Flagstaff Today - News and Photos

he Flagstaff City Council is expected to start formally interviewing applicants for the city’s top position late next week, five months after former City Manager Dave Wilcox left the city.

The council is expected to interview between six and 10 applicants by phone over two days.

It is facing a hiring deadline under the city charter of Aug. 30, no more than eight months after Wilcox’s departure,

According to the city’s human resources director, Theresa Alvarado, more than 80 people have applied for the city’s top job.

The city has used a screening process to narrow the field of finalist to less than a dozen, explained Alvarado.

azdailysun.com

Councilmember Al White believes the Flagstaff Fire Department is a victim of its own successes.

“The problem is that they do such a good job with what they have now, it is hard to justify more,” said White.

White notes the department has a 90 percent approval rating with the general public, and he favors the request to add funding to eventually meet the four man crew standard.

He acknowledges the request is a “tremendous expense with relatively small benefit, ” but White said he is willing to commit resources to build the best fire department possible.

During public meetings, White has said he is somewhat biased, noting Flagstaff firefighters responded to the industrial accident that has left him confined to a wheelchair.

Councilmember Karen Cooper said she wants to see hard data before committing resources.

Eventually, the cost of hiring the necessary 15 firefighters will amount to more than $1 million annually.

azdailysun.com

On June 23, 2004, a 55-year-old man stopped his pickup truck along a dirt road near a mud bog nestled in Ponderosa pines 45 miles south of Flagstaff.

It was not unusual for Van Bateman, fire management officer for the Mogollon Ranger District, to be out in the woods, especially during wildfire season.

But on this date, the U.S. Forest Service boss did something peculiar: After hiking down a short trail, he picked up a handful of dry pine needles, ignited them and placed them next to a dead oak tree.

“It smoldered,” Bateman later told investigators. “I just thought after I lit it, I thought, ‘Hell, we’ll just have a lightning fire here today for the boys to do something.’ I knew the fire was going to grow and not go out.”

That statement, and the act it describes, ended the career of a federal employee who spent more than three decades protecting the West’s wild lands. It also bewildered friends and colleagues who knew Bateman as a conscientious firefighter.

In fact, he had become a near legend in the world of smoke jumpers and disaster-planning experts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency honored Bateman as one of 13 “everyday heroes” for his Sept. 11 emergency management in New York after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. A year later, he oversaw elite teams battling the 469,000-acre Rodeo-Chediski Fire, Arizona’s largest known blaze.

For a man who began beating down flames and saving lives at age 20, the role of firebug seemed unthinkable. Yet the fire at the Boondock Tank bog was not an isolated incident. Bateman also confessed to setting the nearby Mother Fire six weeks earlier. And investigative records indicate he was suspected of starting other blazes.

Why?

That is the question asked by friends, family and hundreds of colleagues who risked their lives beside him on the fire line.

Why would an expert on the lethal devastation of wildfires suddenly begin setting them after 34 years of public service?

Why would a guy with no criminal record, mental health history or financial motive try to burn down the Coconino National Forest?

Bateman remained mute on those questions for three years. He let attorneys argue legal technicalities until he lodged a guilty plea in October.

A few weeks ago, with a federal court sentencing set next month, Bateman returned to the crime scene with an Arizona Republic reporter to explain his conduct. (more…)

Local police arrested a Flagstaff man they had been searching for the past two weeks after an anonymous tipster led them to his location.

Ray Almendarez, 39, was arrested on Friday morning at an eastside trailer home by officers from the Flagstaff Police Department and the Metro anti-narcotics task force. Almendarez reportedly attempted to run past police, but he was physically detained without injury and booked into the Coconino County jail.

Almendarez was wanted for possession of dangerous drugs, a felony, plus six assorted misdemeanor warrants, including disorderly conduct, criminal damage, and disturbing the peace per domestic violence.

Flagstaff police had issued a call to residents on May 10 asking for help in finding Almendarez.

azdailysun.com

Democrats say they are going to go all out next year to try to capture the seat in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District held by Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, whose political future has been clouded by his connection to a pending federal investigation into a land deal.

But if Democrats do make a serious run in what, on paper, appears a potential partisan swing district, they will have to do it with a fresh candidate: Ellen Simon, whose vigorous but late-starting challenge to Renzi in 2006 fell short, announced Thursday that she is dropping her bid for a 2008 rematch.

Simon, who filed candidacy papers with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) just three weeks ago, said in a statement that she is withdrawing “for personal reasons.”

New York Times

Flagstaff police used a Taser to arrest a man who allegedly tried to force his way into the attached apartment behind a motel office early Wednesday while threatening to kill the owners.

According to police reports, the man knocked on the door of the Howard Johnson, 3300 E. Route 66, at about 2:50 a.m. and one of the owners, thinking he wanted to check into the motel, came out to assist him.

According to police, the man then walked behind the counter and asked the owner if she had a gun, because he said people were after him. When the owner told him no, he grabbed a pair of scissors and threatened her with them, saying he would kill her if she did not produce a gun.

The owner fled into her adjacent apartment while the man banged on the door and tried to break in, reports stated.

A pair of officers approached the man via the motel lobby, and as he walked toward them, he threw a hammer at the officers and charged them, getting into a brief fist fight with one of the two. The other officer stunned the man with his Taser, which allowed them to subdue and arrest him.

Quinten Shaw, 41, of Holbrook, was booked into Coconino County jail and charged with four counts of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, threatening and intimidating, residential trespass and disorderly conduct.

azdailysun.com

(AP) - A businessman says a new Arizona law barring use of the names of dead soldiers without permission of families won’t stop him from offering anti-war T-shirts.

Those shirts carry the names of thousands of American casualties in Iraq.

Complaints from families prompted the Arizona Legislature to pass a bill making it a misdemeanor to use a dead service member’s name or photo without permission.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed the emergency bill on Wednesday, putting the new law into effect immediately.

Dan Frazier of Flagstaff says the new law infringes on his free-speech rights and that he doesn’t plan to stop making and selling his shirts.

In fact, Frazier plans a new version that will have an updated list of casualties.

Arizona joins Louisiana and Oklahoma with similar laws on the books.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has signed a measure that takes effect September first.
KLTV

(AP) - The owners of the Black Mesa mine on the Hopi and Navajo reservations in northeast Arizona hope to find other outlets for coal from the mine, shuttered since a power plant in Nevada closed in January 2006.

Peabody Western Coal Co. and officials with the tribes that own the land are seeking other customers for the mine’s output, which had been piped in a slurry line for more than 30 years to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin.

The Mohave plant was shut down after its operator and majority owner, Southern California Edison, decided against spending nearly $750 million to update its pollution control equipment to meet the terms of a settlement with environmental groups. An additional $200 million was required to upgrade the pipeline and $100 million to secure a new water supply for the pipeline, pushing the total costs in 2002 dollars above $1 billion.

The owners, which include SCE, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Nevada Power Company, and the Salt River Project in Arizona, decided that returning the plant to operation wasn’t worth the cost.

Mohave Daily News

Democrat Ellen Simon announced that she is withdrawing from the race for Arizona’s First Congressional District, a seat now occupied by Republican Rick Renzi.

“Over the past two years, as I’ve traveled throughout the district, I’ve been privileged to meet so many residents that inspired me to try my best to faithfully represent them in Congress. However, for personal reasons, I feel that at this particular moment in my life, I can’t devote the full attention and focused energy that a successful congressional campaign would require,” she said in a statement released today.

“Although I won’t be on the ballot in the next election, I feel confident that the Democratic Party in Arizona is stronger than ever and that there are a number of exciting, well-qualified leaders that would make terrific representatives,” she said.

Ms. Simon is a civil rights attorney who lives in Sedona.

District 1 includes central and northeast Arizona, and the Apache and Navajo reservations.

Arizona Capitol Times (membership)

Saying it is not responsible for removing radioactive waste located near a former uranium milling site outside of Tuba City, El Paso Natural Gas Company has filed suit against the federal government.

The lawsuit seeks to have the federal agencies pay to clean up radioactive waste found in the Tuba City dump and at other nearby locations.

Contaminated water from the dump appears to have formed a plume heading in the direction of the villages of Upper Moenkopi and Lower Moencopi, where about 1,000 live, hydrologists and a geochemist said in March.

Residents in those villages rely on groundwater.

The geochemist was also able to link radioactive waste found at the dump to materials generated at the uranium mill.

A company that eventually became a subsidiary of El Paso Natural Gas had operated the milling site, which was used from 1955 to 1968 to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

Multiple federal agencies and the Navajo Nation had approved the use of the Tuba City dump for mill-related activities, the litigants said, and owned the tailings generated from the mill as a result.

“We think it’s the government’s responsibility to take care of any remedial problems there now,” said Robert C. Newberry, a spokesman for El Paso Corp.

azdailysun.com

Just as four distinct states fuse together in the geographically and culturally diverse Four Corners region of the American Southwest, so do the photography, writing and graphic elements of a new online magazine published by students and faculty of the School of Communication.

Titled Corners, this collaborative webzine pairs journalism with a young, artistic presence, melding the skills and talents of faculty and students in journalism, visual communication and photojournalism. The result is a unique blend of written and visual images that serve as social and cultural commentary on the Four Corners area where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet.

“There’s plenty of room in the Southwest for a different kind of magazine about the land and people, and that’s what we set out to create,” said Mark Neumann, professor and director of the School of Communication.

The magazine allows students to employ what they’ve learned in the classroom to real published work. 

(more…)

Arizona’s four Democratic congressional members — including freshmen Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell — and Flagstaff Republican Congressman Rick Renzi voted Wednesday for a new federal price-gouging law aimed at oil companies and gas stations caught gouging consumers with higher prices.

The federal measure makes price gouging illegal and allows the Federal Trade Commission to go after oil companies and service stations that charge excessive prices for gasoline. The gouging law would go into effect if the president declares an emergency situation. The aim is to give the FTC more teeth to go after oil companies and the energy sector.

Phoenix-area Republican Congressmen Trent Franks, Jeff Flake and John Shadegg voted against the measure, which was approved and now moves to the U.S. Senate. Critics worry too many federal regulations will amount to price controls, which could have negative impacts on supply.

But oil supplies have already been a major cause of gas price spikes, with U.S. refineries operating on razor-thin supply margins.

The bill’s progress comes as gasoline prices soar above $3 per gallon and oil companies report multi-billion dollar profits. Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) posted a $40 billion profit last year. BP (NYSE: BP) had a $21 billion profit.

Business Journal

(AP) - The Hopi tribe’s vice chairman has been arrested for trying to block the chairman from his offices.

It’s the latest twist in a dispute centered on the chairman’s qualifications for office.

Todd Honyaoma Senior was arrested yesterday for trying to keep Chairman Ben Nuvamsa and his staff from reoccupying their offices under a 15-day restraining order.

Honyaoma had delivered a letter to the chairman’s office on Friday saying the Hopi Tribal Council would not abide by a Hopi appeals court’s order.

Nuvamsa was elected to the post in February but was removed after only 27 days in office by the Council.

The council nullified the election after deciding he was ineligible because he did not meet residency requirements.

Nuvamsa questioned the council’s legal authority to negate an election and filed a lawsuit. The appeals court issued its temporary order last week.

KOLD

The woman whose body was found along a remote trail in the Grand Canyon was identified by Grand Canyon National Park on Monday as April Goode, of Salem, Ore.

Goode, 56, died of heat-related illness, preliminary indications show. Toxicology tests are pending. An autopsy has been completed.

Goode was a member of a six-person group hiking in the Inner Canyon. When she showed signs of illness, three members of the hiking group stayed with her near the junction of Tonto Trail and Ruby Canyon while two others in the group hiked down to the river and flagged down a passing river trip for help.

Her body was recovered by helicopter on Thursday.

azdailysun.com

A bill that would have Arizona join at least two other states in making it a crime to use a dead soldier’s name or photo for commercial purposes without family permission is headed to Gov. Janet Napolitano.

The House voted 57-0 Monday to approve a bill (SB1014) that the state Department of Emergency Management and Military Affairs sought in response to complaints from survivors of soldiers whose names have appeared on anti-war T-shirts sold on the Internet by a Flagstaff businessman, Dan Frazier. The Senate had previously passed it.

Like laws enacted last year in Oklahoma and Louisiana, the Arizona measure would make violations a misdemeanor.

In Arizona, violations would be punishable by up to six months in jail and fines up to $2,500 for an individual and $20,000 for an enterprise.

