Progress Edition 2013

PROGRESS EDITION A P R I L 2 0 1 3 | P AY S O N , A R I Z O N A

CELEBRATE

INSIDE: • Leaders report • Pipeline proceeds • University progresses • Housing recovers • Businesses open • Economy mends • Schools adapt • Disasters recalled • Headlines reviewed • Star Valley reports • Pine, Strawberry party • Athletes set records • County changes leaders • Forest thinning embraced

A YEAR OF PROGRESS IN

RIM COUNTRY

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PAYSON ROUNDUP PAYSON, ECONOMY PROGRESS 2013

Rim Country 2012-13: One heck of a ride!

Progress heartening but challenges remain Payson continues to make progress on a and the Rural Water Supply funding for the number of fronts even as the state claws its Blue Ridge pipeline completion which now way out of this interminable recession. is jeopardizing earlier financial pledges and Although local businesses continue to strug- even some businesses that had been gle and some have closed, many new busirecruited for the associated research park. nesses have opened in the past year. Within Payson was successful in getting a the past few months we’ve witnessed grand Congressional Act passed this past spring openings for Big 5, for PetSmart and for Big to resolve the decades-old conflict over Lots. We’ve held ribbon cutmanagement of CC Cragin tings for nearly a dozen new Reservoir. The pipeline businesses in the last year design for several sections and continue to work with was completed with conothers to encourage them to struction already in locate or relocate in beautiprogress. Great progress ful Payson. Recruiting the was also made with the per“right” new businesses to mitting for the pipeline our town remains a priority. route and for the future Work to annex additional water treatment plant site. land into the town continues The hiring of Tanner Henry in an effort to expand the as the new Town of Payson economic base for the comWater Division Manager munity. marked the beginning of a As the Festival Capital of new era.

Arizona, the Town of Payson Challenges remain. As continues to add successful noted above, the Federal Kenny Evans events and festivals to our Rural Water Supply Act of Mayor of Payson already busy schedule. The 2006 provided for 40-year return to Camp Tontozona of ASU Football financing for qualifying rural communities was huge. That highly successful event like Payson. Unfortunately, as the first comresulted in the announcement that ASU will munity in the country to apply, we have be expanding it to a week-long event startbecome the guinea pig for the Bureau of ing this summer. The town’s award-winning Reclamation. Although we have spent a lot entry in the Fiesta Bowl Parade, the addiof time and money qualifying through the tion of several major athletic tournaments RWSA’s feasibility process, red tape and the this year, the announcement that Payson federal budget mess have slowed the Regional Medical Center was named one of process, putting timelines for completion of the Top 20 Hospitals for their size in the the pipeline in jeopardy. That approval is entire United States, the establishment of essential to keep our water rates from escathe Roof-top Solar Ambassador Program lating dramatically for current customers. are just a few of our community’s excepIn the alternative, stopping or delaying contional accomplishments. Perhaps most struction would directly impact our efforts notable was the success of our Community to bring a university to town, preventing our Food Drive and the unprecedented success ability to defray a significant part of the of our Payson Community Garden in helping future infrastructure costs. provide for the needy in our community.

The town will continue to push forward On the municipal level, the Town of and remains optimistic that with the supPayson is determined to succeed in spite of port of elected leaders we will find our way the state and national challenges being through the current bureaucratic maze. dumped on our community. We are battling On the university initiative, even with the a number of significant issues including: constraints we’ve faced, Payson continues 1) the plan to pull ADOT funding for com- to make progress. Although patience has pletion of Highway 260 East at Lion Springs worn thin with the painfully slow progress which would hurt jobs and compound sumwith the USFS bureaucratic red tape, the mer traffic; SLE board and community volunteer com2) dealing with the staggering costs asso- mittee has stepped up to the plate. As the ciated with mandated changes in health purchase process has dragged on, they care; have carried more and more of the load.

3) the state’s manipulation of our future Their timely and professional work, coupled election cycle; with the very positive attitude of local 4) the potentially crippling effect of the Forest Service employees, provides assurstate Legislature’s unilaterally changing of ance that our university project will eventuour sales tax code; ally become a reality.

5) the anticipated reduction in HURF So in spite of what would appear to be funding and the Tonto Natural Bridge State daunting challenges, hope and optimism Parks funding; and remain high based on the progress already 6) the challenge posed by the continuing made and on the prospects for a brighter delays in securing the Forest Service site future on the horizon.

Now that’s progress I was feeling kind of edgy — and frustrated.

I loved it. The whole thing. Not because I’m My life’s a mess, my neighbor’s half crazy, any good at walking backward — but because my dog’s got a chipped tooth — and so do I. we’ve got such great people living here in Rim The economy won’t mend, my house won’t sell, Country. the Legislature’s gone nuts — and I hear that Of course, that wasn’t the first time I the United Nations wants to send all our cute noticed this crucial truth. I bump into those little rug rats to FEMA death camps. people down at the community garden. They But then I sat down to edit the stories in our turn out for the candlelight vigil at the Time 2012-13 Progress Edition and commenced to Out Shelter. They wait patiently for their turn feeling better. to speak at town council meetings and general Somewhere in there, I came across a picplan workshops. They organize Saturday Pete Aleshire ture of the dancing trees — and felt all better cleanup days on the East Verde River. They Roundup editor entirely. write kind letters pointing out my mistakes.

Hard to stay discouraged, living in Rim Country.

They cheerfully conduct the community food drive, so no Now, I know we have our issues. one goes hungry in this place we love. They work on the Lord knows, we explore the both hard-won progress trails, stand happily in the rain, toil all day on search and and still-daunting challenges that face our beloved com- rescue missions, organize grief support groups, turn out munity in this issue: That includes the lackluster econo- for business awards ceremonies, take pottery classes my, still struggling housing market, university plans and just for fun at Gila Community College, drive the vans for wildfire threat. school field trips — and subscribe to my beloved newspaBut then I remember the good-natured cheer of the per. dancing trees — and suddenly I feel snugly swaddled in So, yeah: I chipped a molar grinding my teeth waiting handstitched blessings. for the university to come.

You remember the And granted, I can’t wait dancing trees — part of for businesses to make so Payson’s smash-hit entry much money that they douin the Fiesta Bowl Parade. ble their ad budgets. And Arizona Public Service no doubt about it, I’m offered to pay the town’s frightened by the thought entrance fee, so Payson that we’re letting our kids Tourism Director Camdown. eron Davis rounded up all But then, they’ve started the usual, communityconstruction on the Blue minded suspects. Before Ridge pipeline and some you could say “ponderosa pine,” we had volunteer quil- day, some way, some how, we’re going to have a universiters spending thousands of hours making tree costumes ty right here in Payson. for an amiable assortment of float accessories.

And in the meantime: Meanwhile, contractors, retirees, store owners and all Crime’s down. manner of friendly folks pitched in to build the float — Housing sales are up. take it down — tow it to Tempe — put it back together — The community garden’s growing. take it down — bring it home — put it back together.

Maybe my life’s still a mess — but I live in the best Somehow, Cameron drafted just about the whole place in the world. reporting staff to serve as cavorting trees, so I ended up Besides: They’re going to start stocking trout this walking backward for a couple of miles taking the pho- week. tos.

Now, that’s progress.

PAYSON ROUNDUP BUSINESS PROGRESS 2013

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Business building Markets mending, pipeline under way BY

ALEXIS BECHMAN

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

After a long struggle to recover from the real estate crash, Rim Country has turned a corner with new stores, stabilization of the real estate market, rising tax revenues — and progress in establishing a four-year university campus with its spinoff businesses.

The area relies heavily on tourism, with a large population of retirees and second-home owners.

Payson has about 400 hotel rooms, but sits at the intersection of three national forests that draw millions of visitors annually. Some of the most popular trout fishing streams lie within 15 minutes of Payson, with a host of campsites and hundreds of miles of hiking trails.

Home construction played a leading role in the economy before the downturn. At its peak, Payson was adding 300 homes a year to its housing stock.

The town has made major strides toward diversifying its economy, with several light industrial businesses opening up in the past two years and plans to build a 6,000-student university, a 500-room conference hotel and solar panel assembly plant, among others.

On the employment front, while Gila County has lagged behind Maricopa County, the county’s unemployment rate in early 2013 remained well behind most other rural counties in the state, with a steady decline in the past year.

Most of the county’s job woes remain concentrated in the south, where the mining industry has struggled. Although at the start of the year construction remained minimal in Northern Gila County, the unemployment rate in Rim Country remained a percent or more below the overall 8.8 percent rate in January of 2013.

While Maricopa County sets the pace for the state with a 6.4 percent unemployment rate, Gila

County falls somewhere in the middle of the pack compared with other rural counties throughout the state.

Among those other rural counties, Graham County had 8.4 percent unemployment, tiny Greenlee County had an enviable 5.4 percent, Yavapai 7.9 percent and Yuma a still-awful 27.5 percent.

The impact of the recession on the tourist and construction-oriented economy of Rim Country has resulted in an intense focus on diversifying the economy in Payson, which is the largest town in Gila County — almost twice the size of county seat Globe.

At a meeting to discuss a revamp of the town’s general plan, almost 150 people agreed the town should intently focus on reviving — and then diversifying — the economy of a town that once relied on new construction and tourism. By contrast, a decade ago the general plan focused on managing rapid growth without outstripping the water supply.

Today, concerns about water and rapid growth have been replaced by an almost single-minded focus on jobs and the economy.

Revenue wise, the Town of Payson saw a modest increase across the board in 2012, with nearly every source making gains from the depths of the recession. Everything from local sales tax, state-shared income, vehicle license tax and building permit revenue rose — even the town’s share of gas tax money from the state for building and maintaining roads jumped.

On the business front, a surge in building is giving many business owners and residents hope things have started to turn.

New businesses include Big Lots, PetSmart, Little Caesars, Big 5 Sporting Goods, the Journigan House restaurant on Main Street, THAT Brewery in Pine, Mountain Top Brewery, Lady D’s Wine, Chocolate and Art Bar, Pine Smokehouse and Sweet Nostalgia.

The most far-reaching development of 2012 came when the bulldozers finally went to work on Payson’s Blue Ridge pipeline, which will finally solve the region’s once-crippling water woes. The pipeline by 2014 or 2015 will double Payson’s water supply, making it one of the only communities in the state with enough water for all its future plans.

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PAYSON ROUNDUP HOUSING, BUSINESS PROGRESS 2013

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Housing market shows first signs of recovery their neighbor lives in an older style home and they are looking at buying a new construction home. But like the rest of the state, neighborhoods in Payson vary dramatically from one block to the next with a mobile home often sitting next to a top-of-the-hill fine home.

Potts said many new residents worry if these older areas are crime ridden and if they will bring their property values down.

On the first concern, Potts said while they may live in modest housing, “these are really good people that live in these neighborhoods and they aren’t crimeridden ghettos.”

The town developed from the center out, therefore, at the junction of Highways 87 and 260 there are more modest homes. Retirement and second homes surround that with new development usually up on the hills.

For the second concern, Potts said they could demonstrate that home values have gone up regardless of what was surrounding it.

Sales active, above national average as prices rise — especially for homes priced below $200,000 BY

ALEXIS BECHMAN

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

After being thrown from the bucking bronco of a recession for several years, the Rim Country real estate market finally found traction in 2012.

While the local economy is nowhere near achieving a perfect score, economic and real estate experts are optimistic, especially after a noticeable boost in second-home sales in Pine-Strawberry.

And if the Rim Country market continues its trend of trailing the Phoenix real estate market by a year, which has seen a noteworthy uptick in sales, 2013 should bring more good news.

Ray Pugel, a designated broker with Coldwell Banker Bishop Realty, said 2012 year-end statistics from the Central Arizona Board of Realtors indicate the market may have bottomed out and he is hopeful things are turning around.

Cliff Potts, designated broker with Prudential Arizona Realty, agreed, saying the area is rebounding.

“The market was very active last year,” he said. “We actually feel like we have turned the corner. Prices have stabilized and in fact, I think they have gone up a bit. We are hoping we get back to some reasonable appreciation in the near future.”

And even with economic downturn, Payson home values remain above the national average, the average home sell-

Photos by Andy Towle/Roundup

Construction on a low income senior housing project was just one of the signs in 2012 that the housing market in Rim Country was showing signs of recovery. ing for $169,400, a 2.8 percent increase over the previous year.

The one area that still concerns many experts is the commercial front. While a number of big box retailers recently moved in, smaller storefronts remain empty.

Potts expects a much slower turnaround in the commercial area compared with residential.

“It (commercial sales) took such a hit that it has quite a ways to recover,” he said. “There is a little hope on the horizon, but I think that will be a little longer recovery.”

Data from the Central Arizona Board of Realtors shows that home prices in 2012 were about the same as the year before, indicating the market is stabiliz-

ing.

Roughly 420 homes sold in both 2012 and 2011, the average selling price $188,000. Average days on the market for a home sale went from 182 in 2011 to 196 days in 2012.

The Pine-Strawberry area north of Payson showed a considerable improvement. The number of home sales increased by almost 19 percent from 2011 and the average selling price increased 17 percent to $182,500 in 2012 even though homes sat on the market slightly longer.

Real estate agents say anything that is priced appropriately is selling the best.

“People are still searching for bargains,” Potts said.

That means homes priced under $100,000 are selling quickly with homes up to $200,000 selling the second fastest, often between 30-45 days.

Homes priced up to $300,000 take 60 to 90 days to sell and those over $300,000 are sitting stagnant the longest.

Potts said there is a tremendous amount of competition for the higher end homes.

Rental homes remain in demand, with many new residents opting to rent until they solidify their employment situation and find the right home.

The bread-and-butter of the residential real estate community remains the retiree, Potts said.

Many are concerned when they see

Land sales

Land sales in Payson-Star Valley remained flat in 2012; however, there was a significant uptick in price. The average selling price in 2012 was 54 percent higher than 2011, at $74,080.

Average days on the market in 2012 increased to 313 vs. 272 in 2011.

Pine-Strawberry again showed improvement with nine more land transactions in 2012. However, the average sales price remained flat and land took much longer to sell.

The Payson-Star Valley area has roughly 300 homes on the market. At the same time last year, there were 250 homes for sale. The market in P-S shrunk from 88 homes for sale at the end of 2011 to 67 in 2012.

Pugel said experts predict home prices will continue to increase in Arizona this year and interest rates remain at all time lows.

Businesses honored for service to the community Small-business owners, Home Depot, Messinger Funeral Home, recognized BY

ALEXIS BECHMAN

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

The 2012 Rim Country Business Awards started with a somber reminder — a two-minute video slide show of people waiting in line for food, out of work and boarded up businesses. Halfway through, though, the video took a turn, the music lightened, images changing to those of happy faces and inspirational quotes of persistence and hope.

The message, although hokie, was clear: through tough times, there is hope on the other side.

The businesses honored showed that through hard work and service, you can survive one of the worst economic times in recent history and come out the other side stronger, organizers said.

Those honored as this year’s best included Messinger Payson Funeral Home, Home Depot and several local business leaders.

Messinger Payson Funeral Home took home the title of Small Business of the Year. Messinger, a family-owned business out of Scottsdale, opened a new funeral home and meeting space off Main Street in June 2011.

Also nominated in the small business category were Mattress Experts and Payson Farmers Market.

Mattress Experts, which opened in 2010, is one of the few TempurPedic dealers nationwide recognized by the company in sales. The store is co-owned by Kristine McCormack and Cindy Gregory.

Gregory also took home the honor of Jim Young Businessperson of the Year at the event.

Gregory not only runs a successful business, she works tirelessly in the community. She helped with the Payson Community Kids coat drive the last two years, sponsored the restoration of town benches on Main Street and is an ambassador for the Rim Country Regional

Chamber of Commerce.

Another award winner was Stephanie Creasy, general manager of the Best Western Payson Inn, with the Pat Willis Award for Business Excellence.

Creasy, who has a degree in hotel and restaurant management, joined the staff at Best Western Payson Inn in 2003, where her mother worked as the general manager.

