Flagstaff Today - News and Photos

As Sen. John McCain targets Democrat-leaning states, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee is planning a visit to McCain’s home state to rally volunteers.

Howard Dean is scheduled to visit Arizona on May 12 for a private fund-raiser and neighborhood leader event. A location has not yet been announced, and the event is not open to the public, officials said.

Dean’s visit coincides with a recently unveiled strategy by the DNC to register voters and have volunteers talk about why McCain is the wrong choice for president. It’s part of Dean’s 50-state strategy for winning the White House.

“We’re organizing everywhere even in John McCain’s backyard,” said Luis Miranda, a Democratic National Committee spokesman. McCain, he said, couldn’t even get 50 percent of Republican primary votes in his home state.

azcentral.com

As other Arizona municipalities are cutting corners and jobs to address budget shortfalls, Flagstaff officials are considering hiring more police officers, firefighters and library officials.

Pending final City Council approval, the net equivalent of 31 new employees for various departments will be hired in the next fiscal year and pay and benefits raises will top $2.8 million. But overall spending will be relatively flat.

City Manager Kevin Burke, leading his first city budget retreat, contended the city would have to tighten its belt in light of smaller projected growth in sales tax revenues than in recent years.

azdailysun.com

PHOENIX (AP) — A Tennessee couple who lost their son in Iraq want an Arizona merchant to pay more than $40 billion in damages to survivors of soldiers whose names are on the anti-war shirts he is selling online.

A complaint seeking class-action status for the lawsuit by Robin and Michael Read says Dan Frazier of Flagstaff has no right to profit from commercial sale of products that use the dead soldiers’ names without permission.

The change, requested Tuesday in federal court in Tennessee, would cover the heirs of all U.S. service members killed in the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, and seek $4 billion in compensatory damages and $36.5 billion of punitive damages.

Associated Press

 Flagstaff, AZ – On April 28, 2008  Coconino County Sheriff Deputy Jason Schneider was made aware of an attempt to locate broadcast that was issued on a missing endangered person and her vehicle, by the Flagstaff Police Department.  Flagstaff Police Officers received the initial call of this missing and possibly suicidal individual on Sunday.

At about 5:09 am today, Deputy Schneider located the victim’s vehicle abandoned in a pull out near the top of the Snow Bowl Road (Forest Service Rd. 516).  A Coconino County Sheriff’s Sergeant was able to make contact with the victim by calling her on her cell phone. During the subsequent investigation the sergeant was able to determine that the victim had ingested an unknown quantity of sleeping pills and was physically incapacitated to a substantial degree.  During his conversation with the victim the sergeant was able to obtain some information regarding her surroundings. The sergeant conveyed this information to the responding deputy and eventually it led him to her exact location.

Due to the victim’s incapacitation, her life threatening condition, and the rough terrain the deputy quickly carried her for more than ½ mile to a waiting ambulance, at which point she was rushed to the Flagstaff Medical Center.  Coconino County Sheriff Bill Pribil believes that Deputy Schneider’s quick action and his extraordinary efforts resulted in saving the victim’s life.

azfamily.com

PHOENIX, April 29  /PRNewswire/ — UFCW Local 99 has announced their endorsement of Flagstaff City Councilmember Kara Kelty for the Arizona Corporation Commission.

“Kara Kelty has the intelligence, integrity, and courage to move Arizona to clean, renewable energy,” said Jim McLaughlin, President of UFCW Local 99, “and the new industries and jobs that will create.”

Kelty, a Flagstaff Democrat, is completing her second term on the Flagstaff City Council where she has compiled a distinguished record on behalf of working families. Earlier this year Kelty was awarded the prestigious Marshall Memorial Fund Fellowship given “to the best and brightest from all sectors, including politics, media, business, and nongovernmental organizations.” [Source: Marshall Memorial Fund, http://www.gmfus.org/.]

The Earth Times

A van full of illegal immigrants led police on a chase from Camp Verde nearly into Munds Park early Thursday.According to a press release from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, at about 12:30 a.m., a deputy attempted a stop on a red Ford mini-van as it weaved and drove slowly along the Interstate 17 in Camp Verde. The deputy used lights, siren and his public address system, but the driver continued northbound. Department of Public Safety officers set up “stop sticks” to puncture the van’s tires, stopping the vehicle near milepost 319, about three miles south of Munds Park. The pursuit lasted about 25 miles. The deputy determined that the driver, 21-year-old Ricardo Bautista, was unlicensed and an illegal immigrant. Twelve additional illegal immigrants were found in the van. Bautista was unable to explain why he did not stop, but did say he was driving the passengers to meet a contact in Flagstaff, the release stated.

azdailysun.com

FLAGSTAFF - So there you are at Biff’s Bagels on Beaver Street near Route 66, digesting your Wednesday breakfast.Then the runners show up.Big-time runners. Some living in town. Some from countries far away. They gather inside, then go run for an hour or so before returning to eat whatever elite athletes allow themselves.

