- Time to break up with EAC lobbyist
- February 3, 2012
- He promises the world. He inflates your hopes. Then sneaks out with your pretty sister. Time to break up? Most likely. So we suspect that the Gila Community College board made a mistake last week when it renewed Triadvocate’s $36,000 annual lobbying contract. The Phoenix-based Triadvocates represents several community college districts in the Legislature, including Eastern Arizona College — with which GCC contracts for its credential. Board member Tom Loeffler has in the past suggested that represents a conflict of interest, since GCC’s interests as a provisional community college may conflict with the plans of regular community colleges — who get far more state support. Not to worry, insisted Triadvocates: We can represent GCC’s interests too. So last year, Triadvocates set to work to help state Sen. Sylvia Allen pass two bills crucial to the future of GCC. One bill opens the door to independence. The second bill sought to ensure GCC gets its fair share of workforce development money all other districts already get to develop vocational programs.
- New GCC leadership offers fresh hope
- January 31, 2012
- The Gila Community College board has a new president. Hopefully, that will usher in new opportunities. Outgoing president Bob Ashford last week surprised everyone, including Larry Stephenson, when he nominated Stephenson as the new board president. Ashford did not explain why he gave up the president’s gavel, which he has wielded with fierce energy for six years. Reportedly, he has faced some health concerns that may have made it difficult to continue putting in long hours serving the college. Now, we have in this space expressed our frustrations with Ashford’s sometimes heavy-handed style as board president. He seemed far too willing to dictate the board’s agenda and far too reluctant to question the terms of GCC’s contract with Eastern Arizona College. But that does not diminish our respect for his long, unpaid, dedicated service to GCC and its students.
- Forest Service goes all medieval on lease
- January 27, 2012
- So now the Forest Service is getting all biblical on the Lakeview Trailer Park, which has perched inconspicuously on a hill overlooking Roosevelt Lake for decades. Seems like the Tonto National Forest is intent on applying that verse from Matthew: “If thy hand offends thee, cut it off.” Now, one expects absolute devotion to commands carved into stone from preachers, but we’re not so sure it makes good public policy. Granted, the Forest Service has a point. No doubt, the folks leasing 21 acres of Forest Service land for a trailer park are turning a private profit from public land. No doubt, that violates the letter of the law as codified in the Tonto National Forest plan. But should the Forest Service hack off the hand that has offended it. What then, pray tell, will it do with the bloody stump? Those 21 acres of public land have for decades nurtured a small community occupied mostly by vacation homeowners. Currently, 167 people rent space in the park — including about 10 full-time residents who mostly work nearby.
- Forest Service confronts another no-win choice
- January 24, 2012
- Someone needs to resurrect King Solomon and get him to run the U.S. Forest Service. Hard to figure that anyone else can resolve the agonizing choices facing the folks managing 193 million acres of your land — including 3 million acres in the Tonto National Forest. Hopefully, you recall the story of the wise King Solomon. He is confronted with the claims of two women to a single baby. Unable to discern the real mother, Solomon decreed the baby should be cut in half so each woman would have a share. One woman agreed, the other woman recoiled — and renounced her claim. So Solomon gave the second woman the baby, knowing a real mother would sacrifice her claim to save the child.
- Open meeting law applies to board
- January 20, 2012
- The Rim Country Educational Alliance SLE board has taken up its crucial task with energy and enthusiasm. The board members face a daunting task in overseeing a complex, $400 million project, on which so much of Rim Country’s economic recovery relies. So it seems reasonable to cut them some slack, despite some of the early, organizational growing pains. That would include this week’s questions about the board’s adherence to the state’s open meeting law, designed to ensure the public’s business gets conducted in public. The six public-spirited board members have started regular monthly meetings, but are still working to master the rules that govern such public bodies. The board already suffered the disquieting resignation of one member as a result of what seemed like poor communications.
- Everything hinges on this one reform
- January 17, 2012
- Frightening. Inspiring. Vital. All those words apply to the story you’ll find in today’s edition on the Class Acts page. At first glance, it looks like a warm-hearted feature story about an expert, caring teacher in the Payson Unified School district. But it really holds the key to everything — from saving public schools to adapting to the 21st century. Every day, Roxanne Savage sits down with about 70 struggling elementary students to help them solve the mysterious riddle of the written word.
