Demo-cratic Party. “The race is going to be a vigorous one.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are being more coy about their plans should Renzi step down.

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The state and national economy may be slowing down, but the Flagstaff municipal budget is on the fast track.

Pending final City Council approval, more than 56 new employees will be hired next fiscal year, pay and benefits raises will top $2.2 million and overall spending will be up nearly 7 percent.

The reason: Sales tax revenue, the city’s single biggest funding source, is set to rise
nearly 13 percent, thanks to the anticipated openings of the Flagstaff Mall expansion and the auto mall.
Projections supplied by the city include a 22.5 percent increase in car sales when the auto mall opens and 33.5 percent growth in merchandise sales from the mall expansion.

Other big-ticket spending items include $487,000 for round-the-clock police patrols in Sunnyside, a new city attorney and prosecutor for $239,000 and $400,000 to get the aquaplex up and running.

A complete revamp of the city land development code, currently more 30 years old, will cost $250,000.

But not every request was funded. A Sunnyside police substation for $43,000 and adding a fourth firefighter to every initial response team at a cost of $180,000 were panned by the council during budget review sessions last week.

azdailysun.com

TUCSON, AZ — A 480-acre retired farm on the San Pedro River, the subject of an investigation that threatens the career of U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, could also threaten the future of Fort Huachuca, officials say.

There are concerns that the farm — the critical property in two failed land swaps aimed at protecting the San Pedro — could now be put back into agricultural use, jeopardizing efforts to balance water use in the region, which in turn could force cutbacks or even closure of the fort.

One of those land swaps is the basis of an investigation of Renzi, a Northern Arizona Republican.

The second involves a partnership headed by former Gov. Bruce Babbitt, which acquired the land. Since the second swap fell through, the Babbitt group is concerned it may be forced to resume irrigating the land or risk losing its water rights.

Critics say the first failed swap benefited James Sandlin, a friend and former business partner of Renzi’s.
A federal grand jury recently convened in Tucson about the matter, authorizing a search warrant of a Renzi family insurance business in Sonoita. Renzi has denied any wrongdoing.

Arizona Daily Star

A Flagstaff man who allegedly e-mailed the local paper threatening a Virginia Tech-like incident during the city’s Cinco de Mayo celebration was arrested by FBI agents Friday.

James Wesley Cheek made an initial appearance in federal court on a charge related to making threats via interstate communications, said Camille Bibles, assistant U.S. attorney in Flagstaff. Cheek, whose age was unavailable, is being held pending a detention hearing set for Monday. It wasn’t known if he had a lawyer.

An editor at the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff received a comment to be posted below a story on the paper’s Web site on April 18, considered it threatening and passed it on to Editor Randy Wilson, according to a complaint filed in federal court.

Wilson contacted the FBI and turned over the e-mail, along with several others sent by a person who signed their name “dr. richard cameron.”

An FBI agent traced the Internet Protocol address of the person who posted the comment to Cheek, who was interviewed at his home, according to an FBI affidavit supporting the complaint.

KVOA

U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi denied Friday that he plans to resign from office amid a federal investigation that saw the FBI raid the Arizona Republican’s family business this past week.

“For several weeks, I have been the subject of leaked stories, conjecture, and false attacks about a land exchange,” Renzi said in a brief release by his Washington office. “None of them bear any resemblance to the truth, including the rumor that I am planning on resigning.”

Law enforcement officials confirmed in October that they were scrutinizing a land deal that benefited a Renzi friend andbusiness associate who was also a campaign donor. This past week, the FBI raided a Sonoita, Ariz., insurance business owned by Renzi’s wife, Roberta.

Renzi temporarily stepped down from the House Intelligence Committee the day of the raid. Tuesday, he took a leave of absence from the House Financial Services and Natural Resources committees.

Daily Courier

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) failed to disclose a $200,000 payment he received from a business partner in 2005 in apparent violation of House ethics rules. Prosecutors could use the omission as evidence that Renzi intended to conceal a transaction he knew to be controversial or even improper.
The $200,000 was a payment from James Sandlin to settle a debt related to a previous business transaction involving land in northeast Arizona, one of the lawmaker’s attorneys, Grant Woods, told a newspaper last week.

his explanation might have been expected to dispel suspicion that Sandlin gave Renzi an illegal gift in exchange for action Renzi took to help Sandlin sell a $4 million parcel of land.
But Renzi’s claim that Sandlin’s $200,000 payment was a legitimate business transaction is weakened by the fact that he failed to disclose it in his personal financial disclosure report for 2005 filed with the House clerk.

The Hill

Residents around Flagstaff and campers along the Mogollon Rim and Grand Canyon would hear the howls of wild wolves again one day, if one Flagstaff group accomplishes its mission.

The plan, depending on public support and available habitat, would be to reintroduce endangered gray wolves along the Mogollon Rim, up to Flagstaff and up on the North Kaibab, linking packs on the central Arizona-New Mexico border to corridors leading to Utah and the Rocky Mountains.

Bringing one of the top predators back into the region is probably 10 years away from happening here, said Kim Crumbo, of the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council.

azdailysun.com

OTTAWA, IL — In less than three weeks, people can view something at the Majestic Theater that hasn’t been seen there in a dozen years:

First-run movies.

Kyle Mitchell, most recently of Flagstaff, Ariz., has entered a lease agreement to renovate and operate the Majestic, which has not shown first-run movies since Oct. 1, 1995. The movie theater briefly reopened in 1998 to show classic films, but that lasted only six weeks. It also hosted music concerts for a few months in 2002.

Mitchell and his wife, Cindy, have experience running a movie theater. They operated Movies at the Mall, an independent theater in Flagstaff, from 2002 through January. Mitchell is a friend of Streator native Tim Burke, now of Los Angeles, who owns the Majestic Theater. Mitchell, who moved to Streator last month, said he is fully committed to making an independent theater successful in a smaller town.

“I moved here specifically for the Majestic,” said Mitchell, who lived in Los Angeles and Phoenix before moving to Flagstaff.

The Times

SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 25 /PRNewswire/ — The high speeds and thrills of the Red Bull Air Race World Series will touch down in Monument Valley, UT, on May 12th, 2007. Home to the iconic scenery of sandstone buttes and isolated red mesas, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park will provide an amazing backdrop for one of the first Air Races held entirely over land.

The Red Bull Air Race World Series is an international racing event stopping at 12 different locations throughout the world. The race features the world’s lightest, most agile and responsive planes navigating a course of “Air Gates” at 250 mph and low altitudes.

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A New York senator is demanding the Justice Department disclose all contacts related to a corruption investigation targeting northern Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi.

Senator Charles Schumer made his request in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

It follows the revelation that Renzi’s top aide said he had called the U-S Attorney’s Office last October about the investigation.

KOLD

Mr. Renzi Offers Field To Mining Companies; Grand Jury Is Active

SUPERIOR, Ariz. — As they dig for nickel, copper and other commodities in the far corners of the earth, the world’s largest mining companies, Rio Tinto PLC and BHP Billiton Ltd., are used to solving geological problems. Here, though, the problems they encountered were political.

North America’s largest copper lode is believed to be buried more than a mile beneath Apache Leap, the stark red cliffs that loom above this storied Old West town about an hour east of Phoenix. Resolution Copper Co., a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, wants to mine it. But first it needs Congress to approve a federal land exchange, under which Resolution would swap 5,000 acres of private land for 3,000 acres of public land near its planned mine.

In exchange for supporting the bill, the local congressman, Rick Renzi, a Republican, insisted on something in return: He wanted Resolution to buy, as part of the land swap, a 480-acre alfalfa field near his hometown of Sierra Vista, according to documents and people involved in the deal….

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Authorities have arrested a man in Canada in the 2001 killing of a police informant in Arizona.

Konstantin Simberg, 21, was beaten, stabbed and set on fire before he died in December 2001. His body was found in a Northern Arizona creek by hunters.

Two men were arrested, charged and convicted in the killing. But Mikhail Drachev, 24, has lived as a fugitive on a murder warrant for more than five years, Phoenix police Det. Stacie Derge said.

Arizona Daily Star

The search for a new president of Coconino Community College has been narrowed down to three candidates.

Linda Simmons, of Cuyahoga Community College, Leah Bornstein, of Colorado Mountain College, and Robert Musgrove, of Pine Technical College, will now interview in person for the position.