“It makes you feel a little lazy,” said Mitch Kramer, a Biff’s Bagels manager. “It’s usually around 9 a.m. when they swamp us. The folks that eat around that time are surprised, but they really like it. For the ones who know what’s going on, it gets them motivated to do stuff.”

The top athletes at Biff’s are just one sign of Flagstaff’s evolution into one of the world’s premier locations for altitude training.

Arizona Republic

A former Flagstaff High School teacher already facing one charge of sexual conduct with a minor made another appearance in court Friday to hear new related charges against her.

Tawni L. Wimberley, 29, turned herself in Friday morning at Flagstaff Justice Court, where two additional counts of sexual conduct with a minor were read to her at a hearing. She was then released on her own recognizance and not booked into jail. Wimberley was arraigned on one count of sexual conduct with a minor on March 25 after an indictment by a county grand jury. The charge stems from an alleged encounter with a 17-year-old boy last summer.

The new charges are related to an alleged off-campus encounter last fall with a 16-year-old boy, a former student, while she was on leave.

azdailysun.com

Department of Public Safety officers were looking for the driver of a pickup truck early Friday morning after a near head-on collision between the pickup and a commercial semi tractor-trailer rig on Interstate 17. The accident occurred between the Orme Road and State Route 169 about 2 a.m. But when the Highway Patrolman reached the crash site the pickup driver was nowhere to be found.Camp Verde Fire District crews report that the vehicles suffered heavy damage and the semi driver was treated for non-life threatening injuries and taken to Yavapai Regional Medical Center.

Officers found the driver of the pickup hiding in a culvert after daybreak. The 48-year-old subject was charged with leaving the scene of an accident.

Verde News

A longtime civilian employee at the Flagstaff Police Department has resigned and is under investigation for out-of-policy actions.

Sgt. Tom Boughner of the police department said, “We accepted the resignation of a civilian employee this morning, George Valencia. An investigation is in motion to determine the extent of out-of-policy actions, and if the actions include any criminal acts.” Boughner declined to comment further.

According to the human resources department at City Hall, Valencia has been employed with the city for 14 years.

The investigation is ongoing.

azdailysun.com

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (April 25, 2008) — The Arizona Board of Regents voted to trim Northern Arizona University’s current budget by about $2.2 million, about 1.3 percent.

Regents voted during their Friday session in Tucson after the state Legislature directed the board to trim $14.7 million from the university system as well as $875,000 from ABOR operating expenses.

“Northern Arizona University has been diligent about conserving resources since it became clear that the state was experiencing revenue shortfalls,” said NAU President John Haeger. “Every area on campus has participated by delaying new hires and forgoing travel and expenditures.” 

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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The body of a traveling nurse from Texas who was reported missing after leaving a California desert town nearly two weeks ago has been found in a remote area of northern Arizona, authorities said Friday.

The body of Michael Edwards was found near a Forest Service road north of the Grand Canyon on Thursday afternoon. There was no sign of foul play, said Lt. Rex Gilliland of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office.

“We believe we have a natural death,” Gilliland said. “He may have died from hypothermia. Obviously we’ll know more after the autopsy and we still want to know why he was in northern Arizona.”

Houston Chronicle

Coconino County is planning to push off large expenses such as new buildings, expecting an economy slightly worse than it had forecast for a recession.

Expenditures are projected to be down into 2011, as county planners prepare for a long downturn and tap emergency funds. Increasing taxes is an option.

State and federal funding that helps cover health programs, drug prosecution, rural schools, roads, job-training programs and the Coconino County jail is in line to be cut, particularly in the next fiscal year as the state weighs a $1.9 billion shortfall.

New passed-along expenses, such as keeping state inmates in county jails longer at a cost of $4 million, are also expected.

Coconino County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Deb Hill is asking the state to avoid cutting funds here, saying a county that has the state’s lowest property tax rates shouldn’t be penalized.

azdailysun.com

PHOENIX (AP) - An Arizona online merchant of anti-war shirts that list names of troops killed in Iraq says he’s not particularly worried by a lawsuit filed in Tennessee by the parents of a slain soldier.

