NorthernArizonaNews.com
INSIDE
Sports: Tennis, p 22 Opinion: Campfire ban, p 8 A&E: Nicholas Sparks, p 25
SINCE 1914
Life: Microbrewing, p 13
Issue 12, VOL 99 April 12, 2012 - April 18, 2012
(Photo by Daniel Daw)
OLSON MEMORIAL MARCH DRAWS CROWD, POLICE “Joel Olson — our professor, our colleague, our friend, our brother who fought for those things, really strongly. We’re mourning; we’re sad and we’re still living in the context that Joel fought against.”
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BY DANIEL DAW
ommunity members, students and faculty gathered Sunday for a peaceful memorial march in honor of NAU Professor Joel Olson. Olson passed away while teaching abroad in Europe. Olson was a professor of political science and international affairs at NAU since 2006 and is remembered by many for speaking at freshman orientations. The ceremony began with a traditional Spanish prayer, words from those who were close to Olson and then traditional Matachines dancers performed prior to the beginning of the march. The march began in front of Flagstaff City Hall and continued down Route 66 and through Heritage Square before returning to City Hall. Those in attendance were diverse and included members from the Spanish-speaking community, the
university, Flagstaff and the Repeal Coalition. During the march many participants shouted chants both in English and in Spanish. Chants of “Whose streets? Our streets” and “La vida vida, la lucha sigue sigue” could be heard through the march. Luis Fernandez, professor of criminal justice and criminology, said while the ceremony went well, fear led to many missing the memorial. “I thought it went well. I think we live under tough moments when certain people in our community are very afraid of coming to events like this, because they are undocumented or because of the workplace,” Fernandez said, “There were relatively few people from the Spanish-speaking community and the reason was because last night there was an I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raid at a local business and people were afraid to come out because they thought they might do an I.C.E raid here. People are frightening our communities and people are afraid to come and mourn.” On the corner of Birch Avenue and Beaver Street, one participant was arrested by a Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) officer after he had started a chant of “Whose streets? Our streets” while he was standing next to an officer and then proceeded to punch him. Maria Castillo, a participant who witnessed part of the incident, recounted the officers’ behavior and see OLSON page 4
Petition seeks to ban summer campfires in Arizona
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BY MARK SAUNDERS
n June 2010, the Schultz Fire ravaged over 15,000 acres of land four miles north of Flagstaff. The city of Flagstaff was left in panic for 10 days as more than 100 emergency personnel worked to repress the inferno. The cause of the blaze, as determined by fire officials, was an unattended campfire. The organization Campfires Limited began a petition to set an automatic Stage 1 restriction on campfires, cigarette smoking and charcoal use in undeveloped areas of state parks and forests from May 1 to July 15 annually. Luann Meek and Mary Locke, members of Campfires Limited, said in an email that the organization wants to see automatic fire restrictions in place before fires have the chance to start. “We have no idea if the petition will achieve our goal of an automatic May 1 to July 15 Stage 1 campfire restriction,” they said. “What we do know is that doing nothing is likely to result in the present status-quo being maintained and, if that is the case, the Mogollon Rim will see more catastrophic wildfires originating from untended campfires.” The previous fire along the Mogollon Rim was the Wallow fire in May 2011, which consumed more than 530,000 acres. see FIRES page 6
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