Another big award winner was Buzz Walker, who was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The award honors someone who has worked to improve the community for at least 20 years.

Walker has played a hand in nearly every major development in Payson since the 1970s.

The last business award went to The Home Depot, which was honored as the Large Business of the Year.

Store manager David P. Kane said he was proud of his team and proud to work with them. He said the company had always valued giving back and the Payson Home Depot team has consistently done just that.

Chapman Auto Center and Hospice Compassus were finalists in the large business category.

Rim Country ventures opening after long retail drought BY

ALEXIS BECHMAN

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

The business scene in Payson is starting to fill out after the recession brought the closing of several shops.

While the main highway frontage is taking shape, Main Street has yet to rebound. Most of the retail shops that were there have either closed or relocated to the Beeline Highway.

Still, the list of new businesses in town is up. Some of the new ventures include two breweries, one in Payson and another in Pine and a wine bar in the Swiss Village. Most noticeably, the Rim Country Mall is nearly full now that PetSmart, Big Lots and Little Caesars Pizza opened.

These businesses help flush out Rim Country’s mix of amenities, which now include everything from specialty grocers to the quaint antique and quilt shops the area is known for.

Some of the businesses happenings of 2012 include: • Payson Pizza Factory celebrates

“We believe being in business 25 years has a lot to do with the quality of our product, giving back to the community, and showing our customers that they are appreciated,” said owners Rodney and Gail Dahlman.

• Kutz Etcetera Salon reopens

After closing the Pine location four years ago, Kutz Etcetera beauty salon reopened in Payson in the Sawmill Crossing, near Macky’s.

• Alliant Gas buys Semstream

After its parent company went bankrupt, Alliant Gas took over Semstream. Bill Webb, with JP Energy Partners, the parent company of Pinnacle Propane, which is the parent company of Alliant Gas, said the group is “very excited” to serve the community and build a working relationship with the town. “We are very confident in what we try to bring to the

table for our community and our employees as part of Alliant Gas,” he said.

• Tymeless Antiques Expands

With an overflow of treasures, Tymeless Antiques & Treasures opened a new shop in Pine in front of the Pineberry Mini Storage, at 4140 N. Highway 87. The annex is an overflow of merchandise from estate sales and consignments that just don’t fit in Tymeless Antiques.

• Coffee House In Mazatzal Casino

Mazatzal Casino’s Coffee Korner is now open and serving Peet’s Coffee and Tea just inside the south entrance of Mazatzal Hotel and Casino. Coffee Korner also features baked goods made in-house by bakery staff. The café has two big screen TVs and free Wi-Fi. • Massage therapist takes over

When the Arizona School of Massage Therapy in Tempe certified Ricci Saliba in massage therapy last year, she never expected she would own her own practice so soon.

In June, Saliba took over Hands of Holistic Healing, located behind the Knotty Pine Café, 1001 S. Beeline Highway, suite H, after the former owner relocated to New Orleans.

• Journigan House opens

After sitting empty for years, the former Main Street Grille reopend as the Journigan House Labor Day weekend.

New owners injected life and style into the historic building and brought some Creole flare to the food.

• Sweet Nostalgia opens

Another outlet for local artists to display and sell their wares opened.

Sweet Nostalgia, a small shop tucked neatly into the Twin Pines Shopping Center, is near Vita-Mart. The store has a mix of unique antique finds, thrift shop deals, and gallery-quality local creations.

• Pine Smokehouse opens

The Rim Country has never been known for great barbecue. We have a popular Thai restaurant and a few good Mexican and Italian establishments, but taste buds were bereft of smoked meats.

The restaurant fronts the highway in Pine at 3885 N. Highway 87, telephone (928) 476-6577.

• Payson Florist changes hands

After seven years, Merlin and Marilyn Dedman sold Payson Florist, at 800 N. Beeline Highway, and retired to Idaho, leaving the shop in the hands of Rita Jorgenson.

• Juice bar opens in Back to Basics

For nearly two decades, the family owned and run Back to Basics health food store has been Payson’s healthy alternative to the big box grocery stores. Now Michael Cole, the founder’s grandson, has added a new service.

• Mountain Top and THAT Breweries

THAT Brewery in Pine, Mountain Top Brewery and Lady D’s Wine Bar, Chocolate and Gifts in Payson were some of the latest specialty beverage shops in Rim Country. The beers at THAT Brewery, 3270 N. Highway 87, and Mountain Top Brewery, 401 N. Tyler Parkway, are dreamed up and concocted on site.

• Lady D’s

For wine drinkers, there is Lady D’s, at 714 N. Beeline Highway, an intimate wine bar in the heart of the Swiss Village Shops. Debora Sable said she always wanted a space to combine her love of fine art, wine and truffles. “I wanted to bring something sophisticated and fun to Payson — something warm and welcoming,” she said.

Longtime Rim Country entertainers like John Carpino found new venues this year with the opening of Lady D’s the Journigan House, THAT Brewery and others.

PAYSON ROUNDUP STAR VALLEY, PINE, STRAWBERRY PROGRESS 2013

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Star Valley invests in infrastructure The Town of Star Valley, which has been in the forefront of fiscal responsibility, has met and exceeded the goals set by the council and staff.

These include: • The purchase and set up of the town’s water company and improvement of its infrastructure.

• Continuing improvements to new and existing town roads, and investment in programs designed to enhance the quality of life Bill Rappaport for its citizens.

We have continued to be Mayor of Star Valley a leader in the reduction of speeding and fatal accidents in the state due to the use of photo enforcement; thus making Star Valley a much safer place to live and get around.

We are also committed to continuing the exceptional service from the Gila County Sheriff’s Office and the Hellsgate Fire Department, a partnership on which the town greatly depends.

Star Valley’s future is a bright one; we have been able to maintain our independent nature without having to compromise our quality of life.

Granted, we will never agree on everything, but I believe in the end, our elected town officials will always do what is right for the majority of Star Valley residents.

SV town manager touts year of progress Now in its seventh year of incorporation, Star Valley looks at the progress accomplished in the past year with great pride.

While each year Star Valley makes strides to provide services for its citizens, perhaps this year, the Star Valley Town Council can brag most about the goals that were accomplished and projects completed.

After years of seeking solutions to water issues, the town purchased the water system from Brooke Utilities.

For years, the town was concerned that the aging water system needed preventive maintenance and repairs.

Tim Grier Years of sound fiscal management by the council paid Star Valley manager off and the town was able to not only purchase the water company, but also make the needed repairs to ensure a more reliable water system in the first year of ownership.

The purchase of the water company and repairs wasn’t cheap and cost nearly a million dollars. Star Valley not only improved the reliability of the system by replacing every pump in the system, it has also improved customer service and employed a full-time water operator. Before Star Valley purchased the water system, cus-

tomers would have to contact customer service in Costa Rica and there was no water operator on site. Robert Rippy, the town’s water operator, brings years of experience and is dedicated to the operation of a state-of-the-art water system. Now, water customers can contact town personnel with any water issue Monday through Friday.

The transition from private water company to a town-owned utility has opened the doors to grants to improve the water system. The town was able to secure more than $220,000 in CDBG funds (a Community Development Block Grant) to completely revamp the Milky Way Well Site and develop a water master plan. The use of grant money allows the town to make the needed improvements to the water system and keep water rates down.

The town was also able to donate $30,000 to the Senior Meals on Wheels and Ridership Program. This program in some cases provides the only meal some seniors get in a day. Without the Star Valley council’s financial support, the programs would not be able to continue to serve our seniors. This is the second year Star Valley has been able to support the program and has now been able to receive the next round of CDBG money to continue to support the programs for the next two years.

The accomplishments don’t conclude with just the purchase and operation of the water system

and senior programs. Since incorporation, Star Valley has been able to pave more than 90 percent of its road inventory. The streets and roads need continued maintenance and Star Valley works hard to preserve its street system. The council will soon review a proposed master plan to continue to ensure a safe system of streets and roads.

Another point of progress — the disability accessibility remodel at Town Hall was completed.

The council works hard for its citizens and the diligent hard work has paid off. Yet the work is not done and the council continues to look for new ways to serve its citizens.

Pine, Strawberry celebrate a year of — well — fun stuff BY

MAX FOSTER

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

Enthusiastic townspeople, including the Pine/Strawberry Historical Society, the Isabelle Hunt Memorial Library, the Pine Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and a bevy of pioneers, on July 9 hosted a hometown centennial celebration in honor of Arizona’s 100th birthday that turned into the highlight of the year in the two tiny mountain hamlets.

The day began with a parade on Randall Drive that many called the finest in history.

Pine Boy Scout Troop 562 proudly led the parade carrying Arizona, United States, Boy Scout and Cub Scout flags.

What followed was a feast for paradelovers’ eyes, including a float for the Pine library, Pine-Strawberry Fire Department trucks, a myriad of ATVs, quads and sideby-sides piloted by members of the Rim Country Trails Association, historic farm tractors, a handful of horseback riders, business floats, antique cars driven by town pioneers and a group of about 60 clowns whose antics left a gaggle of onlookers giggling.

Parade official Junetta Clifford said the clowns were a last-minute entry.

Following the parade, the crowd roamed around town readying themselves for an afternoon deep-pit barbecue cooked by Albert Hunt, the town’s renowned cowboy cook.

During the afternoon under the town ramada, the historical society hosted a variety of games that drew children of all ages.

Meanwhile in the cultural hall, programs on the history of the two towns and state drew crowds.

The day of celebration and joy wrapped up with a western-themed dance. The local band Junction 87 provided lively toe-tapping, country-style music that drew young and old to the dance floor to enjoy barn dances, two-stepping, line dances and West Coast swings.

At the end of the day, volunteers from around the two communities gathered to clean up and rehash the day’s events.

Most agreed, the celebration was an overwhelming success.

McNeeley Poker Run on Sept. 28

A record 160 quads of all brands, makes, sizes and configurations turned out for one of Pine and Strawberry’s most popular charity events of the year — the Justice McNeeley Foundation Poker Run. Contested on old logging trails and paths around Pine, the event drew many firsttimers.

“We had a lot of new faces, which was awesome,” said Justice McNeeley Foundation spokesperson Katie Parks. “We had a wonderful turnout.”

Most importantly, the ride raised more than $11,000, which will be used to help pay medical expenses of needy children.

At the conclusion of the run, in which riders were dealt playing cards at five different stops, Eli McDade took honors for having the best hand and Craig Ramsey was left holding the worst hand.

Jim Jones and Forrest Miller won the horseshoe tournament that drew a field of six teams.

In the Texas Hold ’em tournament, Ronnie Villa was first and Donna Merkley second.

Dan Kohl won a fishing boat in the raffle.

Bike race

The Second Annual Fire on the Rim Mountain Bike Race, began Sept. 14 and continued for the next two days, attracting throngs of cyclists and their families to Pine and Strawberry.

The event included vendors, races, music, a spaghetti dinner and a beer garden sponsored by New Belgium Brewing.

All proceeds from the race benefited the Pine-Strawberry Fuels Reduction committee, which works to clear and maintain firebreak lines around the community.

Last year, the event attracted 88 riders This year, at least 120 riders entered.

Entrants could choose from three race lengths — 15, 30 and 45 miles.

Strawberries galore

In June, the tiny town of Strawberry celebrated its namesake festival by putting out the red carpet to welcome visitors from around the state Sponsored by the Rim Country Regional Chamber of Commerce, vendors, restaurants and residents hosted a myriad of booths and displays that touted the benefits and tastiness of the fruit.

Visitors could sip a Strawberry sparkle, feast on strawberry pie or down chocolatedipped strawberries.

New to the traditional festival was the Fossil Creek llamas and Strawberry Yama Llama 4-H Club sponsored a Llama Fun Run. Guests were invited to partner up with a llama and try to beat the clock.

The same day in Pine, the historical society and the Strawberry Patchers held their annual Quilt Show. In it, the Patchers showed off old and new quilts sewn by hand with delicate precision.

Also, the “Lacey Ladies” a group of women dedicated to keeping the art of hand lace making alive and well, made a guest appearance.

Pine and Strawberry hosted their usual round of festivals and special events. The community also continued work on a fire buffer zone. The water district suffered some outages and controversy, but continued to expand the water supply.

PAYSON ROUNDUP RIM COUNTRY PROGRESS 2013

6

A few of our favorite photos of 2012 Photos by Andy Towle — except this one by Pete Aleshire Pilot in trouble lands on the highway — but at least he observed the stop sign

Our favorite bald eagle hangs out all summer in Green Valley Park.

Perfect form and scary determination in the Rumsey Park pool.

Sisters reunited after a lifetime

A study in grace and determination during Payson High School soccer game in Rumsey Park.

WELCOME to the RIM COUNTRY

REPUBLICAN CLUB

We welcome new club members. Our club meets the last Monday of each month at 11:30 at Tiny’s Restaurant Call 928-951-0325 for questions or more information and to join the CLUB Ronald Reagan said it best “In America, our origins matter less than our destinations.

And that is what democracy is all about.”

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PAYSON ROUNDUP PARKS AND RECREATION PROGRESS 2013

BY

7

Activities Galore

CAMERON DAVIS

PAYSON TOURISM AND RECREATION DIRECTOR

1. More than 500,000 people visited the Town of Payson’s tourism Web site in 2012. It is a source for almost all information about Payson. It is found in over 3,400 search key word terms on Google and Yahoo. If you Google search Arizona 4th of July, Payson is No. 2 on the list. If you Google search Arizona Rodeos, Payson is No. 3 on the list.

2. In April we launched a five-minute video that was produced by Terry Bradshaw and was shown in 19 different major metro markets across the United States.

3. In December of 2012, Payson was widely promoted across the state of Arizona due to its float that was showcased in the Fiesta Bowl Parade. Payson walked away with the Parade Grand Prize for best float. The town took advantage of an estimated $1 million worth of free advertising.

4. The Mountain High Games attracted a record 450 contestants in 2012.

5. The Town Parks and Recreation Department put on or was involved in more than 103 events this year.

6. Successfully helped ASU football return to Rim Country for Camp Tontozona and have plans for further development on this renewed relationship for years to come.

7. In 2013, the town is producing the Mogollon Monster Mudder 5K as part of the Mountain High Games. Attendance is estimated to be over 500 runners.

8. In August 2013 the town will play host to a soccer tournament that will attract more than 40 teams to the community for three days. This tournament is a joint venture with the retreat at Camp Tontozona.

9. The Parks and Recreation Department has developed its own softball tournament called the Payson Summer Madness Girls Softball Tournament.

Last year we had 14 teams and it is estimated it will grow to 20 this year.

10. In April 2013, the Town of Payson in partnership with Gila Community College is bringing the Harlem Ambassadors Basketball show to town.

11. In 2013 the Old Time Fiddle Contest will continue to grow with a new addition to the event. On Sept.

27-29, 2013 we will have a “Fiddle-in the Band” competition. It is expected we will have more than 10 bands participate in this exciting new event.

12. Payson will also play host to a senior softball tournament scheduled for the summer of 2013. It is estimated to attract 20 teams. The goal will be to have this tournament during the week.

These are just a few of the many things …

Thanks for all you do.

Lots to do: Hundreds of kids played in Payson’s Little League and soccer teams (left and above) and the town gained national publicity with its dancing trees in the Fiesta Bowl Parade (bottom left). Meanwhile, the World’s Oldest Continuous Rodeo and other rodeo events like the statewide high school rodeo competition kept on keeping on (below).

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PAYSON ROUNDUP IN THE HEADLINES PROGRESS 2013

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Big news for Payson The year brought a slew of headlines as Payson leaders worked doggedly to conclude a deal to build a university campus here, survive state budget cuts and bolster local businesses. Despite all the challenges, the town balanced its budget, received some national publicity and made progress.

Rim Country headlines this year included a new roof for a high school gym and start of construction for the Blue Ridge Pipeline

March 26: Signs of the times

Business owners’ gripes about limits on temporary signs and banners, prompted the town council to again revise its longstanding effort to loosen up the town’s sign ordinance. The business owners complained that the limits on materials, colors and the time they can leave out banners and signs hurts their business.

Jan. 18: FS land sale

The comment period on an environmental assessment of plans to sell 260 acres of federal land to the Rim Country Educational Alliance closed without incident, but the discovery of a handful of pottery shards prompted renewed negotiations on how the Alliance will protect any artifacts it finds on the Forest Service land.

Jan. 11: Proud as punch

Payson snatched a moment of calm before the storm on Thursday to celebrate its award-winning Fiesta Bowl Parade float — and to honor the hundreds of volunteers and businesses that made it possible. The float won the two top awards in the parade, thanks to a conga line of dancing trees and a townwide effort.

Dec. 28: Backers hit goal

Backers of the plan to build a university in Payson raised more than $150,000 to cover pre-development costs entailed in buying 260 acres for the campus from the U.S. Forest Service. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the community support to date,” commented fund-raising committee co-chairperson Janet Vidnovic.

Dec. 18: Water plan unveiled

Here’s the latest benefit of the Blue Ridge pipeline: Two streams running through the middle of town. Payson hopes that it can recharge its fallen water table with water from the pipeline — and as a side benefit, create a stream running down the American Gulch through the center of town to get the water into underground storage in a way that will also lure tourists.

Nov. 20: Wither goest Payson?

What sort of town do you want to live in? That’s the question at the heart of the town’s once-adecade overhaul of its general plan land-use blueprint. The year-long process run by a consulting team will cost Payson about $200,000, but will update the land-use restrictions with an eye toward the town’s eventual growth to a refuge for about 40,000 residents.

Nov. 13: Honoring service

It’s those darn kids. The cuteas-kittens kindergartners from Payson Elementary School sat fidgeting all the way through the hour-long round of tributes to Rim Country veterans. Once again, hundreds of people turned out for Payson’s moving tribute to veterans at the Payson High School Auditorium.

Oct. 10: McLane protests

People drive so fast on McLane that it has ruined the quality of life and poses a daily danger to people who live on the street, David Kibiloski told the Payson Town Council last week.

Residents of the street lobbied the town persistently for months, seeking measures to slow traffic on McLane. The town so far has responded by posting police cars with radar guns when school starts and ends, turning the succession of curves and driveways into a speed trap.

Oct. 10: Rise in density

Developers can build smaller, cheaper condos and apartments.

If developers ever do return to Payson, they will find they can build much smaller, hopefully cheaper, apartments and condos

in town.

Sept. 28: Gila County contributes

Gila County gave the Rim Country Educational Alliance $12,500 to help pay for studies necessary to convince the U.S. Forest Service to sell 260 acres for a university campus. Backers of the campus ultimately raised $150,000 for the environmental assessment.

Aug. 7: Police costs rise

An irritated Payson Town Council reluctantly approved an emergency ordinance to comply with a new state law that will increase payments for any workmen’s compensation claims filed by police officers.

July 26: Contracts awarded

In a historic milestone, Payson last week awarded three contracts totaling $1.1 million to fulfill decades of effort by starting construction on the Blue Ridge pipeline. The contracts came in a stunning $900,000 below estimates, perhaps a reflection of the still struggling economy.

July 3: ASU, Alliance agree

Arizona State University and the Rim Country Educational Alliance (SLE) have agreed in principle to complete their plans to build a university here, but will continue to iron out details for “several weeks,” according to a source close to the negotiations.

In addition, supporters of the plan to build a 6,000-student university in Payson have raised enough money that the Forest Service has resumed work on the environmental assessment necessary to buy some 260 acres.

June 27: Payson selling water

Worried about paying the bill for the Blue Ridge pipeline without big water rate increases, the Payson council last week approved a deal worth as much as $100,000 to sell two private golf courses perhaps 50 acre-feet of water.

June 8: Pipeline hits budget

The Payson Town Council on Tuesday adopted a budget that avoids threatened layoffs and boosts town spending significantly — mostly as a result of the start of construction of the $34 million Blue Ridge pipeline. Town spending will most likely increase to about $14 million, a hefty a 60 percent jump from this year’s projected year-end total of $8.7 million. However, a $4 million increase in spending on the pipeline accounts for the vast majority of the projected increase.

May 25: Budget brightens

Town officials cancel layoffs as estimates of revenue rise by $600,000. Payson officials ransacked their budget projections for spare change and windfalls and came up with an estimated $600,000 in added revenue — enough to avert threatened layoffs and probably even restore full funding to the Rim Country Regional Chamber of Commerce.

May 2: Historic thinning contract

The U.S. Forest Service last

loop. Still smarting from two painfully public employee appeals, the town council last week decided to let fired and demoted employees appeal to professional personnel hearing officers in the future — instead of the town council.

week awarded the largest contract in history to a private timber company to turn 300,000 acres of small trees into wood products — a move Rim Country officials said may ultimately protect endangered Rim Country communities from wildfires.

Feb. 7: GCC seeks partnership

April 27: Land sale news

The Forest Service continues to plod through the process of selling 300 acres to the Rim Country Educational Alliance, despite uncertainties about whether the group can strike a deal with Arizona State University. Countering suggestions the land sale awaited money for environmental studies, Payson Ranger District head ranger Angie Elam said, “we’re moving through NEPA as quickly as we can. Completion is scheduled for this fall — I think in October.”

cine grant education in the final cut for federal funding.

March 8: Designer drug law

The Payson Town Council has taken the first step toward adopting a cutting edge law that attempts to bar the sale of designer drugs by focusing on whether the store selling those substances ought to know people will take them to get high. The new law represents an attempt to cope with mixes of compounds

sold as “bath salts” or “potpourri” which include things like synthetic imitations of the active ingredient in marijuana that bundlers can readily change to evade bans based on their components.

Feb. 21: Council opts out of discipline

No more politically charged, excruciatingly public firings and demotions. The Payson Town Council just took itself out of the

Gila Community College needs to do a much better job of partnering with the Rim Country Educational Alliance, the board decided recently. Board member Tom Loeffler suggested the 3,400student community college district set up a committee to work with the backers of a proposed university in Payson — presumably Arizona State University.

Jan. 13: Payson still strivin’

Could have been worse. Might even get better. That’s the gist of the Payson Town Council’s firstever quarterly financial report, offered by finance director Hope Cribb at a recent regular meeting. “We’re not thriving,” said Payson Mayor Kenny Evans after hearing the report, “but we’re striving to get to the next step.”

April 24: Inspectors for SV

Payson and Star Valley’s cozy new good neighbor policy took another step forward last week.

The Payson Town Council unanimously approved a plan to rent Star Valley a building inspector, to complete inspections of the lone house under construction.

April 24: Financial crunch

With financial disaster looming, Payson Head Ranger Angie Elam managed to hack through the Gordian knot of Forest Service bureaucracy. Payson feared it would lose millions of dollars worth of federal grant money when Blue Ridge pipeline project managers learned the U.S. Forest Service rules required detailed engineering plans for the entire $34 million pipeline and water treatment plant before issuing a construction permit.

April 24: Tontozona news

The return of Arizona State University’s football team to Camp Tontozona outside of Christopher Creek will yield huge benefits to Rim Country beyond the $250,000 per day fans, players and coaches will likely spend.

April 10: Sign debate reopened

Once more into the breech, dear friends. Last week the Payson Town Council might not have had King Henry V or Shakespeare to get them riled up: But they did vote to charge into the heart of a once-and-future controversy — its sign ordinance.

Payson’s effort to impose a restrained, resort-town standard on signs several years ago spurred repeated debates and bitter complaints by local merchants.

March 16: Voters return incumbents

Payson Mayor Kenny Evans this week received a fresh, virtually unanimous mandate from voters as work on several major initiatives reaches a critical stage. Evans received 2,835 votes as he ran unopposed for a third, two-year term and the town dealing with the frustrating negotiations with Arizona State University moving to a critical phase, construction set to start on the Blue Ridge pipeline in June and a $25 million telemedi-

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PAYSON ROUNDUP COLLEGE PROGRESS 2013

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University plans progress — slowly Just one little thing.

The consultants found some pottery shards (or maybe chips of stone) in nine locations on the 260 acres the Alliance wants to buy.

This triggered a new round of negotiations between the Forest Service and the Alliance about selling the land. State and federal laws require the federal government to protect archeological remains on public lands. Forest Service procedures would normally require a developer to come up with a plan to protect or recover the artifacts before it could sell the land. As a result, the Forest Service reportedly said that the Alliance would have to do an additional study costing about $230,000 and consuming another six to eight months before the Forest Service could agree to sell the land. The Forest Service reportedly said it needed a plan to deal with the potBY PETE ALESHIRE tery shards, even though most of the experts doubted the shards sigROUNDUP EDITOR naled the presence of a settlement or a burial site. At this writing, The plan to build a university campus in Payson has more twists the Alliance continues to negotiate with the Forest Service for some agreement that would let the land sale go forward in return for a and turns than the most convoluted of mystery novels.

So the ardent and determined backers of the plan for a 6,000-stu- promise from the Alliance to investigate the nine sites and recover dent campus found themselves starting out yet another year urging or preserve in place anything they find before grading the area. Both sides remain optimistic that they’ll conclude an agreement this year Rim Country residents to be patient — the university is coming. and that Forest Service officials in Washington will approve the This year. request for a direct sale, which the Tonto National Forest and Honest. regional offices have already approved.

Five years into the struggle, the backers of the Backers have also started drawing up a list of audacious, game-changing plan to build a 6,000other large, privately owned parcels in town that student university, a 500-room hotel, an incubation could constitute a backup plan, should the Forest Fast Facts center to turn research into startups, a solar cell Service approval process continue to lag. The assembly plant, a research park and dorms contin• Economic impact: Payson Ranger District had hoped to use the ue to stubbornly surmount one challenge after $150 million annually money from the land sale to build new facilities of another.

• Students: its own, including a ranger station and visitors’ The most recent delay stems from the effort to Up to 6,000 in phases center, quarters for firefighters, a heliport for firebuy from the Tonto National Forest a 260-acre plot • Projected opening: fighting helicopters and new storage areas. south of Highway 260 and west of Rim Club Fall of 2015 Congress took the rare step of saying that the Parkway. The Rim Country Educational Alliance • Spin-off developments: Forest Service could use money from the land sale SLE wants to use a direct purchase based on an 500-room hotel for new facilities, rather than putting the money independent appraisal to buy from the federal govResearch park from the land sale into the overall budget account. ernment what remains perhaps the biggest, undeIncubation center In the meantime, backers have vowed to comveloped patch of ground in town. The proposed Student housing plete the deal, build a university and transform campus lies just across the highway from some 90 Solar cell assembly plant Rim Country’s economic prospects. acres the Alliance has an option to buy.

• Additional benefits: The project will ultimately inject $150 million After years of frustrating negotiations with Performing arts center annually into the economy and transform the Arizona State University that reportedly had Townwide Wi-Fi amenities, demographics and housing market of a resolved all the significant outstanding issues, like Year-round job base rural town long dependent on tourism and secondthe layout of the campus, tuition levels, who owns 600 high-paying jobs home owners. the dorms, who ends up owning the campus facili• Likely partners: A deal with ASU or one of three other interestties and other key issues, backers last year could Arizona State University ed institutions could result in the start of construcnearly taste the sweet fruits of their labor.

Possible private college tion on the first, 1,000-student phase of the camAll they had to do was raise about $150,000 to • Location: pus in 2014. pay for an environmental assessment of the land 260 acres S. of Hwy. 260 The towns of Payson and Star Valley partsale, which Congress had earmarked for disposal 96 acres N. of Hwy. 260 nered to set up the Rim Country Educational more than a decade ago.

• Who’s doing it: Alliance Separate Legal Entity, which will actually The U.S. Forest Service said it couldn’t make a Rim Country Educational build the campus and own the facilities. The decision about the sale until the Alliance completAlliance SLE Alliance will then lease the facilities to the univered the expensive assessment — and ASU didn’t sity and to other related businesses, using the want to sign a deal and commit to building a camlease payments and sales tax money generated to pus until the Alliance had the land in hand.

So the backers raised the $150,000 from a cash-strapped commu- keep the cost of the university facilities as low as possible.

The plan calls for tuition 30 to 50 percent lower than the three nity in a matter a months — a small miracle in itself.

The money paid for an assessment, which revealed no serious existing public universities in the state, ensuring a ready supply of environmental problems with the sale: no endangered critters, no students.

The campus will offer key areas of study and undergraduate endangered plants, no toxic substances, no air pollution, no spotted degrees, including topics like nursing, business, rural health care, forowls.

This year backers will close the deal on a university campus to transform economy

Andy Towle/Roundup

The aerial view (at top) shows the preferred site for the 6,000-student campus south of Highway 260 fronting Rim Club Parkway.

Mayor Kenny Evans (above) explains the campus plan. est health, alternative energy, education, fire science and other topics.

Moreover, the Alliance plans to build a creative, state-of-the-art campus that will turn the whole town into a high-speed, wireless Internet site.

The Alliance has already enlisted corporate partners, like Corning, which wants to install computer screen walls and countertops that will connect the dorms, classrooms and offices to a central system. The design will let students interact with teachers all over the world in real time and access research materials and class sites from anywhere in the community.

The campus will blend into a hilly, forested 260-acre site on the boundary between Payson and Star Valley. The campus design firm — which decades ago laid out the University of California at Santa Cruz — will create a forested campus designed for walking and biking. The dorms will create a campus community, with half-disguised parking garages, shuttles and a layout that will minimize the impact of cars and leave as much natural, open space as possible. The designers will match the layout to the purpose of the campus, to create a sense of community blended into nature.

Moreover, the campus will rely on solar and geothermal power, advanced energy-efficient design and materials to make the campus itself a sustainability showcase.

Backers have labored for four years to turn a visionary dream into a high-tech reality, which required creatively surmounting many problems — all of which have delayed a final deal for more than a year past the original timeline.

The university will provide a major economic boost to the community and likely boost housing prices as soon as the deal gets signed.

The addition of 6,000 students and several thousand new workers at the university and spin-off businesses will increase the housing demand throughout the region. Moreover, the campus will bring in many new high-skill jobs.

Perhaps most important of all, the university and related businesses will boost economic activity during the normally slow winter months, making the region’s economy more diverse and more resistant to the economic shifts that can have such an impact on a tourist-based economy.

Finally, the university will bring with it a host of new amenities — like a performing arts center, playing fields, a boost for the already diverse community of artists and a flush of regional and national publicity.

No bulldozers — but Foundation moves toward campus plan Plan (otherwise known as mitigation). A required review and comment period related to the Treatment Plan involves several agencies and groups, and can extend as long as 90 days.

The Tonto National Forest recently granted Special Access Rim Country continues to make progress toward the goal of which provides our developers with the ability to be physically on bringing a university campus to Payson, even though you don’t see the site. This is excellent news, since all planning activities to date a sign in the ground or a bulldozer on the property yet. have been completed based on topography maps and aerial surOur primary obstacle continues to be securing the land on which veys. to build the campus complex. As everyone no doubt knows by now, Another significant accomplishment concerns the sale process the desired property is the current U.S. Forest Service administra- itself. Tentative agreement has been reached with the U.S. Forest tive site, west of The Rim Club and south of Highway 260. Even Service for the property to be sold in a direct sale, rather than in with excellent support from the local District Ranger and Forest an open bidding process. This approach ensures that the property Supervisor in Phoenix, the U.S. Forest Service process remains is sold for its appraised value, and expedites the sale process. entangled in the quicksand of bureaucratic red tape overLaura which BartlettOther achievements during the past few months: they have little control.

Rim Country Educational Alliance (RCEA) is the Separate Legal Some milestones during the last four months: Entity that will manage all of the decisions regarding the land The U.S. Forest Service Sales Implementation Strategy (SIS) has acquisition and contracts. Steve Drury now lends his capable leadbeen completed. An SIS outlines the plan for the sale of piece of ership to that group as its chairperson. Steve’s many years of Forest Service property, and includes a complex array of surveys, administrative experience have already benefited the RCEA in studies and other requirements. Among them is an archeological sur- moving forward strategically in discussions with various partners. vey to assess if “significant” structures or sites are found on the prop- In December, Jim Lyon joined the RCEA board as well. Jim’s extenerty. Nine such sites were found on the target property. sive background in contracting with colleges and universities These sites now must be examined in further detail. The find- around the country adds another element of experience to the ings of the examination will determine the scope of a Treatment RCEA leadership team.

BY

LAURA BARTLETT

CHAIR OF THE RIM COUNTRY FOUNDATION VOLUNTEER COMMITTEE COMMUNICATION SUBCOMMITTEE

Fund-raising efforts, to which many have contributed generously, continue. Thanks to the generosity of Rim Country residents and businesses, $160,000 has been raised thus far. These contributions have been incredibly valuable in demonstrating that Payson has “skin in the game” and supports bringing a university campus here.

The University Campus in Payson Volunteer Planning Committee — a group that has been instrumental in supporting the university project over the past few years in a variety of capacities — has also changed for 2013. Joining the group are Town Councilwoman Su Connell, Mogollon Health Alliance CEO Sanja Long and fund-raising co-chairperson Janet Vidnovic. With Judie Lyon’s capable leadership as the chairperson, this group has been instrumental in driving the SIS forward with the USFS; examining alternative energy options for the campus site; leading the fundraising efforts; and developing a Web site to communicate both within the local community and with others throughout the state and nation. The volunteer committee will be working closely with the RCEA board this year to support many of the critical next steps in the process. The Web address is www.universityinpayson.com.

Updates are posted there periodically.

Discussions continue with the various interested university partners. These discussions will accelerate once agreement has been reached with the USFS on the land acquisition.

PAYSON ROUNDUP COLLEGE PROGRESS 2013

11

Gila Community College moving toward independence LARRY STEPHENSON

PRESIDENT, GILA COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD

Gila Community College (GCC) plays a unique role in Gila County’s educational system. While there is some anticipation about the possibility of a 4-year college or university in Payson, GCC is real and operating and serving the needs of the Payson area. GCC offers an array of programs, courses and certificates that meet the needs of its diverse students.

GCC was established by the voters of Gila County as a “provisional” community college district, under the laws of the State of Arizona. As a provisional community college, GCC is required to contract with another community college for accredited programs, courses and degrees. In 2005, the decision was made to contract with Eastern Arizona College (EAC), Graham County’s community college. As a provisional district, GCC is limited in the type and amount of state funding it receives. For example, GCC does not receive a proportionate share of workforce development funds that derive from a sales tax paid by the citizens of Arizona, including the residents of Gila County. The governing board of Larry Stephenson GCC has been President, GCC Board working with the state Legislature to rectify this inequity.

Recently, the governing board of GCC established a goal of seeking its own separate accreditation, a necessary step if GCC seeks independence and recognition as just another of the several fully-recognized community college districts in the state. To accomplish this goal, ideally GCC will have to work closely with EAC to develop and transfer functions and services necessary for accreditation.

In the past there have been obvious tensions in the governing board. Over the past year, attempts have been made to affect a better working relationship between board members. These efforts have begun to pay off. For example, the board has begun to re-establish policies, beginning with several financial policies. And, the board is now provided regular financial information regarding the budgets for the Payson Campus and the Gila Pueblo Campus (in Globe).

While there is some concern for declining enrollment at GCC, we continue to serve a vital educational and workforce development role in the

Photos by Andy Towle/Roundup

Gila Community College Payson Campus Dean Pam Butterfield celebrates with nursing student Tanya Kay Vernelli at the last graduation, where the college awarded the most degrees ever.

Payson area. We are proud that out of our 974 total students, we have 234 students who are carrying a full load of academic credits, a number which has been fairly stable for a few semesters. This year we expect approximately 28 students to graduate with associate degrees.

Last year on the Payson Campus of GCC we had eight students who qualified to take the state certification as Basic Emergency Medical Technicians, 46 students who qualified to take the state exam for Certified Nursing Assistant, three students who earned a Certificate of Proficiency as a Medical Assistant, 21 students who qualified to become structural firefighters, and 25 students who qualified to become wildland firefighters.

This past year, Payson Regional Medical Center hired 10 of the 20 graduates from our registered nursing program. The success of these students demonstrates the important role that GCC plays in workforce development for the Payson economy.

GCC could not have educated and trained such successful students without the help of our outstanding adjunct faculty. In Payson, we are fortunate to have a wealth of talent to draw upon in the form of highly educated and trained people willing to teach part-time for GCC. These faculty members are integral to the success of GCC, and they teach for us not for the money but rather for the joy of sharing their expertise with our students. We cannot thank them enough.

As one walks around the Payson Campus of GCC, you notice how clean and well-maintained the campus is. For this, we have to thank Richard Levesque, our maintenance technician. Richard is a tireless worker, who is responsible for both the appearance of the campus as well as proper functioning of the heating, cooling, plumbing and electrical systems. He is always thinking of ways to improve the look of the campus and the functioning of our facilities.

GCC is truly a “community” college and we appreciate the support of the Payson community in helping us achieve our mission. For example, we

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SERVING RIM COUNTRY SINCE

1985

could not continue to offer our nursing program without both the financial and logistical support offered by Payson Regional Medical Center.

This past year, “Friends of Rim Country GCC,” a 401(c)3 non-profit foundation was formed. The primary goal of the foundation is to provide scholarships for GCC Payson Campus students. The Friends are sponsoring their first major fund-raiser on April 30, when the Harlem Ambassadors will appear at the Wilson Dome to play their unique style of basketball against local teams. Tickets are available for $5 from either GCC or the Rim Country Regional Chamber of Commerce. Friends of Rim Country GCC plans to award their first scholarships for the fall 2013 semester.

All of us associated with Gila Community College would like to say “Thank You” to the voters and taxpayers of Gila County. Just over 10 years ago in 2002 they decided to embark on a path for their own community college, a difficult path but one being followed nevertheless. Ideally, this path leads to an autonomous and accredited Gila Community College.

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PAYSON ROUNDUP WATER PROGRESS 2013

12

Finally!

At long last, construction starts on Blue Ridge pipeline BY

PETE ALESHIRE

ROUNDUP EDITOR

The past year brought huge gains in making Payson one of the only communities in Arizona with plenty of water to meet all its future needs.

Two decades of effort came to fruition with approval of plans to build the Blue Ridge pipeline and start of construction — in town and at the base of the Mogollon Rim. The pipeline in 2014 or 2015 will deliver some 3,000 acre-feet annually to Payson, more than doubling its long-term water supply. That will give Payson enough water to triple its population — while maintaining a cushion for drought years.

The water rights to 3,000 acre-feet annually from the C.C. Cragin Reservoir underlay the town’s effort to build a university campus here as well as bring in more year-round employers. Despite projections of drought and water shortages statewide, water from the 14,000 acre-foot reservoir give the town all the water it needs. The start of the pipeline construction this year completed Payson’s transformation from water shortage — to a surprising scramble to put a gush of new water to good use.

Thank the Blue Ridge pipeline and a partnership with the Salt River Project — coupled with a diligent, 20-year effort to secure the region’s water future. Few towns its size could have persisted so long and handled such a complex project, but the rewards look tremendous.

Currently, Payson uses about 1,800 acre-feet of water annually — a little less than rain and snow deposit in the town’s groundwater bank account in an average year. The Blue Ridge pipeline when completed in 2015 will deliver 3,000 acre-feet annually — more than enough water to supply the town’s projected build-out population of 38,000. In addition,

Project makes Payson one of the only towns in Arizona with enough water for growth many water-stressed, unincorporated communities along the way can also buy into the pipeline.

Moreover, the rush of new water will allow the town to keep three golf courses in the area lushly watered — since much of that water ends up back in the water table. The town also wants to turn the normally dry American Gulch into a stream running through the middle of town, another project designed to return the depleted water table to historic levels. Payson also approved construction of an extra water line to divert pipeline water before it goes through the treatment plant so that it can help finance the Blue Ridge project by selling excess, untreated water to the golf courses and the proposed university, which will need to water playing fields.

By contrast, towns and cities throughout the rest of Arizona face an uncertain water future. Many climate projections suggest the region faces longer, more severe periods of drought in coming decades.

Payson’s ample water supply should then give it another key advantage over its economic competitors.

The water will flow from the Blue Ridge Reservoir — also called the C.C. Cragin Reservoir — high atop the Mogollon Rim. An international mining company built the reservoir to store water it could trade with SRP, which eventually acquired ownership of the dam and rights to the 14,000 acre-feet of water in the lake. Payson lobbied tenaciously for a federal law that gave it rights to the water as well. It finally succeeded in winning water rights, but that meant it

had to help overhaul and maintain SRP’s 15-milelong pipeline from the reservoir to the headwaters of the East Verde River and build its own $32 million, 15-mile-long pipeline.

Payson imposed a $7,500 per-house water impact fee to raise money to finance the pipeline project and qualified for federal grants and long-term, lowinterest-rate loans.

Unfortunately, the long building downturn dried up the flow of impact fees into the town’s pipeline construction fund.

Before the building downturn, Payson was adding 300 homes a year to its housing stock — and the water table was falling rapidly. Without the Blue Ridge water locked up, Payson imposed its impact fee and a 250-unit cap on new construction. The town also developed water conservation standards that produced among the lowest per-person water use rates in the state. But with the Blue Ridge water assured, the town eliminated the growth restrictions and started making ambitious plans.

Since the downturn took hold, the town has approved more like 30-50 new homes annually. The sharp decline in the flow of impact fees prompted the town council to approve sharp increases in the water rates to provide a flow of revenue sufficient for the town to issue low-cost revenue bonds to finance the balance of the construction costs. The town still hopes that a revived construction industry will minimize the need for future water rate increases to pay for the expensive pipeline project. The town also received a roughly $5 million grant and a

$6 million, low-cost loan from the federal government to help cover the costs of the pipeline. Payson expects it will also get a long-term, low-cost federal loan to cover the balance of the costs, secured by water department revenue — either from water rates or impact fees.

One great additional benefit lies in SRP’s plans to make use of the 9,000 to 11,000 acre-feet it draws from the Blue Ridge Reservoir each year. The Valley utility puts that water into the East Verde River, greatly augmenting the flow of the river that crosses Highway 87 just northwest of Payson. The Arizona Game and Fish Department stocks the East Verde with trout in the summer, making the beautiful, augmented stream a major amenity. The Arizona Game and Fish Department is working on a stream design study that could end up substantially increasing the lure of the East Verde for anglers, adding another major tourist attraction to the region. The town is also studying a plan to turn the American Gulch into a flowing stream as part of a plan to recharge the water table with the excess Blue Ridge water.

The Payson Town Council in the past year has awarded millions in design and construction contracts for the pipeline. Crews worked in town to create connections between different networks connected to separate groundwater wells. Connecting up the whole system will allow the town to recharge the water table by relying entirely on Blue Ridge water during the summer and fall, to let rainwater recharge depleted wells. The town will then switch over to its wells during the winter months when snows on the Rim shut down the pipeline.

Crews also started work on the pipeline itself, which will run from Washington Park along Houston Mesa Road all the way to a $7.5 water treatment and filtration plant next door to Mesa del Caballo.

Pine/Strawberry water district still suffering growing pains BY

MAX FOSTER

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

The Pine Strawberry Water Improvement District has experienced its share of growing pains since it acquired the aging, poorly maintained Pine and Strawberry Water companies in 2009 from Brooke Utilities.

But just one year ago the district took a giant leap forward when it approved a much-anticipated and long-awaited master plan that included hiring an engineer to study the current water system and develop an infrastructure plan for the district’s future.

A master plan, board members contended, would allow the district to overhaul the system methodically rather than making patchwork repairs.

Also in the master plan, which is still a work in progress, were strategies to accelerate the district’s water replacement program and replace out-of-date and inaccurate water meters that could save the district $100,000-plus per year.

Replacing those water meters is an ongoing process that has been slowed by the inability to hire qualified workers.

Also in the plan were goals to conduct a leak detection survey and repair leaks that could save $50-60,000 per year.

The plan also included $150,000 to inspect, clean and repair five water tanks.

District Manager Brad Cole told the audience at the 2012 meeting that the tanks have never been cleaned or professionally inspected. The five 300,000-gallon tanks are located in Portals II, Portals III, Strawberry View I and Hardscrabble Mesa.

The Pine-Strawberry water district installed new water lines along Pine Road last summer.

The master plan had the district running on all cylinders, much like a fine tuned V-8, until mid-June when an undisclosed problem knocked out service

to about a third of the PSWID’s customers, prompting the district to issue health warnings and appeal to all its customers to reduce usage.

A June 19, 2012 notice to affected customers in 14 subdivisions scattered around the tiny mountain hamlet blamed the outage on “a combination of mechanical issues, drought conditions and increased demand.”

On June 22, PSWID officials announced that service had been restored throughout the system, reserve supplies were returning to normal levels and laboratory analysis of water samples indicated that the water is safe for consumption.

Which meant customers in the Pine area could resume normal use.

Following the repairs and the resumption of water service, the district returned to somewhat normal operations until a mid-November board meeting during which member Tom Weeks revealed board treasurer Mike Greer had without approval been using a PSWID credit card that almost no one knew existed. The announcement fueled an explosion of accusations and finger-pointing.

During the heated meeting, Weeks told board members and an audience of about 30 water users that while reviewing some district checks he “ran across a credit card statement” on which he noticed Greer had charges of $441 to Bass Pro Shop in Mesa and others to the Native New Yorker restaurant, Home Depot and Ace Hardware.

Weeks said he became suspicious because board members are not authorized to have district cards or make charges.

“There’s an issue here that needs to be resolved,” Weeks said. “I hated to see this day coming.”

After weeks of mounting pressure centering on Greer’s admitted misuse of the district credit card, the beleaguered Greer abruptly resigned.

The district quietly put up an advertisement for a new board member, without publicly announcing Greer’s departure, in the wake of two stormy board meetings during which Greer had attempted to explain his use of a district credit card for a mix of personal items and district business.

The resignation, however, didn’t stop the Arizona State Auditor General from investigating a flood of charges involving the PSWID including its 2011 purchase of 13 generators, an alleged conflict of interest by Weeks and alleged misuse of a district credit card by another board member.

Eventually local real estate developer Ray Pugel was chosen to fill Greer’s seat, and later was elected board chairman.

Just weeks ago, a crowded community meeting designed to get a fresh start in addressing the problems of the district mixed compliments on the improved water supply with comments about strife in the district and a $40 monthly stand-by water charge.

Gila County Supervisor Tommie Martin facilitated the day-long session, intended to help the newly elected, independent board come up with a plan for the future and address continued controversies.

“The number one thing that they said,” summarized Martin, “they want clean, healthy water every time they turn on the tap.

“Also, they talked about never wanting to go on water restrictions again.”

Both goals can be attained as implementing the master plan continues.

PAYSON ROUNDUP GOVERNMENT PROGRESS 2013

13 Major projects Gila County completed this year included construction of seven new bridges along the Control Road. The bridges will improve access to a string of isolated communities.

The Control Road remains the major evacuation route for half a dozen communities that could face big problems in a wildfire.

However, the county made little progress in providing back-door escape routes for several communities. Fire officials worry they’ll have trouble evacuating those areas at the same time fire trucks seek access.

Unfortunately, the Tonto National Forest has said it can’t provide emergency escape routes for those communities until it completes its forest-wide travel management plan. The plan has been stalled for two years and probably won’t be released for another year.

Andy Towle/Roundup

Election brings sweeping changes in Gila County leadership BY

TERESA MCQUERREY

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

The 2012 primary and general elections brought several new faces to the leadership of Gila County.

Supervisors Tommie Martin, from District 1, and Mike Pastor, of District 2, were returned to office. However, Pastor took the role of chairman of the Gila County Board of Supervisors, while Martin holds the vice chair’s seat.

Pastor started his second term with the 2012 election, while Martin has been on the board since her installation in January 2005.

