Flagstaff Today - News and Photos

A fledgling nonprofit group has all but scrapped its plans to put a temporary homeless shelter in the city-owned Home Alternatives building on West Phoenix Avenue.

An 11th-hour requirement by the city to raise the floor five feet because the building sits in a floodplain is too expensive for the nonprofit’s budget.

But that doesn’t mean the group is giving up on its plans.

“We are weighing our options,” said Wendy White, executive director of Flagstaff Shelter Services.

Other possible locations include the old Catholic School/Day Care Center on West Clay Avenue, the former home of North Country HealthCare in Sunnyside and a city-owned parcel near the Guidance Center.

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Kelly Addington once believed that rape only happened to girls who made stupid choices. One horrible night showed her it wasn’t true.

Now she, with the help of her best friend Becca, is sharing her story of being drugged and raped, with students at more than 100 universities across the country, including Northern Arizona University.

Click here to visit Kelly and Becca’s website
Click here to learn more about Kelly & Becca’s “Let’s talk about ‘it’” Campus Program

KPNX

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - Two men pistol-whipped and bound an employee at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Flagstaff before making away with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Flagstaff police Sergeant Tom Boughner says the men forced the employee to open the safe for them during the confrontation around 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

Before they left, the thieves used duct tape to bind the employee, who was able to break free and called 911 less than an hour later.

Because the men physically harmed the victim, Boughner says detectives are aggressively investigating the case.

KVOA

The future of an annual Sunnyside event is in jeopardy after a city committee refused to issue a permit to event organizers.

In a one-page letter outlining the city’s special event routing committee’s decision, a city staffer cited inadequate parking and objections to noise by neighbors of La Joya de Sunnyside Fiesta de Independencia at Ponderosa Park.

But the event organizers, the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, have countered with a petition with over 900 local signatures and dozens of letters of support.

“We lowered the noise and we are willing to accommodate the concerns of the entire neighborhood,” said SNA Executive Director Coral Evans.

The neighbors’ primarily complaint was about the loud noise.

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Calling underage drinking the biggest substance-abuse threat facing Arizona children, Gov. Janet Napolitano on Monday announced a yearlong campaign to combat the problem.

Dubbed Draw the Line, the effort will target both kids and their parents, trying to raise awareness about a problem that’s anything but new. More than half of Arizona eighth-graders reported having used alcohol, according to a 2006 Arizona Youth Survey.

“Look, we’ve got a problem. It’s a problem we can and should address,” said Napolitano, joined by dozens of students and law-enforcement officials as she kicked off the campaign. “Underage drinking is not a rite of passage. It is against the law.”

Arizona Republic

A Purina pet food plant in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA will boost production by 20%, add 50 new warehouse and production workers and build an addition on its warehouse.

Company officials say work on the 91,000-square-foot warehouse expansion should begin in January, with the warehouse expected to open in early 2009.

Plant manager Bill Calloway says the expansion will help the facility better serve customers in Western states and meet added demand. He says the company’s decision is a vote of confidence in workers and the Flagstaff area.

The plant produces 53 different products and puts out 220,000 tons of pet food a year. It ships pet food to several Western states, Hawaii and northern Mexico.

All About Feed

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - Half of Arizonans polled would be willing to dig deeper into their pockets to do something about traffic congestion.

Nine out 10 of those questioned for a Grand Canyon State Poll said traffic congestion was a problem or somewhat of a problem.

Fifty-two percent said they’d be willing to pay higher taxes for road maintenance and construction, while 40% said they wouldn’t and 9% were undecided.

However, 57% opposed creation of toll roads to ease congestion; 32% were in favor and 11% said they didn’t know or it’d depend.

The Northern Arizona University Social Research Laboratory polled 400 Arizonans from Oct. 18 through Oct. 21. The margin of error was plus or minus 5%age points.

On the Net:
NAU Social Research Laboratory: http://www.socialresearchlab.com

KVOA

 

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) _ Just how many antique guns are in his collection is a “state secret,” said Peter Stuyvesant Wainwright, but one little gun in the ample collection is as important as any. It is the 4-pound, 22-caliber undersized rifle he uses to demonstrate firearms safety to boys and girls in his classes for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

“In the early years, girls are easier to teach than boys,” he said. “They don’t have that macho image of themselves. They learn quicker how to shoot, because I don’t have to undo an attitude.”

Unwrapping the small gun from its soft case, he took the rifle in his hands, opened the bolt and checked to make sure it was unloaded.

“No ammunition goes with me during a safety talk,” said Wainwright, 82, who moved to Flagstaff about 20 years ago after retiring as chief of police for Paradise Valley. “When I’m giving a talk, I still treat it as a loaded gun.”

This kind of care is typical of the dedication to safety Wainwright has emphasized in his 65 years of teaching the proper use of guns.

KTAR

Gov. Janet Napolitano named the directors of the new non-profit economic-development organization unveiled earlier this month and announced that she would serve as chairwoman of the group.

The Arizona Economic Resource Organization will be funded with public and private money, and will work with the Arizona Global Network, a related non-profit Napolitano formed to direct foreign investment in the state.

AERO’s incorporating directors will be Ed Zito, executive vice president of Alliance Bank of Arizona; Jose Cardenas, a partner with Lewis and Roca Lawyers; and Jan Lesher, director of the Arizona Department of Commerce.

Arizona Republic

Summit Fire has sent three firefighters and a battalion chief to Riverside, Calif., to fight the raging wildfires there.

“This is such a hurry-up that they were told to call when they got across state lines and get their information” about where to report, said Paul Simpson, captain at Summit.

Flagstaff Fire Department has sent two engines and four firefighters.

“We do anticipate more trucks going over there,” said Mark Brehl, Firewise coordinator for the department.

azdailysun.com

A Flagstaff resident shot and killed a man he knew who broke into his home Monday morning.

Flagstaff police received a 911 call at about 10:36 a.m. Monday to respond to a home on North Center Street in Sunnyside, said Sgt. Tom Boughner of the police department.

Once officers arrived, the resident told police that he had shot an intruder, who was a man he knew, Boughner said. How the resident knew the man who was shot is still under investigation.

“He said he heard a crash in one of the back rooms,” Boughner said, adding that the resident stated he saw the intruder and knew him.

“He reported he felt threatened by the intruder,” Boughner said. “He then shot at the intruder six times with a .45-caliber pistol.”

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Northern Arizona University invites alumni and friends, students, faculty, staff and community members to celebrate the school’s 83rd Homecoming in Flagstaff this weekend.

A number of events are planned for Homecoming Day, Oct. 27, that celebrate the close relationship between the university and the Flagstaff Community:

Homecoming Parade, 11 a.m., downtown Flagstaff
The perennial favorite starts at the corner of Elm and Beaver with the theme chosen by the student body: Lights, Camera, Axe-tion: NAU Goes Hollywood. The parade will travel south on Beaver to Aspen, proceed east to San Francisco and then north, finishing up at the corner of San Francisco and Cherry.

Parts of downtown will be closed to traffic until after the parade ends at 1 p.m.

For information, contact Paloma Ibanez of Blue Key Honor Society at pji2@nau.edu . 

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A Flagstaff psychiatrist under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct with a minor patient has surrendered her medical license instead of completing an Arizona Medical Board investigation into the allegations.

In giving up her license last May, Dr. Shelley Everly admitted only to unprofessional conduct in two instances. She failed to appear for an investigational interview on April 23, 2007, and, in lieu of appearing, agreed to restrictions placed on her practice.

The medical board licenses and regulates the state’s doctors.

The board scheduled another investigational interview for May 17, but on May 14, Everly notified the medical board that she wouldn’t appear as ordered and wished to surrender her license, according to board documents.

The Flagstaff Police Department has an open investigation into the allegations, but no formal charges have been filed against Everly.

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By next summer, the Navajo Nation could have its own casino up and running thanks in part to a vote Monday by the Tribal Council that will give the O.K. to move forward and accept a $100 million loan from JP Morgan Chase.

Some of the Tribe that voted against accepting the loan were concerned with some of the details of the credit line, mainly the idea that once they accepted the loan, the Tribe would forfeit the right, or at least ask JP Morgan for permission to borrow money for other projects.

