WILLIAMS—The Williams City Council will meet Thursday at 7 pm at the Williams City Council Chambers on First Street. The agenda includes the following items:
The council may appoint Terri Sutton to the Housing Authority Board.
The council is also considering Resolution No. 1290 to authorize renewal of membership in the Rural Arizona Group trust for the next three years.
They may also approve an IGA with Coconino County for the use of the City of Williams’ transfer station by County residents.
There will also be a discussion which may decide the future of the Kiwanis’ seasonal swap meet on the city property across the street from Monument Park. There have been some rumblings about the annual event in the past. People who are interested in ensuring the swap meet continues should consider being at the meeting to speak in support of the event.
The council will also discuss and determine action to be taken regarding Impact Fees which was tabled from the March 14th meeting.
WILLIAMS—The local scout troops are once again Scouting for Food to assist the Williams food bank. They are delivering bags to houses for residents to place food into. They ask that residents put food in the bag and set the bags outside on the sidewalk by 9 am this Saturday, April 13.
The troops/packs that are participating are 140 sponsored by the United Methodist Church and Lions Club and 138 sponsored by the Church of the Latter Day Saints in Williams.
During this time when there are no holidays, people tend to forget that there are still needs in our community. This is a chance to continue to help your neighbors in need.
WILLIAMS—The advisory committee for the H.A. Clark Memorial Airport will meet Monday, April 15 at 5:30 pm. The committee will welcome new members and John Ferrier will discuss a hanger proposal and the ground school.
The long-range forecast indicates a beautiful weekend for fishing and hiking with temperatures in the upper 60s dropping to only the upper 30s at night. Feel free to take in the Habitat for Humanity Opry night at the rodeo barn Friday night or the Egg Race on Saturday to benefit the Williams Aquatic Center.
In fact you should take in the great weather this weekend which gives way to possible rain and snow and cooler temperatures on Monday and Tuesday. The temperatures, though, are only expected to drop to the upper 50s. The weather is expected to clear by Wednesday.
The Town of Chino Valley and the Prescott Sportsmen’s Club will co-host the grand opening of the Chino Valley Shooting Facility Saturday.
The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. with a ribbon cutting, followed by remarks from several speakers including Secretary of State Ken Bennett, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, Arizona Rep. Karen Fann, Yavapai County Supervisor Craig Brown, and Mayor Chris Marley.
Representatives form the National Rifle Association and the Arizona Game and Fish Department also will be on hand for the dedication.
The opening will include the dedication of a 911 monument and several shooting demonstrations, including black powder shooting, cowboy action demonstrations, and cowboy mounted shooting.
Free shooting will be available from noon to 4 p.m. A lunch will be provided as a fundraiser for the club’s Junior High Power Team.
Cindy Ksenzulak, president of the Prescott Sportsmen’s Club, said that while her group has been anxiously looking forward to the grand opening, the normal three to five year time line for opening a range of this size was shortened quite a bit for the CVSF.
In a staggering case of affirmative action gone wild, officials in a major U.S. city are actually recruiting minorities to be lifeguards at public pools even if they’re not good swimmers. It’s all in the name of diversity.
You can’t make this stuff up. It’s a real-life story out of Phoenix, the capitol of Arizona and the nation’s sixth-largest city. It has more than 1.4 million residents and, among its official mottos is “value and respect” of diversity. This means “more than gender and race,” according to the city’s official website. It also encompasses “uniqueness and individuality” and embracing differences. “We put this belief into action to provide effective services to our diverse community.”
Evidently officials are willing to compromise those “effective services” at 29 public swimming pools spread throughout the city. To diversify the lifeguard force, Phoenix will spend thousands of dollars to recruit minorities even if they’re not strong swimmers, according to an official quoted in a news report. Blacks, Latinos and Asians who may not necessarily qualify can still get hired, says the city official who adds that “we will work with you in your swimming abilities.”