The Arizona measure also authorizes families to sue.

Frazier contends his T-shirts are political statements and that the legislation either enacted or under consideration in the various states violates his First Amendment rights to free speech.

KTAR

Extraordinary weather in New Mexico is leaving Arizona with better access to the equipment and machinery needed to fight wildfires in the state.

Thanks to an abundance of inclement weather this winter in that state, Arizona is less likely to have to compete for firefighting resources, officials said.

“New Mexico easily got twice as much snow as it usually does,” said Chuck Maxwell, a meteorologist with the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque, N.M., which directs wildland firefighting in Arizona and New Mexico and west Texas.

“The bottom line is there is not a lot of potential (for fires) unless something really dramatic were to happen.”

Arizona officials have already called up dozens of airplanes and helicopters and hundreds of firefighters to battle blazes erupting around the state.

Having those diverse resources at the ready is crucial to fighting any fire. When a wildfire breaks out, an incident commander, or fire boss, looks to local and regional sources first when requesting more firefighters, engines and air support.

East Valley Tribune

Mary Kim Titla, the founder of NativeYouthMagazine.com and a 20-year veteran of NBC Phoenix and Tucson television news, has announced that she is going to run for Congress. Titla will have to balance her campaign with her duties as publisher of NativeYouthMagazine.com, an online magazine that showcases Native youth in the United States and Canada.

In a press statement, Titla said, ”After much soul searching and prayer and after being encouraged by voters, I am humbled and honored to inform you I have decided to run for Congress for Arizona’s First Congressional District as a Democratic candidate.”

Titla later told Indian Country Today, ”This is something that came to me and I believe in responding to a calling. I agree with voters, it’s time for new leadership. I believe I am the new face of Arizona leadership.”

Titla is a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe of Arizona and is a respected member of the media in Arizona and Indian country. In 2006, Titla was inducted into the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism’s Hall of Fame at the Arizona State University.

Titla jumped into a race that political experts are calling wide open. Arizona’s 1st Congressional District sprawls across the Navajo Nation and the San Carlos and White Mountain Apache reservations, and reaches down into the northern and eastern suburbs of Phoenix. The district is currently held by Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.

(more…)

TUCSON - Average may be the best way to describe Arizona’s current wildfire season, from start time to intensity.

The season has started in a normal time frame and is shaping up as a typically average one, say spokesmen for federal and state agencies that deal with wildfires.

‘‘In the last number of years, we’ve had some extreme fire conditions where things were drying out earlier; some had starts in January or February,” said James Payne, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service’s Southwest region. ‘‘But over the last 15 or 20 years, this is the average.”

Arizona’s normal wildfire season is May to July, when monsoon rains typically begin, carrying moisture up through the state from the Gulf of California.

Arizona’s most serious fire to date this season has been the Promontory fire on the Tonto and Apache-Sitgreaves national forests in northern Arizona. The fire covered about 4 square miles and forced a handful of evacuations as of Friday afternoon.

But given the minimal amount of moisture in Arizona over the winter, ‘‘we’re seeing fewer fires than I would have thought,” Payne said.

He said that will be picking up as the weather heats up.

Mojave Daily News

boy and threw the boy’s friend through a plate glass window Thursday night.

According to Flagstaff police reports, the two victims, ages 20 and 17, were walking along the storefronts at the Wal-Mart-Bashas’ shopping center, 2700 S. Woodlands Village Blvd., at about 6:25 p.m. when they saw a group of men leaving Buffalo Wild Wings. The victims said one of the men leaned into the restaurant and shouted “I love you” to somebody inside, then saw the two outside and said “not you guys.”

The older victim said he responded with a joking comment about how that would have been weird, causing the man to become defensive. The victim then reportedly responded with another remark, causing two of the man’s companions to break off from the group and confront him and his friend.

azdailysun.com

A 2,700-acre wildfire continues to burn near Payson.

Authorities say this morning that the northern edge of the Promontory Fire is contained.

Crews are spending the day improving their existing fire lines and trying to keep the blaze from buring eratically.

They’re also testing a sprinkler system around nearby homes that would keep the structures from burning if the fire gets close.

The wind-driven wildfire is only 40% contained and still threatens two small forest communities in north-central Arizona.

KVOA