John Marcanti, who won the District 3

Supervisor seat in the August Democratic primary, replacing the retiring Shirley Dawson, joined the two veterans. Dawson came to office the same time as Martin. It was not until January, when the new and returning elected officials were sworn into office, that Marcanti officially took over for Dawson.

There are new officials leading several county departments as a result of the 2012 election. Longtime county attorney Daisy Flores lost her re-election bid to Bradley Beauchamp. Veteran sheriff John Armer retired and Adam Shepherd won the election to replace him. Deborah Hughes beat incumbent assessor Dale Hom, who had not been challenged in more than 20 years.

Within the first quarter of 2013, there have been more changes. Recently the directors of the finance, human resources and IT departments all resigned. Resignations announced were for Joe Heatherly, who has been finance director for nearly three years and has accepted a position in the private sector in western Arizona; Berthan DeNero, who is leaving the human resources department after five and one-half years to accept another position in neighboring Pinal County; and Darryl Griffin, IT Director for the past five and one-half years who is going into private business.

Malissa Buzan has been named as director of the county’s community services division.

“Malissa brings a wealth of knowledge and experi-

ence to this position as well as a real passion for the clients that this division serves,” said county manager Don McDaniel.

Buzan has worked for the Community Services Department for 20 years, and has been acting director for the past four months.

Linda Eastlick has been named human resources director.

“Linda has vast experience in HR, and has been a valuable member of the Management Team in her role as Elections Director,” McDaniel said.

John Nelson, who has been with the county for many years, serving as deputy county manager and formal clerk of the board of supervisors, retired March 30.

Supervisor recounts both progress, challenges for county BY

TOMMIE CLINE MARTIN

SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT ONE

Can you believe it’s Progress time again? Where does the time go, and are we having fun — and if not, why not?

On to Gila County progress! First and foremost, we have a new and far user-friendlier Web site. It is not perfect, it is a work in progress — but go check it out at www.GilaCountyAz.gov.

Andy Towle/Roundup

The Gila County Library District this year operated a reading readiness for kids younger than five which offered families free books, after surveys showed that 35 percent of the pre-kindergarten children in the county lack reading readiness skills.

Second, let’s take a look at our County Library District and what it has accomplished in conjunction with Gila County’s eight public libraries — Payson, Pine, Young, Tonto Basin, Miami, Globe, San Carlos and Hayden — and with a First Things First Gila Regional Council Parent Outreach and Awareness Grant for Early Literacy.

As I reported to you in 2010, an estimated 35 percent of enrolling kindergartners in Gila County did not have what were considered the “pre-reading skills” necessary to become successful readers — and, therefore, successful students. For instance, pre-kindergartners with the ability to understand and use effectively 3,000 words are considered to have a good base for pre-reading. One third of our pre-kindergartners, county wide, have a very limited vocabulary, some as few as 500 words or less — many not knowing the words for colors, letters, body parts, sounds and so on when they enter kindergarten at age 5.

The County Library District staff targeted this unserved and/or underserved population, along with attempting to reach all prekindergarten children in general and profoundly boost the vocabulary of ALL pre-kindergartners. All children in Gila County, from birth to their fifth birthday, are eligible to participate in this program whereby each month they receive, free of charge, an age-appropriate book delivered to their home.

By the end of 2010, the first year of the program, there were 863 children receiving books monthly in an effort to bring into being a generation of reading-ready kindergartners for Gila County. Today, the library district is supplying 1,720 children, age birth to 5 years, with a book each month through the Dollywood Foundation Imagination Library Program.

Already, 641 children have graduated (aged out) from the program!

If you have, or know of, children under 5 years of age who would like Tommie Cline Martin to participate, please contact your Supervisor, District One local library or one of the County’s WIC (Women, Infants and Children) offices.

In addition, the Gila County Library District’s Web site is up and running at http://www.gcldaz.org/gila/index.asp. On this site you can access more than 33 online resources supplied by all the County Library Districts and the Arizona State Library. Among these are Newspaper Source Plus, Novelist Plus, Auto Repair Reference Center, Master File Complete by Ebsco, Medline Plus, Do It Yourself Reference Center and Consumer Reports, just to name a few. Supplied by Gila County Library District are Mango Languages, Learning Express, Ancestry Library and OneClick Digital (downloadable audio books). Check it out.

Another area of real progress comes from the Public Works Survey Team and their high accuracy Land Parcel Database. This team has been working through a years-long and complex process to provide the county and the general public with a Geographic Information System (GIS) with parcel lines that best represent the truth on the ground.

Without the benefit of this system with its field survey validation, attempts to portray accurate and repeatable survey lines, aerial imagery backgrounds and floodplain issues fail miserably. They are approximately 75 percent complete with some of the more complex areas left to tackle. Once complete, Gila County’s GIS System will be one of the most accurate in Arizona — benefiting residents, county staff and many others in both the public and private sector.

And speaking of Public Works, some of their progress this year includes the Pine Creek Canyon Road Reconstruction Project that widened and paved approximately 5,000 feet of Pine Creek Canyon

Andy Towle/Roundup

Supervisor Tommie Martin (center) shares an election night laugh with the new Gila County Sheriff Alan Shepherd (right).

The election brought sweeping changes with redistricting and several new county officials, including assessor Deborah Hughes.

Road starting from the intersection with Highway 87. The project also included water main replacement and installation of nine fire hydrants funded by the Pine-Strawberry Water Improvement District.

In addition, roads in Strawberry, Round Valley, Oxbow Estates, Tonto Basin and Young were chip sealed and fog sealed and the Gisela Road had sections of it milled with pavement repair.

And I’d be remiss in not mentioning the seven bridges replaced on the Control Road by the U.S. Forest Service in preparation of continuing to partner with the county so that one day the Control Road will be an allweather “escape route.”

As you know, we continue to improve and make progress in our forest “fire-water system” — the series of water bladders and opentopped tanks strategically placed from Strawberry and the Cinch Hook Area along under the Rim to beyond Christopher Creek and into Young. The goal is for Type I, II and III helicopters to have adequate first-strike water within a 1-minute turnaround to a fire anywhere within our forested region, as well as giving local fire districts added water in their firefighting endeavors.

The 2012 test of this system was during the Poco Fire north of Young. The Type 1 Fire Team on that fire fully expected it to develop into a 500,000+ acre fire due to its location, weather conditions and fuel load — and said so. The fact that they were able to use us and our setup to hold it to 35,000+/- surprised everyone and we all received wall plaques expressing their appreciation.

You keep hearing me say, though, that all of these forest efforts, however, will only be truly successful progress with the letting of a contract under the 4 Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). That finally happened in 2012 — although the company that was awarded the contract still has not found financing — nor has the USFS let its first work order under the contract. This will be an area to watch closely in 2013 to see if, in fact, it makes progress.

Now, by no means have I mentioned all the progress made or the projects completed in 2012, but this is enough for now. If you’d like more information, come on by — we’ll have a cup of coffee and visit.

PAYSON ROUNDUP MEDICAL CARE PROGRESS 2013

14

Rim Country medical care BY

are long-term care and residential care facilities: Payson Care Center, Rim Country Health Community, Powell House and Frontier House, along with Hospice Compassus.

Several home health services, including PRMC’s, also provide assistance to residents in need of medical help in the comfort of their homes and there are also businesses offering nonmedical help for clients with limited mobility or other disability.

TERESA MCQUERREY

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

Payson Regional Medical Center was recognized as one of the top 100 hospitals in the country earlier this year. PRMC is a 44-bed, acute care hospital committed to providing quality, patient-centered care.

This is the fourth time PRMC has been named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® by Truven Health Analytics, formerly the health care business of Thomson Reuters, in recognition for excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety and satisfaction, financial performance and operational efficiency.

The hospital is the anchor for the Rim Country’s health care community. It can trace its roots back to a small clinic funded and built through the efforts of both pioneers and new residents.

It now has more than 115 skilled physicians and allied health practitioners representing a variety of specialty areas to meet the needs of the growing community and to support good health at all stages of life.

PRMC’s services include: • Cardiac services (Telemetry, Cardiac Stress Test) • Cardiopulmonary/respiratory (EKG, Aerosol Therapy, Artoid Blood Gas Analysis, Peak Flows) • Emergency care — 24 hours a day, seven days a week; with a commitment for a patient to be seen by a medical professional within 30 minutes of arrival • Intensive care unit • Imaging services (Inpatient and outpatient, 40-slice CT scanner, PET, Lithotripsy, MRI, Nuclear Medicine, Telemedicine/Tele-radiology, Ultrasound • Labor and delivery • Laboratory • Surgery • Radiation Oncology • Rehabilitation (Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy) For the Community

PRMC also offers an array of outpatient services and specialty clinics including outpatient imaging, bone den-

Payson Care Center

sitometry, diagnostic x-rays, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, nuclear cardiac stress testing, CT and PET scans, MRI, family practice, pediatrics, ENT, physical therapy and rehabilitation services, and orthopedic surgery.

Telemedicine

Telemedicine is advancing at PRMC. It integrates online communication and digital videoconferencing to enable face-to-face consultations with physicians, patients and specialists in Tucson, as well as specialists throughout the state and country, if necessary.

Senior Circle

Senior Circle is a membership program committed to enriching the lives of adults age 50 and better. For just $15 a year, a member receives a generous selection of valuable discounts on health care goods and services; social activities and events; travel opportunities; exercise and wellness classes; inhospital privileges and much more.

Call (928) 472-9290 for more information.

Healthy Woman

Healthy Woman is a free community resource designed to empower women with the knowledge and confidence to make informed health care and wellbeing decisions for themselves and their loved ones. For more information, call (928) 472-9290 or register for free at www.HealthyWoman Online.com.

Complementing the work of PRMC

Payson Care Center is one of the state’s premier providers of senior health care. With more than 20 years of service to the Rim Country community, the nursing home facility offers total elderly care.

Residency affords many advantages, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, physical, occupational and speech therapies. The nursing home campus is conveniently located opposite Payson Regional Medical Center. It is also adjacent to many physicians’ offices and pharmacies.

Samuel G. Loveless has joined Payson Care Center as its new executive director.

“Sam was a natural choice for us as executive director for Payson Care Center,” said Matt Ham, regional vice president of Life Care Centers of America’s Mesquite Region, of which Payson Care Center is a part. “He has a strong drive and passion for giving the best care possible to each resident he serves. His life and work missions are in sync, and he brings a lot of energy to this new role.”

Loveless comes to Payson Care Center from Garden Terrace Alzheimer’s Center of Excellence in Salt Lake City, Utah, another facility operated by Life Care Centers of America.

As for the future — Loveless said look for some big changes in the facility. Over the next two years, Life Care Centers of America will be making major improvements to Payson Care Center’s access and aesthetics, both outside and in.

There will be expansion to the exterior and rearranging the space assignments inside, he said.

Net More Money!

Rim Country Health and Retirement Community

Powell House

Powell House combines retirement living with comfort and luxury in a beautiful, independent setting. The variety of services and programs at Powell House, including Assisted Living, Companion Living and Respite Care, fulfill the residents’ needs. Whether someone is active and likes to have a full social calendar, or prefers to relax and takes things more slowly, the varying levels of service and activities accommodate each resident’s lifestyle. The Powell House residence offers seniors the opportunity to enjoy a relaxing atmosphere free from the daily worries associated with living alone. At Assisted Living Concepts, they provide a high level of service with a personal and caring touch.

Services provided include: housekeeping, laundry service, linen service, maintenance service, medication assistance, newspaper delivery, personal care services, postal services, scheduled transportation, and wellness program.

Rim Country Health and Retirement Community is among an elite group of skilled nursing facilities in Arizona. For the second year in a row in 2012 it was been given a 100 percent quality rating by the state of Arizona.

The rating is the result of a very rigorous inspection, which investigates every aspect of nursing homes to determine the quality of the care provided, the environment, the food, the activities, the facility and more.

Owner Harvey Pelovsky talked with the Roundup about the inspection and the rating.

“Each facility in the state is inspected every 15 months. The state comes in with the objective to find problems and deficiencies,” he said.

The facility’s personnel must then submit a plan of correction for any citations and make the required improvements within 30 days.

“In my 30-plus years in the business, I have never known of any facility to have two years with no deficiencies. A director of nursing at another facility asked if I knew how few get this kind of rating,” Pelovsky said.

Rim Country Health and Retirement Community has actually earned an “A” rating for three consecutive years, he said. It had a 94 percent in 2009, 100 percent in 2010 and now another 100 percent for 2011.

Rim Country Health employs more than 120 people, including staff for three shifts; weekend, part-time and fill-in personnel.

Frontier House

Frontier House offers 24-hour private skilled care and assisted living provided in a residential setting.

The owners, managers and staff of Frontier House know the difficulties a family faces when a loved one can no longer live alone. The staff is dedicated to quality of life for each and every person, and selected and trained to meet the goals of providing exceptional care around the clock.

A low client-to-caregiver ratio allows individualized care for the comprehensive needs of each client.

SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 2009 www.kcshomehealthcare.com

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Payson Unified School District Proudly reports PROGRESS in partnering with parents and community stakeholders to prepare students for college and career.

Help us realize Goal 1: Continuous Improvement of Student Achievement and Goal 3: Exemplary Customer Service

Join Payson Schools for upcoming community events: Teacher Supply Drive at Walmart July 19-22 Help teachers start the school year with classroom supplies they need in collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters, Coca Cola and Suddenlink

Building Champions July 25 Attend a mini-training event to launch

Capturing Kids’ Hearts Payson Schools’ model to change school climate.

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Contact Payson Schools Check out our school and district websites through www.pusd.k12.az.us Email us at susan.campbell@pusd.com Call us at 474-2070 Visit the District Office at 902 W. Main Street

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PAYSON ROUNDUP SCHOOLS PROGRESS 2013

18

State finally catching up to Payson The state of Arizona made progress — and finally, they caught up with Payson. I say that in the context of setting goals for education.

For years, the primary goal of Payson Unified School District has been the continuous improvement of student achievement.

When the 2013-14 school year starts in July, the measurement and improvement of student achievement will now be the top priority of every school district in Arizona. The governor, the state superintendent and legislators have all demonstrated their resolve to make student achievement the primary focus of their education reform agenda.

The greatest accomplishment of the Payson Unified School District this year has been to get all of the pieces in place to accomplish and sustain the continuous improvement of student achievement.

There are many facets, and pieces of the student achievement puzzle that have to be in place. Each of those pieces must be aligned with each other and be synchronized across our schools and district.

Thanks to numerous Ron Hitchcock internal needs assessPayson Schools superintendent ments, recommendations from external experts, audits and performance reviews by the Arizona Department of Education, we have a clear vision and expectations.

That vision and those expectations will be aligned with the central goal of the PUSD Governing Board — Continuous Improvement of Student Achievement.

Curriculum, instruction, assessment and interventions will be the foundational elements of the PUSD culture.

The governing board has amended and created all necessary policies to clearly define the expectations. During the end of the current year, and at the very beginning of the 2013-2014 school year there will be focused, aligned professional development and training for all staff to provide the proper tools and support they need to implement and achieve the board’s expectations.

Finally, to ensure accountability, all districts in Arizona will be implementing a new model for the evaluation of teachers and principals. The evaluation model will focus less on teaching and more on student learning. Student learning will be measured by students’ ability to demonstrate attainment of mastery of state standards. Getting all of these components in place, over a relatively short time is a huge accomplishment.

Payson High School (PHS) students made progress, and accomplished great things.

They exceeded the state average for student achievement in a variety of measures. PHS earned an “A” grade for their achievement on AIMS, the state-mandated test for academic success.

On the ACT, a national test to measure readiness for college, PHS students scored well above the state average in every subject. PHS graduates, completing their first year at the University of Arizona, received the Governor’s Award for having the highest grade point average of any group from any high school in Arizona.

In education terminology, progress and accomplishments mean student growth.

Growth is measured by testing students against a standard of performance.

Next year, every Arizona school will have new standards of performance, called the Common Core Standards. Those standards are common across 48 states, hence the name “common” core standards.

Students must demonstrate growth by improving their performance toward mastery of those standards, over various intervals of time, daily, weekly, quarterly or yearly.

