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ARIZONA NEWSPAPERS AND NATIONAL LOCAL MEDIA ASSOCIATIONS’ NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR
payson.com
PAYSON ROUNDUP FRIDAY | FEBRUARY 12, 2016 | PAYSON, ARIZONA
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Police negotiators defuse domestic violence Michele Nelson
of Rim Country’s plague of domestic violence — both the most common violent Linda Walker barricaded herself in crime and the most dangerous call for her Ox Bow Estates home in December, police to answer. Officers Michael Varga and Michael frightening her partHansen spent six hours ner who feared for making a connection Walker’s safety. with Walker. So she called law “She wouldn’t enforcement. answer the phone,” Both Gila County said Varga, “(but) we Sheriff and Tonto Apache Police officers One in a series had to develop communication somehow. We responded, but Walker don’t want a team to would not commuburst in there. We kept pleading with nicate. So, the sheriff and the Tonto her to answer the phone.” Officer Michael Apache Police called in the Payson Varga Payson Police Police Department’s Crisis Negotiating Domestic violence danger negotiator Team, a group of highly trained officers who often find themselves in the vortex Domestic violence calls expose law
“... Our job is to get it back down — we say, ‘the light bills we can take care of — you do not have to commit suicide’”
by
roundup staff reporter
E C N E VIOL
Intimate
enforcement officers to some of the most dangerous situations they will ever face. People in domestic violence situations have heightened emotions and a diminished ability to make rational decisions say officers. Such a call can all too often involve weapons, children in danger or hostages. “They are in crisis,” said Hansen, “They are in the worst part of their life .... There are an overwhelming number of citizens of Payson that are in crisis or mentally ill or struggling and hurting or have some problems. That’s why we play a vital role in this situation.” Varga offered examples. “You have all these significant stress-
• See Police, page 2A
Food drive triumph 30,000 lbs. food, $50,000 cash by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
Remember Winter? Photographer DJ Craig after the last winter storm caught this frosty sunrise in Green Valley Park. Don’t expect anything like this soon. The forecast calls for highs in the mid to low 70s on into next week before dipping into the 60s at the end of next week.
Pine, Young gym floor tests scheduled by
Peter Aleshire
roundup editor
The rubberized gym floor in the Pine Strawberry School on Feb. 16 will get another test to make sure it’s not emitting worrisome levels of mercury gas, the Department of Environmental Quality confirmed on Thursday. The tests will monitor the air continuously for an eight-hour period starting at 7 a.m., which will include normal usage of the gym. The state will also test the gym floor in Young during the week of Feb. 15. The State School Facilities Board undertook the statewide survey after an insurance company found damaged floors in St. David and Round Valley were THE WEATHER
Weekend: Sunny and nice with highs in the mid to low 70s and overnight lows in the mid to upper 30s. Details, 9A
volume 26, no. 13
Measuring mercury risk emitting low levels of mercury. When Pine school asked the School Facilities Board about repairing a crack in the gym floor, the state did tests and advised the precautionary closure of the gym while state officials scrambled to figure out what levels of mercury in the air posed a health problem. They told the school district it was safe to reopen the gym and cafeteria after a second set of tests showed levels at only a fraction of the level deemed risky by the federal government. In the meantime, the School Facilities Board undertook a survey of the state’s 220 school districts and found 176 suspect floors in 73 districts. Those floors installed decades ago used rubberized floors hardened with a catalyst that included mercury salts. That survey revealed Young had one of the suspect floors. So far, the state has not tested whether the Young floor is releasing mercury into the air. The survey also revealed that two floors in Payson schools and one floor in Tonto Basin did not contain mercury.
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The new tests in Pine come in response to concerns raised by parents and school officials at a recent town hall meeting hosted by ADEQ, the Arizona School Facilities Board and the Arizona Department of Health Services. Two sets of earlier tests found the levels of mercury outgassed by the rubberized floors remained far below the levels federal standards have deemed risky. However, parents at the meeting worried that levels might rise when children were actually using the gym floor or might vary in the course of the day. That prompted the state to order additional tests, since the Pine gym is one of the first of the mercury-containing, rubberized floors tested. The first two rounds of testing revealed levels of about 0.29 micrograms per cubic centimeter of air. Federal standards consider anything below 3.0 micrograms safe — more than 10 times the concentration measured in the first two sets of tests in Pine. However, the insurance company that covers most Arizona school district paid to replace the
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water-damaged floor in St. David, although it had lower concentrations of mercury than in Pine. In that case, adjusters feared the water damage could lead to increased out-gassing. Officials also agreed to replace the floor in Round Valley, which was also damaged but had lower levels of mercury than the Pine floor. State officials at the meeting in Pine said those decisions came before local officials fully understood the federal standards and the experiences of other states with the rubberized floors. Replacing a gym floor costs about $750,000 if the mercury has also seeped into cracks in the foundation beneath the rubberized covering. The explanation left many parents who attended the Pine session unsatisfied, saying children shouldn’t be exposed to mercury, even if no tests or studies conclusively documented a health risk. State officials agreed at the end of the meeting to undertake the additional eight-hour testing during hours of normal use, partly to reassure parents and partly to set up a baseline for testing the state can apply to the other 176 suspect floors — including the one in Young.
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It came down to the wire, but the Payson Area Food Drive met this year’s holiday goal to raise 30,000 pounds of food and $50,000 to feed the area’s hungry. And they did it in just a few months, starting around Thanksgiving and wrapping up “Souper Bowl” Sunday. Chuck Proudfoot, the food drive’s organizer who also runs the Community Presbyterian Church food bank, said they feared they would not make the goals this year, now the seventh year of the drive. However, a last-minute push by local churches collected the last needed cans to meet the goal. “We pronounce it happy,” he said. On Thursday, the food count stood at 29,000 pounds and one can, but donations from three churches had not yet been counted.
Proudfoot felt confident with Mountain Bible and the Church of the Nazarene donations they would hit 30,000 pounds. While food donations just met the goal, monetary donations exceeded expectations with $54,539 collected. Of that, $31,950 has already been spent to buy food and stock food baskets, which Community Presbyterian Church, St. Vincent de Paul and the Pine-Strawberry Food Bank provide. John Wilson, PAFD treasurer, said 66 percent of all monetary donations come directly to the PAFD post office box, with residents giving 34 percent of the money directly to the food pantries. As the food banks purchase food to supplement donations and government supplies, they tell Wilson how much they need and he reimburses them with money from the PAFD coffers.
• See Community, page 9A
Prescott bomb threat prompts Payson arrest by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
A 36-year-old man that reportedly placed a fake bomb on a Prescott government building was arrested in Payson Tuesday with the help of local officers. Rhett Michael Underwood faces charges of misconduct involving a simulated explosive device and obstructing government operations after he allegedly placed a fake bomb on the front door of a Arizona Department of Child Safety building in Prescott in October 2014. Officers evacuated the office, in the 1000 block of Ainsworth Drive, and the surrounding area for four hours as Arizona Department of Public Safety explosive ordinance technicians worked. They determined the device was fake. Prescott Police Department detectives later tied Underwood to the bomb after finding his DNA on the device. On Tuesday, Prescott detectives, U.S. Marshals, Payson
Police and the Gila County Sheriff’s Office went to Shadow Rim, the Gila Scout Camp off Forest Road 32 and arrested Underwood. Underwood was working at the camp, replacing a floor, said Det. Sgt. Erik Axlund, with the criminal investigations division. Underwood was arrested without incident.
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