- Superintendent surprises board; is retiring soon
- January 13, 2012
- Well, we can’t say we didn’t see it coming. Payson Unified School District Superintendent Casey O’Brien has applied for jobs elsewhere before. Still, the news of O’Brien’s retirement Thursday took us all aback. We were most surprised to learn he isn’t leaving us for a bigger and better district, but for the hills of Spain. Or so he dreams.
- Abdication of authority a bad move by town council
- January 10, 2012
- The Payson Town Council has abdicated some of its authority by giving town staff the authority to approve small subdivisions. Small or large, the approval of preliminary plat maps should be a function of the town council, not staff. We have the utmost respect for the town staff, they are hard working, they do their job effectively for the most part, but they are not elected to oversee the operations of the town — that is the job of the town council.
- Shocking statistics show need for bike safety plan
- January 6, 2012
- Here’s a shock: Payson has one of the highest bicycle accident rates in the state. The Arizona Department of Transportation statistics lead to two sobering conclusions. First, cyclists in this town need to get much smarter much faster, to avoiding becoming a statistic. Second, the town council must make the development of a comprehensive network of bike paths a top priority once growth resumes. The daunting statistics suggest that Payson’s rate of car-bike accidents remains a shocking five times higher than Prescott’s and well above most other communities in the state.
- Reformers go home: Let teachers teach
- January 3, 2012
- So let’s say your moon rockets keep blowing up on the launch pad. What would you do? Would you carefully test each component and refine the design? Or would you ask a politician what to do — and then hastily implement changes when he checks with his political consultant and says “we need more yellow flames.” Letting the politicians dictate the redesign probably would not get you to the moon — and it is not going to fix our educational system either.
- When the going gets tough…
- December 30, 2011
- Whew. What a year. Thank goodness it’s over and thank the people who got us through it. Certainly, 2011 proved hard on the nerves. The economy sputtered and groaned. The signs of distress mounted on every side: The jobless rate remained stuck at 10 percent, the poverty rate among Payson school children soared, the pleas for help from the food banks piled up, the politicians dithered and bickered, the class sizes rose inexorably, the empty storefronts multiplied. In short, pessimists had a field day all year long. Still.
- The worst of times, the best of times
- December 27, 2011
- Well, we survived 2011 — by most measures the worst of times, to quote Charles Dickens. But we’ve got a buoyant feeling that 2012 will not only be a better year — it’ll set records. Mostly, that’s because the tireless advocates for this community have made such heartening progress on two projects essential to our future: The Blue Ridge pipeline and an Arizona State University campus. Construction on the $30 million pipeline should begin in a few months, now that the appeals period on the environmental assessment has passed uneventfully. A nearly year-long delay in approving that draft environmental assessment caused a lot of heartburn — but everything ended happily. So Rim Country has secured enough water to provide for all its planned future growth — including the transformative construction of a 6,000-student university.
- ‘Merry Christmas. Pay it forward,’ the lunch bill said
- December 23, 2011
- Every year I rack my brains to figure out a memorable birthday for my girls. These days as a single mom, the task comes with a special twist of empty-checking-account anxiety. I want them to have everything — but I can afford hardly anything. This year, for my youngest daughter’s 12th birthday, I cooked up the idea of taking her and a couple of her friends to Jerome, giving them some pocket money and treating them to lunch. I hoped for fun day and a few gifts. Crystal and I had discovered Jerome on a trip with my parents. We loved it so much we could not wait to get back. Her birthday offered the perfect excuse.
- Bike giveaway program completes successful 8th year
- December 20, 2011
- It is Christmas time, and for many children that means unwrapping a new bicycle on Sunday. For most of us, learning to ride our first bike is one of the more memorable times of childhood. After mastering a bike with training wheels, there comes the day when our parents gently urge us to ride on our own two wheels — a scary proposition for any 5-year-old.
- A rough landing, but a good start
- December 16, 2011
- Half the time it looked like an instrument landing in the fog, but when it comes to the town’s resumption of control over the Payson Airport — we’ll go for that famous pilot’s adage: Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. The Payson Town Council this week moved decisively to take back the management of the airport it so eagerly gave up in 2007. The move spurred the opposition of some people who recalled the bad old days — when the town treated the airport like a three-legged dog with fleas.
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