In Arizona, that measurement has been the AIMS test, Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards. Next year that measurement is supposed to be the PARCC test, developed by the Partnership for Assessment of College and Careers. Arizona is one of 27 states in the PARCC partnership. Whatever test instrument is mandated, it will be a measurement of students’ mastery or growth toward mastery of standards of performance.

In summary, the elemental components that are in place for next year are: 1) A reset and repurposing of the PUSD culture and climate to focus on student achievement; 2) A reset of district policies, procedures, staff training, and organization with the same focus; 3) Implementation of new Common Core Standards, a new state assessment model and a new teacher/principal evaluation model, with the same focus.

All of these activities and initiatives constitute a big change, a huge accomplishment, and major progress for the students, parents, and staff of Payson Unified School District.

Photos by Andy Towle/Roundup

Many Rim Country schools this year had a major change in leadership among administrators and school boards, including Payson, Pine and Tonto Basin. The new leaders will face daunting challenges. The state and federal governments have imposed far-reaching mandates, while cutting funding.

SCHOOLS

New leaders must meet heavy mandates with fewer resources BY

MICHELE NELSON

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

School districts around Rim Country had upheavals in leadership, changing the landscape of the schools — with a mudslide of state and federal mandates and cutbacks moving down the steep slopes of educational reform threatening to engulf them.

The Payson Unified School District started the school year with a new superintendent and now has three new school board members.

The Tonto Basin School lost its superintendent and will now search for a new leader.

The Pine-Strawberry School knew its beloved superintendent would retire by the end of this year and braced itself. Concern with the search for a new leader colored the elections for a new school board.

Payson Schools

and cut district funding for almost all its sports and extracurricular activities — which now subsist almost entirely on donations. Fortunately, residents contribute more than $300,000 annually to the district through the Credit for Kids tax credit program. The district’s teachers have gone several years without a raise, despite the overall increase in class size and accumulating, unpaid efforts to support extra programs.

Hitchcock has tackled the challenges, fostering a new, more-open approach to public meetings and citizen input. He also pushed to hire a “student achievement director” to help the district adapt to the overwhelming emphasis on test scores when it comes to teacher and staff evaluations and school funding.

The new school board will have to cope with bewildering and conflicting demands — with shrinking resources.

Board members Kim Pound and Barbara Shepherd both left.

Board president Barbara Underwood was handily re-elected — but so was former teacher James Quinlan and Shirley Dye, a former Tea Party activist. Both Quinlan and Dye have offered sharp criticisms of many policies of the previous board.

When Shepherd resigned after the election, Gila County Superintendent of Schools appointed Devin Wala to the vacant seat. One of the founders of the parent group Payson Area Advanced Learners (PAAL), Wala had advocated stronger programs for top students and more parent input in a low-key style. Quinlan has already emerged as skeptical and an advocate for the district’s teachers.

Dye often raises questions at the board meetings — including such basic issues as whether the district should adopt the national Common Core Standards. Some Tea Party activists and conservative Republicans in the Arizona Legislature have linked Common Core to Agenda 21, a 20-year-old United Nation’s resolution calling on nations to adopt environmentally sustainable policies.

Pine/Strawberry School District

The Pine-Strawberry School District this year hired Duncan Elementary School Principal Cody Barlow to replace retiring, longtime Superintendent Mike Clark.

The small, K-8 school district whose students attend high school mostly in the Payson district has

Tonto Basin School District

Tonto Basin Superintendent Mary Lou Weatherly resigned from her position this year just 18 months into her tenure, caught in a reaction against her management style and the changes she attempted to introduce.

She said some of the parent complaints that ultimately led to her resignation came from a lack of awareness in the tiny district for the incoming Common Core Standards.

“The parents don’t understand the state and federal mandates on teachers and administrators,” said Weatherly. She said the board originally hired her to refocus the district on improving academic performance, with state changes placing more and more emphasis on standardized test scores.

The Arizona Department of Education has labeled the Tonto

L

The change in leadership has allowed the Payson Schools to get back to the basics and consider its goals and priorities.

Superintendent Ron Hitchcock started his tenure with a list of four goals that the school board and staff have agreed to support.

No. 1 — Continuous student achievement No. 2 — Customer service No. 3 — Quality of facilities and grounds No. 4 — School board service, accountability and transparency These goals have refocused the schools in the district. Each principal and every department from maintenance to technology and special education has made a presentation at a board meeting on their areas.

Bringing the district onto the same page with its goals is like controlling an unruly crew to chart a new course.

Major changes in education policy come into effect next school year.

In its effort to revamp the federal No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top mandates, states across the country have opted into the Common Core Standards.

Reformers hope that the new standards will bring critical thinking skills into the classroom. Ironically enough, the initial effect of those reforms likely include the development of a national curriculum and far more standardized testing to judge the progress of students and the abilities of teachers. Teachers will be required to not only teach their subject, but prepare their students for a brand new set of national tests to measure whether their students are progressing and how well they can communicate their knowledge.

The state’s effort to take advantage of the new system to transform the system for rating schools and teachers adds an additional layer of complexity — and controversy.

The state has already shifted to a system of giving each school a letter grade based largely on how well students score on the existing AIMS graduation test of basic skills. The rating system gives districts credit for improving their grade and gives extra weight to the scores of students in the bottom 25 percent of scores for

the school. Gov. Jan Brewer has proposed a system that will give an evergrowing reward for schools that either improve their grade or maintain a high grade, with money increasingly taken from schools that struggle with low grades based on student test scores.

Rim Country Middle School got a D in the most recent state ratings.

The district’s other schools have done better.

Advocates say grades based on student scores will hold schools accountable. Critics say the new system will simply divert more money to rich school districts with high-achieving kids from college-educated families and penalize schools like the rural Rim Country school districts that have lots of kids from lowincome families and limited access to technology and curriculum upgrades.

The state has also required districts to shift to a “Move on when ready” approach to basic skills in the primary grades. The state will soon require districts to hold back any third-graders with reading skills well below grade level. The shift is modeled on a Florida program and research showing that most students who read poorly in third grade fall even further behind as they advance.

However, Arizona imposed the requirement on local districts while cutting funding, while Florida accompanied its mandate with billions of dollars in additional funding for things like reading specialists in the primary grades.

To raise the stakes even higher, the state has also required school districts to base at least 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student test scores, even as it phases out the AIMS test and embraces a battery of still-developing national tests.

All of this high-stakes change comes against a backdrop of financial crisis. National studies show that in the past four years the Arizona Legislature has made deeper spending cuts in K-12 and higher education than any other state. The relentless cuts have shrunk state, per-student support back to 2007 levels, with only a little recovery this year.

In Payson, a steady enrollment decline of 50 to 100 students each year has compounded the effects of the state reductions. Two years ago the district closed Frontier Elementary School, resulting in a 15 to 20 percent increase in elementary school class sizes. The district has laid off teachers almost every year

faced many of the same challenges as Payson, without nearly as much controversy. In part, that’s because state formulas give such small districts much more money per student than larger districts like Payson. That is mostly because the district still needs a minimum number of administrators, but can’t spread the cost of that overhead across very many students.

Barlow said the friendly greeting and small-town feel sold him on the job, starting with the community dinner thrown for the six finalists.

“When my wife and I left the barbecue, we said, ‘This is the way a small town should be,’” said Barlow. He and his family, which includes his wife and three children, have visited the Rim Country in the past to see his sister and brother, who live in Mesa.

“I’ll be moving a lot closer to family,” he said.

He also looks forward to the educational opportunities for his children. Duncan is a small town that sits on the border with New Mexico, so remote the nearest grocery store requires an hour’s drive. Moving to the Rim Country will get his family closer to Phoenix and Flagstaff and all they have to offer. Barlow has worked in education for the last 14 years. He has an undergraduate degree in science education and a master’s in education.

“I started as a high school science teacher in Show Low,” he said, “then worked as a junior high science teacher before going into administration.”

With his strong background in chemistry, he used to take his students to science competitions at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University. He is excited to take his 16-year-old daughter and two sons, one 14 the other 9, to the cities and universities to show them the arts, culture and educational opportunities.

As principal of Duncan Elementary, Barlow had 270 kindergarten through eighth-grade students under his care. The Pine school has about 123 students and has suffered persistent declines. Students transfer to the Payson school district when they hit high school.

See New leaders, page 20

PAYSON ROUNDUP SCHOOLS PROGRESS 2013

19

High school earns an “A” rating in 2012, despite challenges As a first-year principal of Payson High School, nothing makes “my heart swell” more than the students filling our classrooms, the teachers pushing them to learn, and the support staff holding us together.

Despite an economically challenging period, I am awed almost daily by the creativity of all involved in the education of our teens as we forge ahead toward new challenges, despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our way.

Payson High School is an “A” school because of the dedication of our teachers, staff, parents and community to the future of our students. The accomplishments of our students and teachers are many, and though the following is not inclusive, they all make me very proud of my affiliation with PHS. Although it only takes one unruly teen to paint an unattractive picture of high school students in general, our students have earned a positive reputation locally and around the state.

New this year are the efforts of a group of young ladies and gentlemen known as our PHS Ambassadors, whose goal it is to provide customer service to the visitors of our campus.

Our 16 foreign exchange students this year serve as a different kind of ambassador — representatives from Europe and Asia who contribute much to our campus culture.

Besides our students’ much publicized individual and team accomplishments in sports, their achievements in the non-athletic arenas have made a name for PHS, too.

Career and Technical Education boasts a DECA program that has produced 42 individual district awards as well as 37 state awards, qualifying nine students for internationals in April; an FBLA chapter with students receiving 29 awards in addition to fund-raising to support local and national charities; a culinary program that has resulted in 18 awards leading to a $19,000 and a $32,000 scholarship pre-

sented to two students for one- and two-year enrollments at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school; a theater program that continues to earn excellent ratings and Gold Honor Troupe status; and an FFA chapter that won five team awards, seven individual awards, and one state championship. At the helm of two of our CTE programs are teachers who received, this year, regional and/or state Coach of the Year or Teacher of the Year recognitions.

Our Academic Decathlon (Acadec) team, fourth in the region, made it to state — the first team ever to achieve this in their second year of existence.

One Acadec student earned a $500 ASU scholarship with all seven state competitors each being awarded a $3,000 opportunity to study Eastern languages this summer and earning 10 ASU credit hours.

For the second year in a row, our Anna Van Zile Mock Trial team was one of 16 mostPHS principal ly college-prep or private school teams to advance to state.

Payson’s SADD chapter was awarded a $1,000 grant from the National Organization for Youth Safety which was used to host a memorable Project Ignition Day — despite the weather — focusing on teen driver safety.

On that same day, 59 chemistry students conducted 20 different chemistry demonstrations with 160 first-graders using household items to inspire an interest in chemistry and science in young minds.

And finally, under the direction of a 2013 state award-winning

music teacher — the many excellent ratings of our band and choir, not to mention their participation in the Fiesta Bowl Parade.

None of the recognition brought to Payson by our academic, sports, co-curricular, or extra-curricular programs would be possible without the dedication of their coaches, teachers or advisers.

Not to diminish all of the good just described, perhaps the change I am most proud of is the coming together of our staff toward a common goal. We may not always agree with each other, but Payson High School teachers and staff are united around one very important objective: improving student achievement.

For the first time in the history of PUSD performance pay, PHS has established state assessment goals in reading, math and science.

And we are changing the way we educate our students, with all teachers from all areas working to ensure that our students think critically, write argumentatively, read closely, respond factually, problem solve logically, and read perseveringly; this means that our students read in math, write in auto shop, compute in culinary, and even focus on math practices in English.

We recognize that unlike the AIMS tests, which have students respond to questions addressing one standard at a time, real life throws problems at us that often require a dozen different skills at once. This is part of the shift to the Common Core that we have also committed to implement.

A lot has changed in education over the past 20 years, and sometimes we don’t do a very good job of explaining the work we do. If that’s ever the case, please give us a chance to help you understand.

Payson has a lot to be proud of in PHS, and we appreciate your support as financial contributors, volunteers, fans, spectators, and as citizens taking an interest in our youth.

I take great pride in the work that we have done and in what we will do, together, as we educate our future.

Payson Elementary School adapts and thrives as K-2 campus In our second year as a K-2 school are occurring at Payson Elementary we have accomplished many things.

School.

Part of those accomplishments were In addressing positive behavior, schoolwide changes to make stuwe have created positive behavior dents feel comfortable and create a goals with the students and have new culture at Payson Elementary promoted Respect, Responsibility, School.

Trustworthiness, Caring and Safety Our year began with the staff setwith daily rewards for the students’ ting expectations for our “new” positive behavior. school. Our returning students have School safety measures that we felt more at ease with our transition have implemented made our school into our second year. Student expeca safer place by creating new procetations were clearly defined and dures in the office and locking all of have been maintained throughout our doors and gates throughout the the year. day. All visitors to our campus must This year was Payson check in at the office before entering Donna Haught Elementary School’s first year as a the building. Parents that pick up in PES principal Title 1 schoolwide school. Our comthe office, wait in the office until the mittee set several goals to accomplish to improve bell rings. This has created quiet hallways with less academic achievement. Those goals will dovetail confusion! We are currently working on putting new nicely with the implementation of Beyond procedures in place for transporting students on Textbooks. buses and our parent pickup policies in the office.

We also focused on continual improvement of Our goal is to create a partnership with our famcommunication between the school and home. We ilies, students and community to achieve academic are using School Messenger to send important mes- and personal success for all of our students. We sages home along with fliers and the implementa- look forward to providing continual improvements tion of monthly newsletters that address events that as we advance as a K-2 school!

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PAYSON ROUNDUP SCHOOLS PROGRESS 2013

20

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AIMS SCORES TREND

President feels proud and grateful As I reflect on this last year as a school board member, I have a lot to be thankful for and proud of, and some things to be sad about.

I’m proud of the board’s choice in hiring Superintendent Ron Hitchcock. Ron was the favorite candidate and has spent the last year diligently raising the standards in our schools.

I’m thankful for the new board members, Jim Quinlan, Shirley Dye and Devin Wala. They all come from different backgrounds with a great mix of new ideas for our school.

The board appreciates the community for continuing to support our schools with Credit for Kids donations. This small community consistently donates to the district and the schools and students benefit daily.

It is a great relief to have a new roof on the old high school gym paid Barbara Underwood for by the School Facility PUSD board president Board. The gym is now hosting weight classes and P.E. classes as well as other sports practices and activities.

I am thankful for all the volunteers who give their time to make the schools a better place — the district is most grateful for their donations of time.

I am also thankful to the parent-teacher organizations that continue to raise money to fill in the holes of the schools’ and students’ needs.

I’m especially grateful that the district was able to show gratitude to its employees by giving them a stipend for all the hard work and dedication they have demonstrated. Their continued efforts ensure our students have the support they need to get the best education possible.

I am proud of the Payson High School Key Club for hosting a candidate forum for the prospective board members so the community could hear where they stood on the different issues.

I’m proud of Rim Country Middle School student Colin Nossek for winning the Gila County Spelling Bee contest and representing the district at the state spelling bee.

I’m proud of the Culinary Arts students who won the CCAP awards with a total of $51,000! Because of this scholarship money, Levi and Autumn will attend Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School.

I’m proud of the Thespian Club for receiving an excellent rating at their competition and their director Kathy Siler being named Northern Region Theatre Coach of the Year.

I’m proud of DECA for winning nine first place awards and 10 medals at the Arizona Central District Competition in business.

I’m proud of Marlene Armstrong from Rim Country Middle School and Payson High School for being named the Gila County and Arizona Rural Teacher of the Year.

I’m proud of the Payson High School band for representing the district at the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Hawaii and marching in the Fiesta Bowl Parade.

I’m proud of the band’s director Daria Mason for being named to the Arizona Music Educators Association Hall of Fame and winning the OM Hartsell Excellence in Music Teaching Award.

I’m proud of all our athletic teams that constantly make us proud whether they win or lose.

I’m proud of our outstanding teachers and staff who raise the bar for student achievement and for our students who continue to improve academically.