Interviews will take place at CCC’s Lone Tree campus in Flagstaff and in Page during upcoming weeks. CCC hopes to fill the position by the end of May.

“If we can make it that soon, that will be great,” said Jami Van Ess, CCC’s vice president of business and administration.

azdailysun.com

Coconino National Forest officials are considering closing almost all off-road trails used by motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles by September 2009.

The near-ban is part of a national proposal designed to cut back on motorized cross-country travel in national forests, and it could be modified once existing trails are mapped, U.S. Forest Service officials told riding groups.

Arizona Daily Star

Hundreds of U.S. cities are taking a stand against global warming by pledging to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions beyond what the federal government is willing to commit.

From metropolitan hubs like New York and Los Angeles to fast-growing cities such as Las Vegas, more than 450 city leaders throughout the 50 states have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Buckeye, Flagstaff and Tucson are the only Arizona cities to sign the agreement.

Arizona Republic

A new northern Arizona sledding area was a big hit this winter.

Recreation Resource Management, a national concessionaire that opened a pay-to-sled business on Wing Mountain, was able to recoup all its initial investment costs in one season.

The Wing Mountain Snowplay Area north of Flagstaff saw 12,253 cars, Chief Operating Officer Kelly Moffitt wrote in a letter to the Coconino National Forest. The area charges $10 per car.

Moffitt said most of the area’s business came from Phoenix.

KVOA

City officials are pinning their hopes on the $3.6 million business incubator to help spur a new wave of scientific-based businesses locally.

Set to open in 18 months, the Technology and Business Incubator hopes to foster the dreams of scientific researcher, helping them develop their ideas into marketable products.

The 10,000-square-foot facility will be built on the U.S. Geological Survey campus on McMillan Mesa, part of a larger, planned Science and Technology Park.

The technology incubator building will be part of a 200,000-square-foot “Innovation Campus,” approved by city voters May 2004 with a $62 million bond to support the redevelopment of the USGS campus. The bonds are to be paid off with government lease payments to the city.

azdailysun.com

An autopsy performed this week showed that Herman Tsosie died as a result of his fall from a 250-foot cliff in rural northeastern Arizona, according to the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office.Tsosie, 54, was found on April 16 after a weeklong search. He was the only suspect in the killing of his estranged wife, well-known Navajo weaver Anita Tsosie, 48. She was found shot dead outside her home south of Cortez on April 9.

Authorities now believe the incident was a murder-suicide, said Montezuma County Undersheriff Dave Hart.

Durango Herald

“Hello, welcome to the front of the line,” bellows a jocular, dapper man. “You’ve waited and waited and waited and finally you’re here. Was it worth it? Of course not!”His audience, a mostly adolescent crowd clad in hooded sweatshirts and chunky skate shoes, giggles and turns their Lemony Snicket books in their hands.

The youngsters, many with parents in tow, had crowded downtown’s Starrlight Books Saturday afternoon for a chance to meet Mr. Snicket, creator of the best-selling young adult book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Lemony Snicket, otherwise known as Daniel Handler, was in Flagstaff as one of the key guests of the Northern Arizona Book Festival, delighting his fans with book signings and readings. Handler writes novels for children under the Snicket pen name, but also writes for adults under his given name.

azdailysun.com

WASHINGTON - Rep. Rick Renzi stepped down temporarily from the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, after the FBI raided his family’s business in connection with an ongoing federal investigation.

Agents took documents, the Arizona Republican said in a statement issued late Thursday night.

“I view these actions as the first step in bringing out the truth,” he said.

“Until this matter is resolved, I will take a leave of absence from the House Intelligence Committee. I intend to fully cooperate with this investigation.”

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, which first reported the FBI raid late Thursday, said agents went to the Patriot Insurance Agency in Sonoita. In a financial-disclosure statement filed last May, Renzi reported that his wife, Roberta, owned the agency. He valued the business at $1 million to $5 million.

The Justice Department has been investigating Renzi for months, but the subject of the inquiry has never been made public. Media reports last fall gave conflicting versions, with authorities said to be looking into either a land swap involving a former business partner of Renzi or a Pentagon contract involving Renzi’s father, a retired Army general.

Arizona Republic