Although there was some scepticism, in the end the Tribe voted to accept the loan and begin the next step in the process that would bring them their own casino, one which is needed badly for jobs it would provide.

Securing Engineering and design contracts are the next step for the tribe, and the hope is that there can be groundbreaking some time soon and that by next summer, a casino would be built.

For the first two years of the loan, the Tribe can take out smaller increments of the $1,000,000 and just pay interest on that, saving them money for at least two years.

Gallup, New Mexico is the site for their first casino, and that location is expected to gross almost $32 million its first year. Flagstaff is the location of casino #2, and that is projected to gross $46.5 million for its first year.

Casino Gambling Web

Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers. Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.” 

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Just one in four armed holdups in Flagstaff are cleared

This week’s arrest of a group of young women may explain at least three of this year’s 50-plus robberies in Flagstaff.

But robberies are among the toughest of crimes for Flagstaff police to crack — on average, only about one in four are cleared.

Police say desperation driven by drugs and alcohol causes people to resort to violence to get the money or other valuables they want. Not all robbers are armed, but, by definition, they all use force.

And an armed robbery, although commonly believed to involve a gunman, isn’t necessarily limited to a pistol-wielding foe.

“Armed robberies can include any deadly weapon — baseball bat to a knife,” said Sgt. Tom Boughner of the Flagstaff Police Department.

Boughner said the instant gratification that robbers seek is often tied to substance use.

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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz, (AP) - Northern Arizona University is considering a novel proposal to lock-in tuition.

The plan would guarantee students a predictable tuition rate for their four years in school in exchange for a higher rate the first year.

Under the proposal, in-state tuition would go up by 10% in the student’s first year, to just under $5,300. But after that, tuition increases would be limited to just 2.5%, well below the annual average increase of about 7%.

Tuition for out-of-state students would be 14% higher in the first year, rising to some $16,000, with no increases for the next three years.

The proposal hasn’t had formal public hearings, although forums have been held at NAU. The state Board of Regents would have to sign off on the arrangement.

KVOA

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Northern Arizona University researchers said they’ve discovered a new way to detect staph infections, including the deadly antibiotic resistant varieties.

The new diagnostic tool, they told radio station KNAU, identifies infections inside biofilms, which are communities of microorganisms bound together inside the body.

The researchers said biofilms cause more than 70 percent of community- and hospital-acquired infections.

NAU associate professor Jeff Leid said the new device will help physicians diagnose the staph infections more quickly.

Leid and his team of researchers are waiting for a patent on their discovery so it can be implemented in health care settings.

KPHO

Get out the lawn chair and fuel up on coffee.

One of the year’s major meteor showers is coming to Arizona with the best viewing expected on Saturday and Sunday nights. Some shower activity also is expected during late nights and early mornings now through early next week.

The Orionids shower is characterized by fast trails of debris left over from the famous Halley’s comet.

For best viewing, try to get away from city lights and look to the Eastern sky, said Jeffrey Hall, associate director of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

Showers take place across a large portion of the sky, so using binoculars and telescopes can restrict your view, he said.

Arizona Republic

Not all the players were known to Flagstaff’s Tony Nester when details were being worked out for him to train a young actor in wilderness survival for the film “Into the Wild.”

The agent for actor Emile Hirsch kept making references to a Shawn, or Sean, who would be directing the movie.

Hirsch, then 21, was coming to town in May 2006 to learn how to survive with few resources in the pines south of Flagstaff. Hirsch was about to play the lead role in the film adaptation of a book about young adventurer Chris McCandless.

Just before Hirsch arrived, the director called Nester, a recognized authority in the wilderness survival field.

“He just kept talking to me in a gravely voice, and he said, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t make it out, and if you have any questions about what we’re doing, here’s my number. Call me if you need anything,’<200A>” Nester recalled.

Nester didn’t know he was talking with Sean Penn. The 47-year-old star of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” ex-husband of Madonna anector of “Mystic River” had discovered Nester on a Travel Channel special on the Grand Canyon that had aired eight years ago.

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