Dan Frazier of Flagstaff says the lawsuit filed in federal court by Robin and Michael Read of Greeneville is the first filed against him in connection with his “Bush Lied - They died” shirts.

The Reads’ lawsuit accuses Frazier of intentionally inflicting emotional harm by including Spc. Brandon Michael Read’s name without permission and ignoring a demand to remove their son’s name. The son was serving in the Army Reserve when he was killed by a roadside bomb in 2004.

Frazier says in an e-mail that he believes he’s on “solid legal footing” due to First Amendment protections for free speech.

KOLD

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (April 24, 2008) — The National Science Foundation recently awarded a five-year, $2.9 million grant to the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences to support graduate students as they pursue innovative research and share their knowledge with younger students along the way.

Grant recipients will receive support for their research and will spend 10 hours a week collaborating with teachers in local K-12 classrooms to improve the instruction of science, technology, engineering and math.

The Biotechnology Integration Opportunities for Teacher Education and Content grant, also known as BIOTEC, “is a wonderful opportunity to put scientists in local classrooms where they can involve students in the process of science,” said Catherine Ueckert, an associate professor in biology who wrote the grant. 

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An apparent parolee walked out of the Coconino County jail Wednesday afternoon and was soon apprehended after being erroneously released by jail staff who had overlooked a parole hold and was wanted by state Department of Correction staff.

Aaron L. Charley, 24, was being processed out of the county jail at about 2 p.m. after no complaint was filed following a Sunday arrest in Flagstaff for disorderly conduct and criminal damage. What jail staff did not notice was that Charley had a parole hold from DOC. And at about the same time he was being released from county jail, employees from the state prison agency arrived at the facility to pick him up.

“It’s one of those things. There’s no other way to say it. We made a mistake — we released a guy and we shouldn’t have,” said Jail Commander Kurt Braatz.

azdailysun.com

By this summer, the city of Flagstaff will be able to measure how much this community contributes to the planet’s warming.

Next come decisions about what changes to make by 2012 to reduce greenhouse gases. Whatever plans are made will likely extend beyond conservation at City Hall — and could ultimately involve asking individuals to change the way they live.

Every airplane, train, automobile, gas heater, wood stove, prescribed fires and other activity that adds one of six greenhouse gases will count in this inventory of the community’s greenhouse gases, scheduled to be finished by the end of June.

Tourism and travel will also be factored in — along with any activity within city limits that produces carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and three other gases.

azdailysun.com

State authorities located the truck of an off-duty El Mirage police lieutenant containing weapons and police uniforms that was reported missing earlier this month.

A helicopter with the Arizona Department of Public Safety found Lt. Randy Weems’ Ford F-350 near Casa Grande two weeks ago with all the contents missing, said El Mirage Assistant Police Chief Bill Louis.

The truck was found totaled, and there are no leads to the thieves.

Weems was having dinner at McDuffy’s in Peoria when his truck was reportedly stolen from the parking lot. A Flagstaff Police Department retiree, Weems had just began his new duties as an El Mirage police lieutenant a few weeks before the theft.

azcentral.com

A local teenage boy has been identified as the person responsible for a string of arsons earlier this month in a neighborhood north of Cedar Avenue.

According to Flagstaff police, the 14-year-old was referred to juvenile authorities on Monday for arson, arson of an occupied structure, and reckless burning charges. The boy admitted to starting the fires, in the area of the 3300 block of North Monte Vista Drive, on April 6. Neighbors helped extinguish the flames, which started in a ditch and crawled up fences, threatening homes.

azdailysun.com

Arizona Republicans appear to have hit a wall on finding a potential moderate candidate for the vast 1st Congressional District, the seat of retiring GOP Rep. Rick Renzi , who is scheduled to go on trial in October on a 35 count indictment for charges including conspiracy, extortion, money-laundering and wire fraud.

Former state Sen. Ken Bennett said Monday that he decided not to run for northern Arizona seat despite strong pressure from the state party, making him the latest in a series of moderate Republicans the party unsuccessfully has tried to recruit to compete against conservative activist Sydney Hay and businessman Preston Korn in the party’s Sept. 2 primary.

Hay is president of the Arizona Mining Association and lost a bid for the then-open 1st District seat in 2002 to Renzi, and is the front-runner in the race against first-time candidate Korn. But some leading Republicans are concerned that she is too conservative for the district.

Republicans have until the June 4 filing deadline to find another candidate to enter the race, but no moderate GOP contenders are waiting in the wing to get into the contest.

CQ Politics