Above all, I am honored to serve and represent Gila County on the Arizona School Board Association’s Board of Directors.

Although all of the above mentioned events have touched my heart, the loss of three staff members: Linda Ansick, Christy Walton and Amanda Johnson. The impact they left on our schools will remain with me the longest. The dedication and commitment that these ladies gave to our district will never be forgotten.

Julia Randall Elementary Percent Passing 2010-2012 AIMS

Math

Reading

Writing

Science

2012 2011 2010

65 68 72

80 84 80

65 52 74

74 76 75

PAYSON HIGH SCHOOL

RIM COUNTRY MIDDLE SCHOOL 2012 AIMS - Math

PHS 2012 AIMS vs state average PHS Math AZ Math PHS Reading AZ Reading PHS Writing AZ Writing PHS Science AZ Science

Score

% passing

486 496 704 707 495 501 489 480

50 60 79 80 69 70 40 42

PHS AIMS scores 2010-2012 PHS Math Reading Writing Science

2012

2011

2010

486 704 495 489

489 712 498 495

503 721 707 479

7th 8th

Math Reading Language

2010

75 58 48

71 66 55

% passing

393 410 416 426 418 434

43 61 54 62 46 57

2012 AIMS - Reading RCMS State RCMS State RCMS State

6th 7th 8th

Score

% passing

502 510 524 530 512 521

77 80 84 84 66 72

2012 AIMS - Science RCMS State

8th

Stanford 10 Percentile Scores 2012

RCMS State RCMS State RCMS State

6th

Score

Score

% passing

516 513

75 68

2012 AIMS - Writing 7th 8th

RCMS State RCMS State

Score

% passing

487 500 491 480

47 52 40 23

Pine superintendent leaves on high note Pine Strawberry School implemented across all continues to enjoy a successgrades, again to comply with ful school year with students unfunded state mandates. performing well academicalThe final replacement to ly and the school receiving a an extremely aging bus/van grade of “B” from the fleet was completed with the Arizona Department of addition of a new school bus Education. On average, 125 and seven-passenger van. students are enrolled, which The East Playground are being supported by 40 Improvement Project is teachers and staff, their parunder way. A track will be ents and the community. installed along with an artifiSome of the improvecial turf infield. Students will ments the school has realnow have an all-weather ized or will realize this field in which to practice and school year are: play on. Additionally, the Mike Clark Solar power arrived at the Pine principal/superintendent field will be open to the comschool last November. A 30 munity, after school hours, KW photovoltaic system is providing up to for community members to walk, run, or 30 percent of our electrical needs, saving the otherwise have a recreational facility to use. district several hundred dollars per month.

The project is scheduled to be completed on Technology is constantly being upgraded June 13, 2013. to comply with new requirements from the The school is in good shape financially. federal and state departments of education.

As of this writing, the school is not in jeopThe Common Core curriculum has been ardy of losing programs or staff because of

financial issues.

All in all, Pine Strawberry School is doing well with a very positive outlook for the future. This is possible because we have great students, and extremely professional and caring staff, a governing board that really cares about what is in the best interest of the students and school and keeps that at the forefront of all board matters, and most importantly, parents and a community that are proactive and very supportive.

I do want to take this opportunity to personally thank all stakeholders for the support they have provided to the school the past eight years that I have had the privilege of being your principal/superintendent. I will miss all of you but, since I am not leaving Pine after my retirement, I will undoubtedly see many of you around town and most certainly at Walmart. I would ask that your give Mr. Cody Barlow, your new principal/superintendent as of July 1, the same support you gave me.

Once again, thank you very much.

New school leaders both confront challenges, opportunities From page 1A Basin School a “C” school Weatherly reported at a meeting.

On the other side of the tide of change, parents Brandy Cline, Katy Taylor and Shayla Rose have pulled their children from the school because they felt the school was “no longer a safe, productive learning environment.”

Reportedly, the tiny, 77-student, K-8 district has lost more than 17 students this year. Taylor said that although Weatherly tried to improve academics, her administrative style caused strife and stress and conflicted with the school’s culture.

Some parents have complained about discipline and Weatherly’s decision not to put a teacher on administrative leave while an investigation into alleged problems with students continued.

Weatherly also upset some community members when she moved her office into a historic building volunteers had restored for a preschool.

The school now serves as the center of the community, with weddings and funerals held on the basketball court — the largest room in the town.

Board member George Ewing reminisced about the school. Not only has he served on the board on and off for 25 years, but he graduated from the school.

“In the 1950s, it got down to two students, so my grandpa went to Globe to hire a family (to work on his ranch) with six kids,” he said.

Weatherly said all the teachers are now certified as “highly qualified” in their subjects, which wasn’t true when she arrived.

Her presentation noted that the Tonto Basin School was behind in reporting on its Title I audit information, but she managed to get the Arizona Department of Education to waive four years of audit information so the school could keep its federal Title I funding, intended to help low-income students.

The presentation listed all of

the upgrades made during Weatherly’s time including a new air conditioning unit, water filters, new servers and switches to keep the school connected to the Internet, updated computer labs, laptops for classrooms, science lab equipment, and increased safety measures, including sheriff and fire access to the building in case of emergency.

To improve academics, Weatherly said she had replaced outdated instructional materials, brought grading expectations in line with national standards, set up a system for teachers to share testing data on students, introduced a new teacher evaluation system as the Common Core requires, and familiarized teachers with tests designed to help students do better on the yearly Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS).

“That’s the name of the game now,” Weatherly said after the meeting. “We can no longer just get by with teaching to the middle percentile of kids.”

Tonto Basin residents who helped refurbish the community’s historic one-room school house later found themselves deeply divided on policies of the new superintendent.

PAYSON ROUNDUP SCHOOLS PROGRESS 2013

21

Top athletes set records, thrill crowds BY

MAX FOSTER

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

A solid core of top-notch student-athletes emerged during the 2012-2013 season to lead Payson High School teams in their quest for wins, playoff berths and individual honors.

Some are also among the best in Division III and around the state.

Among them are: • PHS junior baseball player NICK

M C M ULLEN

has this season used his 6-foot-5-inch frame for good power — slapping three doubles, two triples and four home runs.

His HR blasts are characteristically boomers that sail over the centerfield batter’s eye.

His home run mark ties him for second in Division III with Andrew Bryniarski of Fountain Hills who also has four.

In slugging percentage, McMullen is division fifthranked with a 1.094 average.

While it’s obvious McMullen is a gifted hitter, he also shines on defense as a first baseman, outfielder and pitcher.

Although he didn’t pitch last season due to an arm strain, McMullen returned to the mound March 12 in a 6-4 win over Snowflake.

In the close, hard-fought game that could have gone either way, coach Brian Young called on McMullen to relieve in the third inning with one out and the bases jam-packed with Lobo base runners.

McMullen rose up to pitch out of the jam without giving up a run and went on to finish four complete innings giving up two hits while striking out four and walking one.

• PHS

SENIOR

proved to be a force to reckon with, playing midfielder and forward.

Lopez, a midfielder, has been a vital cog in the Longhorn offense for three seasons. Among his finest efforts in 2012 might have been his overall solid play in Payson’s state first-round come-from-behind overtime 3-2 wins over Camp Verde.

Morris, a defender and the 2012 homecoming king, paced the Horns to a 0-0 early season tie against two-time defending champion Blue Ridge that end the Yellow Jackets’ 57-match winning streak.

MORGAN CHILSON has for the past three seasons

been one of the premier track and field sprinters in the state.

This season, her goal is to become ever better in the 100 meters and help the 4x100 relay team qualify for the stat finals.

To make her mark in the 100, Chilson must best the 12.77 she ran April 20, 2012 at the Eastern Arizona Rotary Invitational in Thatcher.

This year, she has broken in coveted 13-second barrier twice, but has not set a PR. She believes she has a shot at setting a personal best because she has worked to correct her form out of the starting blocks and is concentrating in weight training on improving her leg strength.

Chilson readily admits her starting form often was “horrible” partly because she rose too quickly out of the block rather than staying low and firing out, “I was straight up, which is not good.”

The speedster credits new assistant coach Amy Buckner, a former Lady Horn sprinter and relay team member, with helping correct her form.

“She has been teaching me a lot, I really like having her (as a coach),” Chilson said.

If the relay team is to contend for state honors, the four will during the course of the season need to approach the coveted 50-second barrier.

Last year, the fastest time the Chilson-led foursome turned in was 51.20, which was at the Snowflake Invitational.

However, three members of that team have graduated.

Michelle Schatz, a transfer from California, joined the team to run the anchor leg. “She is really fast, so she will really help our team,” Chilson said.

The relay group is rounded out by the addition of Danya Svir and Rachel Knauer, Chilson said.

• PAYSON HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR CHIOYA HILL’S prowess on the boards and on the defensive end of the court earned her a spot on the Holiday Hoops All-Tournament team following its competition Dec. 29, 2012 in Wilson Dome.

The celestial squad was selected in a voting of tournament coaches.

Coach Jen White contends it was Hill’s rebounding, she averaged almost 15 a tournament game, which prompted coaches to vote for her.

In 2012-13 season, Hill led the team in rebounding averaging 18.5 per game and eventually set a single game rebounding record.

Hill also threatened to break the single season rebounding mark of 312 set by Trista Carlton in 2003 and the career record of 1,017 set by Amberlyn White in 1994-97.

Hill’s rebounding average ranked second, by .2 of a rebound per game, in both Division III and Section III to Wickenburg’s Cora Morales.

Of Hill’s rebounds this past season, a big majority were on the defensive end which eliminated put backs and second shot attempts by opponents. Her defensive rebounds also get the Lady Longhorn fast break offense off and running.

Hill was also second on the team in blocked shots and 10 steal.

While Hill is known for her rebounding and defensive know-how, she also is a proven scorer averaging 10-plus ppg.

• Although the PAYSON HIGH BOYS SOCCER TEAM turned in one of the finest seasons in program history, they did it without a true superstar.

Instead coach Chris Avakian led the team to the state semifinals behind the efforts 15 seniors fueled by strong work ethics.

Of those seniors, Division IV coaches voted to honor seven for the stellar play during the past season.

Bubba Nielsen, Jeffrey Kelley, Guillermo Lopez, Noe Vega and Logan Morris were named to All-Division first team and Isom White and John Buskirk received honorable mention.

Vega, Lopez and Morris are all repeat honorees, having been named All-Division last season.

Nielsen, the team’s leading scorer, played forward where he provided the points the team needed to reach the state semifinals the past two seasons. Nielsen, 5 feet, 9 inches and 150 pounds, also shines on the PHS basketball team and is a high jumper on the track squad.

Jeffrey Kelley might be best known for his exploits on the highly successful Longhorn golf team, but this past season in soccer he

• The past three BOYS BASKETBALL seasons at PHS could have been titled “The TANNER HINTZE Show.”

That’s because the 6-foot-4-inch low-post stalwart was one of the best players in Division III and most often dominated play on both ends of the court.

During Hintze’ junior campaign he led the team in scoring, averaging 15.4 ppg, which was sixth highest in Section III and 12th best in Division III. Most of his points came in the low blocks where he was able to muscle his way to the hoop for layups, turnaround jumpers, put backs or be fouled.

In fact, he led the Horns in free throw attempts with 122, making 87. That mark was third highest in S-III. Hintze also led the Horns on the boards, averaging 5.4 rebounds per game.

As a sophomore two years ago, Hintze was named 3A East All-Region First Team after leading the Horns in scoring (12.7 ppg) and rebounding (7.7 per game).

His senior year of 2012-13, Hintze played both the 4 and 5 positions, which means he spend most of his time battling down low for rebounds, put backs and close-in shots.

“He’s our only legitimate 5,” Sanchez said.

Among Hintze’s strengths was that he was able to play with his back to the basket or facing it, which is a rarity in high school basketball.

Lady Longhorns softball team adds a page to history books BY

MAX FOSTER

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

In 2012, the Lady Longhorns added yet another defining moment in Longhorn sports with the “Miracle at Mofford” – a come from behind win in the state tournament.

That game will join a storied lineup of never-to-be-forgotten moments in Longhorn history that already includes Bob Halenar’s 1981 tackle for a loss of a Round Valley Elk on a two-point conversion opened the door to a state football championship. Other historic moments include Jeff Pettet’s game winning free throws in the waning moments of the 1979 state championship basketball game at Arizona State University and the 1999 Class 3A state baseball championship game in which Bryan Zumbro pitched the Horns to an 23-11 upset win

over a No. 1 ranked Cactus Shadows.

So last spring’s Lady Longhorns’ rally from a seven-point deficit against Mingus in a state tournament quarterfinal game has some tough competition when it comes to gusty performances by Longhorn teams.

Here’s the way we covered it: “Trailing 7-0 in the bottom of the seventh and final inning, the dreams of Payson High’s first state softball championship were slipping.

But then miraculously, the never-saydie Lady Longhorns staged one of the most amazing rallies ever witnessed in prep softball to edge a gutsy Mingus Marauder team 8-7.

“In the Saturday state quarterfinal game at the Rose Mofford Complex in Phoenix, the Lady Longhorns played 61/2 innings like a high school version of

the 1962 New York Mets team that fumbled and bumbled its way to a 40-120 record.

But despite five errors and numerous mental mistakes that dominated a sloppy game for the first six innings, the PHS players came alive in their final at-bats to score seven runs. That included a grand slam homer by Taylor Petersen.

That dead-knotted the game 7-7 and sent the playoff game into an extra inning.

In the top of the eighth, Payson’s pitching ace Arianna Paulson — who had uncharacteristically given up two home runs in the top of the seventh — rose to the occasion to set the Marauders down in order.

“The first Mingus player to bat grounded out weakly to Paulson and the second flied out to shortstop Natalie Black. The third batter hit a sharp

grounder to third baseman Devann Runzo, who fielded the ball cleanly and threw to first baseman Kaitlyn Wessel for the third out.

“Hooray, great pitching — great defense.

“In the bottom of the eighth, with victory now within grasp, freshman Payton Petersen — the younger sister of standout catcher Taylor Petersen — lined the first pitch offered up to center field, sending her to first where she represented the winning run.

In baseball and softball, a winning strategy on hitting and base running is often, “get ’em on, get ’em over and get ’em in,” which is exactly what unfolded.

“After Runzo — a slap hitting lead-off hitter flied out — Megan Wessel bunted herself on to base, sending Petersen into scoring position at second.

Paulson, next up, fouled off three pitches before lining a double into right field.

Payton Petersen, who was off and running on the hit, steamed into third where she was excitedly waved home by head coach Will Dunman.

The throw to the plate from the Mingus right fielder beat Petersen to the plate, but the PHS freshman slid feet first. The ball popped loose from the Mingus catcher and rolled harmlessly behind her.

‘She’s safe,” the home plate umpire signaled, sending the PHS players into a wild celebration that would rival the Miracle on Ice post-game party.

“In the stands, Payson fans and boosters celebrated with equal enthusiasm knowing their players had pulled off the most improbable of comebacks.”

22

PAYSON ROUNDUP IN THE HEADLINES PROGRESS 2013

Headlines reveal tragedy, disaster ... and strange behavior BY

ALEXIS BECHMAN

ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER

Rim Country suffered its fair share of death, disaster and fear last year, with forest fires, murders, strange crimes and tragic accidents.

Here is a partial list of some of the top stories from the year:

March Ban on synthetic drugs

The Payson Town Council banned the sale of synthetic drugs including bath salts and potpourri, which were flying off the shelves in both Payson and Pine. The cleverly engineered compounds were legal, but potentially dangerous packets of designer drugs. Police had reports of Rim Country teens and adults suffering serious reactions to the thenlegal, synthetic drugs. Town Attorney Tim Wright and Police Chief Don Engler drafted an ordinance to prevent shop owners from selling any “product” used to get high if it’s packaged in a misleading way.

Prominent Payson attorney disbarred

Allegations once-prominent Payson attorney Harlan Green took financial advantage of a mentally disabled woman, mishandled a trust account and neglected his duties prompted the Arizona Supreme Court to disbar him. Green never filed an answer to the Court’s complaint or otherwise defended himself.

Man who scammed vet shelter arrested

Deputies with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Florida captured James Reardon, 42, on warrants of grand theft auto and larceny after reportedly stealing from the local veterans shelter. Reardon reportedly stole thousands and a car from Veterans Helping Veterans before fleeing the area. One of the shelter volunteers helped police nab Reardon.

April

October

Driver dies outside Gisela

Fire beneath Rim contained

After leaving his Gisela home for a job in Winslow, Douglas Glorfield experienced a medical emergency, driving into oncoming traffic and nine feet up an embankment. His trailer landed on its side and Glorfield later died at a hospital.

The Big Canyon Fire near Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery burned through 110 acres before fire crews wrangled it under control. The lightning-caused fire near the hatchery cost roughly $730,000.

November

May

Woman guilty of child abuse and neglect

Sexting, sex spurs cop’s dismissal

Payson Police Officer Josh LaManna, 34, lost his job after admitting that while on duty he sent lewd text messages to two women and had sex with another after entering her home reportedly without permission. LaManna, 34, resigned in lieu of termination after Police Chief Don Engler discovered LaManna was sending and receiving sexually explicit pictures with two women. LaManna, an eight-year veteran, admitted he slept with one of the women while on duty.

June Governor denies Flibotte’s appeal

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rejected a former local real estate agent’s request for a reduction in his 90-year sentence for possession of child pornography. The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency in February 2012 recommended the governor commute Robert Thomas Flibotte’s sentence to five years in jail with lifetime probation, but the governor denied the appeal, offering no comment.

Bears attack campers, construction worker

Bear attacks in June sent two campers and a construction worker to the hospital for injuries. Several bears were killed following the attacks east of town, but officials concluded they were the wrong bears. The string of three attacks started on May 31 when a bear ripped open a tent in the Ponderosa Campground and clawed a woman on the head. On June 21, a bear entered an unfinished house in Thompson Draw about a mile from the campground and nipped a sleeping construction worker on the leg. The most serious attack came on June 24 when a bear tore open a tent and started to drag a Tempe man off into the woods. Other campers scared off the bear. The man survived.

July Man charged with starting $6 million Sunflower Fire

A Mesa man was charged with starting the Sunflower Fire south of Payson inadvertently during a bachelor party. Steven Craig Shiflet, 23, reportedly fired a shotgun which caught the nearby brush on fire despite he and his friends’ efforts to squelch the flames.

August Child dies in tragic crash

A 7-year-old Payson girl died at the end of a tragic chain of events that started with her father fleeing police and rolling his vehicle south of town on Highway 87, just north of Corvair Curve. Gasoa Balas, 36, was charged with second-degree murder, plus a slew of additional counts that included attempting to run over two officers and DUI for the Aug. 1 rollover that claimed the life of his daughter, Calandra Balas.

Man admits to killing infant, abusing girl

Six years after shaking his baby to death, a Payson man pleaded guilty to manslaughter faced with new accusations he had abused another child. Justin Phillip Valencia, 24, not only confessed to striking his 22-month-old daughter in July, but violently shaking his 5-week-old son in 2006, which ultimately killed him. Valencia said he never intended to kill his son; he was just irritated when the baby would not stop crying.

Murder suspect flees to Roosevelt Lake

A White Mountain man wanted in connection with a murder led police on a high-speed chase from Globe to Roosevelt Lake, shooting at multiple officers and eventually fleeing into the forest. After five days in the desert, Gabriel Ross Jaramillo, 57, was arrested after a boater spotted him near the lake.

7.5 pounds of meth nets decade in jail

A 52-year-old New Mexico man will spend nine years in jail after a jury found him guilty of moving $52,500 worth of methamphetamine through Payson. After a three-day trial ended Aug. 31, a jury found Sammy Lee Mitchell guilty of five felony counts, including transporting drugs and possessing drug paraphernalia. Superior Court Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Mitchell Oct. 5 in a Globe courtroom to nine years, with credit for 220 days.

September Woman forges checks to pay restitution

A 38-year-old woman who wrote forged checks in a desperate effort to make a down payment on court-ordered restitution from a previous fraud case was ordered to spend years in jail for forgery. A jury found Sherri Lynn Dashney guilty of theft and forgery after she wrote two bad checks totaling $5,000 to the Gila County Clerk of the Court in February of 2011. Dashney owed the court more than $30,000 in restitution for four previous felony fraud cases. She was already on probation in those cases. With four more felony convictions on her record, Dashney was ordered to serve 19 years in prison.

Officer reprimanded for not revealing he’d been drinking

A Gila County sheriff’s sergeant involved in a shoot-out got a slap on the wrist for failing to tell his supervisor he had been drinking before being called out from home to help look for a wanted fugitive at Roosevelt Lake. Sgt. John France signed a “memorandum of concern” that said he should have told his supervisors he’d been drinking at home before answering a call to chase a murder suspect. However, the internal investigation concluded France did nothing wrong in the course of the chase and shoot-out with the suspect, who escaped into the desert.

After a four-day trial, a jury found a Payson woman guilty of burning her child with cigarettes. The jury found Sarah Michelle Ryan, 31, of Payson, guilty of child abuse and neglect after deliberating for only 3.5 hours. On a fourth charge of influencing a witness, for reportedly telling her daughter to lie to officers, the jury returned a not guilty verdict.

Payson detectives uncovered Ryan had burned her daughter with cigarettes in 2011 after officials at the girl’s school came forward. The jury heard that Ryan burned her 6-year-old daughter on the palms with cigarettes, causing second-degree burns. A few days after the burning, the child told her teacher that her mother burned her with cigarettes and used her as an ashtray. When Payson Police Det. Mike Varga asked the girl how she got her “owies,” she replied, “Mommy burns me.”

December Murder-suicide shocks neighbors

Neighbors watched in horror as Thomas Easley, 70, shot his wife in the driveway of a quiet Payson neighborhood then turned the gun on himself. Easley died later at a Phoenix trauma center, but Payson Realtor Marjeane Easley died instantly in the garage of a house on Phoenix Street, where she had gone to stay in the midst of a bitter divorce from Easley, her husband of 15 years.

Woman gets prison sentence after injecting friend with Percocet

A woman who nearly killed her 16-year-old friend by injecting her with opioids was ordered to serve six years in prison. Superior Court judge Peter Cahill sentenced Jordan Irene Fowler, 22, after she admitted her actions had caused her friend substantial physical and emotional harm. The teen’s mother, Melissa Cochran, told the Roundup that her daughter nearly died from the injections. Cochran found her daughter slumped on their bathroom floor, unresponsive and blue. Fowler had injected the teen with a near lethal combination of Dilaudid and Percocet, court records show.

Several evacuated by helicopter

One person was killed and several others evacuated by medical helicopters in a three-vehicle accident on Highway 260 west of Christopher Creek near the Boy Scout Ranch on a stretch of the highway still limited to two lanes. The nightmarish crash scene with multiple people trapped in crushed vehicles and an army of paramedics, police, fire crews, ambulances and medical helicopters was one of the worst pile ups in recent years. “It was as bad as I’ve seen here,” said Hellsgate Fire Chief Gary Hatch.

Group survives chopper crash in Roosevelt Lake

Three people remarkably survived after their sightseeing helicopter crashed in Roosevelt Lake. A number of boaters pulled the group from the wreckage just moments after it crashed. Months later, a company recovered pieces of the copter from the bottom of the lake.

PAYSON ROUNDUP RIM COUNTRY PROGRESS 2013

23

Wildfire

BY

PETE ALESHIRE

ROUNDUP EDITOR

Only one thing threatens the survival of Rim Country — wildfire.

And we made more progress toward sharply reducing the threat of a community-consuming wildfire this year than probably any single year in a century.

Unless, of course, it all falls apart in a choking black cloud of confusion and recrimination.

Last year the U.S. Forest Service embraced the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), an ambitious plan to reverse a century of muddle to use a reinvented timber industry as a tool to restore forest health. Moreover, after years of lip service and study, the Forest Service actually awarded a 10-year contract to a logging company to thin some 300,000 acres stretching from Rim Country to the Grand Canyon.

Pop a cork. Pour the champagne. We’re saved. Well. Maybe.

Unless maybe the Forest Service picked the wrong contractor, who doesn’t know a thing about business and came up with a prescription for a restored forest that will unravel the hard-won consensus on which 4FRI relies.

Still, the past five years have wrought marvelous changes.

First, just about everyone agrees that with tree densities 100 times greater than natural conditions, the forest is not only a dangerous tinderbox — it’s unhealthy.

Second, just about everyone agrees on the need to create a diverse forest with some thick bits and lots of open stretches — with more meadows, aspen groves, healthy riparian areas and grasslands.

That means clearing out millions of little pines in stunted thickets and shifting back to an open, grassy forest dominated by old-growth trees — greater than 18 inches in diameter.

Third, only a restored timber industry that can make a profit on those millions of small trees seems likely to restore the forest at a cost taxpayers can afford.

Fourth, the U.S. Forest Service must shift from a simple urge to stamp out forest fires to policies that restore fire to its natural role in maintaining these fireadapted ecosystems.

Fifth, we can’t just stand back and let it burn — as the Wallow Fire and the RodeoChediski Fire demonstrated. Both turned into raging crown fires that swept across half a million acres each, burning so hot they inflicted long-term damage on the landscape. In many areas, ponderosa pines may never return. With the size and severity of fires setting new records almost every year, we’ve run out of time to debate the necessary changes.

Still, despite this broad consensus progress toward implementing the necessary changes in land-use policy and fire management remain surprisingly fitful and incomplete.

That certainly applies at the local level, few planning jurisdictions have yet adopt-

Still the greatest danger facing region ed a firewise building code — or implemented comprehensive programs of thinning and fire break creation.

Gila County remains perhaps the most worrisome no-show when it comes to adopting codes that will keep isolated subdivisions in thickly forested areas from burning to the ground in even a modest wildfire. Studies have shown that building codes that require the use of fire-resistant materials — especially on roofs — dramatically increase the resistance of subdivisions to fires. A big wildfire can throw out glowing embers a mile or two ahead of the fire line, readily setting a normal roof on fire long before the wall of flames arrives — and regardless of any buffer zones on the edge of town.

Despite all those studies, Gila County hasn’t even considered a firewise building code. The county building standards apply in many Rim communities, including Pine, which sits nestled in thick forests. Payson has been talking about overhauling its building codes to reduce fire risks for several years, but hasn’t put forward a proposal.

Moreover, despite years of protests, pleadings and worry, many isolated communities in Rim Country still don’t even have an adequate escape route should a wildfire sweep down on their largely unprotected settlements. After the Water Wheel Fire several years ago, Gila County pleaded with the Forest Service to quickly approve projects to create additional escape routes for fire-menaced communi-

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ties like Beaver Valley with only one way in and one way out. The Tonto National Forest responded that approval of such emergency escape routes would have to wait at least a year for the approval of its forest-wide travel management plan.

On the other hand, Gila County has taken the lead in helping provide the resources the Forest Service needs should a wildfire threaten settled areas. The county has built and maintains a series of water bladder stations where firefighting helicopters can quickly take on a load of water. During the tinder dry months of May and June when most of the big fires take place, such pre-positioned water bladders and tanks can mean the difference between holding a fire to half an acre and facing another monster.

Moreover, the Payson Ranger District has proven adept at snagging year-end forest thinning money from the national Forest Service budget. For the past five years, the Tonto National Forest has consistently won millions in such year-end thinning projects, enabling Forest Service contractors to complete a thinned buffer zone around Pine, Strawberry, Payson, Star Valley and other communities. The district hopes to include in the 4FRI project area at least a portion of the 27,000acre Myrtle Project along the Control Road. That thinning project will protect vulnerable communities like Tonto Village and Christopher Creek.

However, only the 4FRI thinning approach promises a solution that begins

to match the scale of the problem.

Unfortunately, the Forest Service’s selection of Pioneer Forest Products as the contractor for the first 300,000 acres last year spurred concerns from the broad-based group that developed the 4FRI approach.

Gila County Supervisor Tommie Martin — one of the driving forces in the 4FRI movement — was among those openly questioning whether Pioneer had the financing or expertise to undertake the massive thinning project, which depend on the contractor building bio-fuel plants and mills that could turn a profit on millions of saplings and small trees.

It costs up to $1,000 per acre to thin and burn off the slash piles, which means it would cost taxpayers about $6 billion annually to thin the tree-choked forests of northern Arizona by hand. The 4FRI approach would give private contractors a guaranteed 10- or 20-year supply of mostly small-diameter trees as an inducement to invest millions in building mills and power plants that could turn a profit on the vast oversupply of small trees.

As it happens, Payson officials hope that the Forest Service will schedule the watershed above the Blue Ridge Reservoir for a 4FRI thinning project as quickly as possible. A crown fire on the small, thickly forested watershed could easily heat the soils enough to make them “hydrophobic,” which would dramatically increase runoff and silting in the reservoir.

“A Trusted Name

for over 100 Years” Locally owned hometown store, takes pride in its caring service and quality selection of appliances, electronics, fitness, lawn & garden care supplies, tools and much more.

928-472-8007 24 HOUR HOTLINE

www.timeoutshelter.org Time Out is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization under IRS code 501©(3). You may e eligible to claim an AZ tax credit for voluntary cash contributions to Time Out during any taxable year.

For more information, you may wish to consult your tax advisor or check the AZ Dept. of Revenue website @ www.azdor.gov.

Services funded in part by the department of Economic Security and the State of AZ. For reasonable accommodations and alternative format, individuals with disabilities may contact the shelter.

Payson Hometown Store

113 E. Highway 260 • 474-6050

24

PAYSON ROUNDUP PROGRESS 2013

CLARK KENSINGTON PAINT

+ PRIMER IN ONE

a NE t A W c e !

Dine “patio style!”

Try it you’ll

• • • • • • •

love it.

Paint and Primer in one Superior coverage in half the time Ultra-smooth finish Environmentally smart, low VOC Easy to clean Stain resistant 120 harmonizing colors

We’re renowned in the Rim Country

for our great variety of entrees & ‘Home Cooking’ cuisine.

Live Right & Dine Well!

Scan the QR code with your mobile phone to learn more about Clark+Kensington.

201 W. Main, Suite J Next to Sawmill Theater

Hardware & Nursery

507 N. Beeline Hwy. (928 928 928) 474-5238 OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

474-7411

Open Sun-Wed 10am to 8pm and Thurs-Sat 10amto to 9pm Open Sunday-Wednesday 10am 8pm and to 9pmBest Come seeThursday-Saturday and taste why we’re always10am voted Payson’s

9 Years, Same Staff — We just keep growing!!!

201 W. Main Street, Suite C • Payson, AZ

Barbara Wilembrecht, Owner

• Classes

• Paper & Metal Memberships

• Make & Take Tuesdays

• Coffee Clutch

• In Store Crops

• Brenda’s Album-In-A-Day Class

• Weekend Two Day Crops

• 15 Teachers

Always something new to learn!

See store for details for these great deals!

Make your card of the week for only $2.50 Bring your projects and use our tools!

Coffee, chatting and sharing in fun!

(928) 468-1188 • Fax (928) 468-1441 mail@paperandmetalscrappers.com Store Hours: Mon-Fri 9-5, Sat 9-4 • Sun Special Scheduled classes only

Civil Litigation • Mediation/Arbitration Corporate Advice

Law Offices of Mary Brooksby, PLLC

PAYSON’S PREMIER REAL ESTATE AGENT For superior service, you can count on Kim Ross

Direct: (928) 978-1003 Toll Free: (800) 980-1003 • Fax: (928) 222-0035 Kim@KimRoss1.com www.VISITPAYSON.com

Serving Payson clients since 1997 Located at Fargo’s Professional Plaza 620 E Hwy 260, Suite C, Payson, AZ 85541

928-476-7167

Kim Ross

Associate Broker/REALTOR® ABR, CRS, CLHMS, GRI, LTG

ARIZONA REALTY Each office is independently Owned and Operated