There’s a good reason the city is hiring lifeguards that can’t swim. Public pools are largely used by Latino and African-American kids, but most of the lifeguards are white and this creates a huge problem. “The kids in the pool are all either Hispanic or black or whatever, and every lifeguard is white and we don’t like that,” says a Phoenix official quoted in the story. She added that “the kids don’t relate; there’s language issues.”
WILLIAMS—At the City Council meeting March 28th, Mike Brown of Western Destinations proposed the instillation of a ride called Zip Line perhaps in the area of Cureton Park. The proposed cost of rides would be approximately $39 with a re-ride costing half of that. Williams residents would get a discounted price.
The ride, Mr. Brown indicated, could provide as many as forty jobs in Williams. Local residents would be trained to conduct the ride safely and the ride would be insured for $5 million.
Councilman Don Dent considered what affect such a ride would have on the Route 66 image that Williams has built up. Joplin Missouri and Branson Missouri have theme parks along, or in the area of, Route 66 both trading off on the Route 66 name. Knight’s Action Park operates in Springfield, Illinois along the Mother Road.
Blog BatesLine by Michael Bates of Tulsa Okalahoma asked: Wouldn’t it be cool to restore Crystal City on Historic Route 66 as an amusement park, right next to a restored Red Fork Main Street?
Dwayne the canoe guy commented:
This is great news. There is a small amusement ‘park’ on Route 66 in Joplin but it would be great to have a good sized park like Bell’s rockin & rollin on the Mother Road. Especially with a minigolf with 66 icons (wigwam motel, round barn, gemini giant, cadillac ranch)
Right here in Williams, Napolitano approved a special taxing district for a theme park in Williams that never developed. That action even caused the County Board of Supervisors to raise property taxes for a short time. So you now know what a “special taxing district” is.
Flagstaff operates a smaller version of the Zip Line ride at their Extreme Adventure Course near the fairgrounds as seen in the following video.
There are currently Zip Line rides in Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Hawaii. For the longest and fastest Zip Line in the world, you will need a ticket to South Africa.
Mr. Brown indicated that the ride would be “low impact” meaning that it could be easily removed leaving no marks if it did not do well. However, the engineering in the videos presented does not appear to bear that out. It appears that Williams would have to build a large tower to make the ride. It is also unclear how the project would impact softball and little league games at the park.
While the project does not seem appropriate in the indicated area, it could be an interesting compliment to the Bearizona drive through wildlife park. Another area of possible interest might be the Williams snow play area.
Fifteen months before the Fast & Furious gun scandal was unmasked in public, Homeland Security agents along the Arizona border recognized that their colleagues at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were allowing illegal guns to flow across the border to Mexican drug gangs in violation of federal policy.
The agents working for Homeland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raised objections internally to their bosses and to their ATF colleagues in late 2009 without success, but did not escalate their concerns to superiors in Washington, according to a new Homeland Security inspector general report that uncovered yet another missed opportunity inside government to stop the bungled gun trafficking investigation.
“Most Homeland Security Investigations personnel in Arizona who received information about the investigation recognized that the task force was using a flawed methodology, which was contrary to ICE policy and practices for weapons smuggling investigations,” the inspector general concluded in a little-noticed report issued late last month.
And the special agent in charge in the case for Homeland failed to appreciate that the flawed tactics in the investigation – allowing weapons to “walk” across the border – violated ICE policies, the report added.
ARKANSAS—Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has asked Exxon to preserve all documents relating to the oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas last Friday the 31st. The rupture of the pipeline caused evacuation of families from the affected neighborhood. This accident comes on the heels of the accident at the Arkansas One nuclear power plant. That accident release no harmful material into the atmosphere.
The spill covered lawns and streets and may have an affect Lake Conway. The 6700-acre lake is the largest man-made fishing reservoir in the U.S.
One resident documented the event in the following video.
The spill occurred from a burst in the 65-year old, 848-mile Pegasus line which routes crude oil from Canada to Texas. This calls into question the safety of a proposed Keystone XL pipeline project which would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
WILLIAMS—The Williams City Council will meet Thursday at 7 pm at the Williams City Council Chambers on First Street. The agenda includes the following items:
