Interstate 10 construction alert

 

Paving begins Monday on I-10 east of Quartzsite  YUMA - The Arizona Department of Transportation will repave a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 10 between the Maricopa County line and Harquahala Valley Road (exit 81) beginning Monday (April 27).  

Renewable Power on Public Lands - from AZ Central

Renewable power on public lands

http://www.azdatapages.com/datacenter/business/power-plants.html?fCompany_project=%25

Developers from across the nation and globe have taken out 70 applications for wind and solar power plants on acreage owned by the Bureau of Land Management and State Trust in Arizona. If the projects get built, the plans are likely to change. For example, NextLight Renewable Power is researching four sites for solar-thermal power plants, but Tempe-based First Solar Inc. has agreed to buy the company, and First Solar uses photovoltaic technology.

Company	Megawatts	Technology	Location
Boulevard Associates LLC (NextEra Energy Resources)	500	Concentrating solar power (CSP) trough	Maricopa Co. between HarquahalaMtns. and Vulture Mtns south of Aguila AZ.	Details
Boulevard Associates LLC (NextEra Energy Resources)	500	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. and south of Big HornMountains and north of I-10 (exit 81)	Details
Ausra AZ II LLC	840	CSP trough (+280MWPrivate)	Maricopa Co. and southeast of Big HornMountains and north of I-10	Details
Iberdrola Renewables	900	CSP fresnel lens	Maricopa Co. and southwest of Big HornMountains and north of I-10.	Details
Horizon Wind Energy LLC	250	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. between HarquahalaMtns. and Vulture Mtns. south of Aguila AZ.	Details
AZ Solar Investments	500	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. and southwest of Big Horn Mountains and north of I-10.	Details
LSR Jackrabbit	500	CSP tower	Maricopa Co. in the Hassayampa Plain near JackrabbitWash	Details
Boulevard Associates LLC (NextEra Energy Resources)	375	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. east of SR85 and the Jojoba Substation	Details
Iberdrola Renewables	300	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. in Hyder Valley	Details
OptiSolar	500	Photovoltaic	Maricopa Co.South of Gila Bend	Details
OptiSolar	300	Photovoltaic	Maricopa Co.Saddle Mtn. south of 1-10	Details
Arizona Renewable Ventures	500	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. in Dendora Valley next to the Woolsey Peak Wilderness	Details
LSR Palo Verde	600	CSP trough	Maricopa Co. in Palo Verde Valley south of the Palo Verde Hills North of Eliot Road	Details
Arlington West	573	Photovoltaic	West of Arlington Valley	Details
Burnt Well	80	Photovoltaic	West of Burnt Well in Maricopa County, south of I-10	Details
Boulevard Associates LLC (NextEra Energy Resources)	250	CSP trough	Highway 93 & White Hills Road	Details
Boulevard Associates LLC (NextEra Energy Resources)	250	CSP trough	Highway 93 & Temple Bar Road	Details
Iberdrola Renewables	1,500	CSP trough	Lands both East of Hovatter Road along and South of I-10	Details
Iberdrola Renewables	2,000	CSP trough	Lands West of Hovatter Road and South of I-10	Details
Iberdrola Renewables	2,000	CSP trough	Lands South of Quartzite in the Stone Cabin area on both the East and West sides of U.S. 95	Details
NextLight Renewable Power LLC	500	CSP trough	Located East of New WaterMtns.	Details
NextLight Renewable Power LLC	500	CSP trough	Northeast of EagletailMtns.	Details
NextLight Renewable Power LLC	500	CSP trough	Hyder area	Details
NextLight Renewable Power LLC	500	CSP trough	South of Quartzsite	Details
Solar Reserve	600	CSP tower	Black Rock Hill area	Details
Solar Reserve	600	CSP tower	North of Quartzsite	Details
Solar Reserve	600	CSP tower	Hyder area	Details
Wildcat Quartzsite LLC (BrightSource Energy)	800	CSP tower	Along U.S. Hwy 95 South of Quartzsite	Details
Wildcat Abrams LLC (BrightSource Energy)	400	CSP tower	Northwest of Growler	Details
Horizon Wind Energy LLC	250	CSP trough	North of Wenden AZ south of the HarcuvarMountains	Details
Boulevard Assoc. LLC (NextEra Energy Resources)	1,000	CSP trough	Bouse	Details
Wildcat Harcuvar South LLC	800	CSP tower	North of McMullen Valley	Details
Solar Reserve	250	Photovoltaic	San Simon	Details
Gamesa Energy USA, LLC, GEUSA Hurricane Cliffs Site Testing &Monitoring Project Area	Met Towers Type II	Wind	Hurricane Cliffs	Details
Foresight Wind, Foresight Hurricane Cliffs Site Testing &Monitoring Project Area	Met Towers Type II	Wind	Hurricane Cliffs	Details
Foresight Wind, Foresight Black Rock Site Testing &Monitoring Project Area	Met Towers Type II	Wind	Seegmiller, Mokaac, and Low Mountains	Details
Mustang Wind, LLC,Mustang Buckskin Site Testing &Monitoring Project Area	Met Towers Type II	Wind	BuckskinMountain	Details
BP Wind Energy North America, Inc.,Mohave County Wind Farm Development Project	500	Wind	White Hills northwest of Kingman	Details
MusicMountain Wind Power, LLC	Met Towers Type II	Wind	Music Mountains, East of Antares Rd.	Details
Solar Arizona, LLC	Met Towers Type II	Wind	South of White Hills, East of Hwy 93	Details
Pacific Wind Development LLC (Iberdrola Renewables), Dolan Springs	Met Towers Type II	Wind	Northwest of Red Lake	Details
Iberdrola Renewables, Dry Lake	Met Towers Type III	Wind		Details
WindMatrix	Met Towers Type II	Wind		Details
Horizon Wind Energy, LLC	Met Towers Type II	Wind		Details
Oak Creek Energy Systems Inc.	Met Towers Type II	Wind		Details
Zenith Energy LLC	not stated	Photovoltaic	South of St. George, Utah.	Details
Albiassa Solar	200	CSP trough (wet cooled)	Kingman	Details
Enviromission	250	Solar convection tower	Parker	Details
Enviromission	250	Solar convection tower	Parker	Details
Solar Reserve	200	CSP tower (hybrid cooling)	Parker	Details
Blue Tower LLC	40	Photovoltaic	Quartzite	Details
Invenergy	40	Photovoltaic	West of Phoenix, north of I-10 near Tonopah	Details
Ausra	100	CSP fresnel lense (wet cooling)	West of Phoenix, south of I-10 near Tonopah	Details
Res Americas	100	CSP trough (wet cooled)	West of Phoenix, south of I-10 near Tonopah	Details
AVSE I and II	250	CSP trough (wet cooled)	West of Phoenix, south of I-10 near Wintersburg	Details
AVSE III	65	Photovoltaic	West of Buckeye, south of I-10	Details
AZ Solar LLC	100	Photovoltaic	West of Phoenix, north of I-10 and south of White Tank Mountain Regional Park	Details
Iberdrola Renewables	30	Photovoltaic	East of Casa Grande	Details
Res Americas	180	CSP trough (wet cooled)	Southwest of Gila Bend	Details
Invenergy	40	Photovoltaic	West of Gila Bend, north of Interstate 8	Details
Solar Reserve	200	CSP tower (hybrid cooling)	West of Gila Bend, north of Interstate 8	Details
Acciona	100	CSP trough (wet cooled)	East of Yuma, south of Interstate 8	Details
Acciona	100	CSP trough (wet cooled)	East of Yuma, south of Interstate 8	Details
Ausra	150	CSP fresnel lense (wet cooling)	North of Yuma	Details
EC&R West LLC	35	Photovoltaic	South of Yuma	Details
Iberdrola Renewables, Dry Lake	60	Wind	Completed near Snowflake	Details
Iberdrola Renewables, Dry Lake II	65	Wind	Adjacent to Dry Lake I near Snowflake	Details
Foresight Wind	85	Wind	Near the Aubrey Cliffs south of Grand Canyon.	Details
Foresight Wind, Grapevine Canyon Wind	200	Wind	Southeast of Flagstaff	Details
Foresight Wind	not stated	Wind	West of Springerville	Details

Al Johnson promoted to assistant town manager?

Rumors have been circulating for weeks that "Building Official" Al Johnson was being groomed by Town misManager Alex Taft as her eventual replacement. Now, it appears those rumors are true.

It has not gone unnoticed, that the Quartzsite building official has been introducing himself as "director of planning and zoning", a title not listed on his business cards, the town website,  nor approved by council in open meeting. Now, it appears Al Johnson has received yet another promotion without advertising for the open position or a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and without public approval by the town council.

On Friday, Mayor Ed Foster received an open records request that had been denied, even though the Office of the AZ Attorney General has previously informed the town that the public can have that information. Whose signature authorized this denial of public information? Why Al Johnson, of course! Something he would only have the authority to sign off on if he had been promoted to a different position.

Maybe, Johnson/Taft denied the request for current payroll because it would show that Johnson is receiving an increase or change in payroll status. Building Official is an employee without a contract, but Taft's position as Town Manager is a salary under contract.  Something here smells fishier than the dumpster behind a tuna processing plant!

DFP publisher Jones arrested after suing for police harassment!

Tuesday night's public meeting with the BLM and SolarReserve was crowded, informative, and constantly disrupted by the Quartzsite Police. 

Apparently, on her way into the meeting, Mrs. Jones was approached by QPD Sgt. Xavier Frausto (husband of the town magistrate) who wanted her to sign a citation for "simulating legal process".

A. R.S. § 13-2814

A. A person commits simulating legal process if such person knowingly sends or delivers to another any document falsely purporting to be an order or other document that simulates civil or criminal process.

B. Simulating legal process is a class 2 misdemeanor. 

Ms. Jones walked past Sgt. Frausto, and into Quartzsite Town Hall. When Jones refused to sign the citation in front of a crowded room of witnesses, Frausto reportedly tried to hand her the citation to which Jones responded "I'm not interested in anything that comes from you" and she took a seat. Quartzsite police approached her husband John with a citation for the same offense. Sgt. Frausto told him if he refused, the citation would be sent in the mail.

Witnesses report that Mrs. Jones got up from her seat in the second row and walked to where her husband was sitting in the back of the room. From halfway across the room and as she passed the rows of chairs, Jones gave "the finger" to Starr Bearcat, whom she believed had been actively filming the interaction between Quartzsite Police and the Jones', and who previously posted numerous false comments and defamatory videos about them on 

http://www.youtube.com/user/QWatchingEyes

Mrs. Jones spoke briefly with her husband and sat back down in her seat.

As the meeting began, John  was approached by QPD Officer Herlen Yeomans. Yeomans told John that if he refused to sign, he had been instructed by the sergeant to arrest him. John reports that he then asked to see the law he had allegedly broken, but when he followed Yeomans outside he was handcuffed.

Frausto and Yeomans escorted Jones to the unmarked black QPD SUV. Discussion ensued between the three, and Yeomans asked Frausto if Jones could sign the citation. Jones informed the officers that his wife had filed a lawsuit against Police Chief Jeff Gilbert, Town Manager Alexandra Taft, and the incorporated town for police harassment days earlier, and that Taft had been served several hours before the meeting. Jones was released, he signed the citation, and did not return to the meeting.

During the meeting, QPD officers brought Mrs. Jones her husbands wallet, and repeatedly tried to lure her outside to speak with her husband "before he went to jail" but she refused to speak, or leave with them. 

When the meeting ended, Mrs. Jones tried unsuccessfully to reach her attorney by phone. She then handed her belongings to Mayor Ed Foster and told him "Don't bail me out". 

Reportedly, as Jones tried to leave the room, she was handcuffed by Quartzsite Police Chief Jeff Gilbert, who had arrived on the scene and was blocking her exit. When she asked what she was under arrest for, Gilbert responded "I'll tell you later". Jones called out to the crowd "Hey everybody! These fine gentleman are refusing to tell me what I'm under arrest for!" She then asked Gilbert "Does this have anything to do with the lawsuit I served on you earlier today?" He responded "You didn't serve me." and Jones informed him "I served the town." She was then escorted through town offices to a cell in the back of town hall before being transferred to the La Paz County jail.

The next day, Mrs. Jones, who has no prior convictions, was released on her own recognizance by Judge Michael Newman.

The Jones case in County Superior Court is # CV201100065

and claims damages for "harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress".

Duh! Do you think?

Quartzsite Solar Energy Project meeting is this Tuesday night!

Be there:  6-8 pm

April 19, at the Quartzsite Town Hall, 465 N. Plymouth Ave

http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/energy/solar/quartzsite_solar_energy.html

Proposed Project

Quartzsite Solar Energy proposes to construct a 100-megawatt solar-powered electrical generation facility in La Paz County, Arizona. The project is proposed for an area about 10 miles north of Quartzsite and adjacent to Arizona State Route 95. The generation plant, power line and ancillary facilities would be on BLM-administered land.

The proposed project would use concentrating solar “power tower” technology to capture the sun’s heat to make steam, which would power traditional steam turbine generators.
The solar power facility would include a 653-foot tower, which would be the receiver of energy reflected from solar fields. The solar fields are made up of heliostats, which are a collection of mirrors. The project would also include a thermal energy storage system.
The lead federal agency dealing with the Quartzsite Solar Energy application is the Western Area Power Authority (WAPA). The BLM is a cooperating agency.

WAPA is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the application. WAPA will review the potential environmental impacts of constructing, operating, and maintaining the proposed project. Information on the project  is available from WAPA.
Comments on the project can be sent to:

Bill Werner

Western Area Power Administration

Desert Southwest Region

P.O. Box 6457

615 S. 43^rd Avenue

Phoenix, AZ 85005

Telephone: (602) 605-2525

Fax: (602) 605-2630

E-mail: quartzsitesolarEIS@wapa.gov

http://www.wapa.gov/transmission/quartzsitesolar.htm 

ping report available The Quartzsite Solar Energy Project EIS Scoping Summary Report is now available. The report summarizes the scoping process for the Quartzsite Solar Energy Project and includes materials presented to the public during scoping and a summary of the comments received.
Scoping report (413 kb pdf)
Appendix A - Announcements (2.8 MB pdf)
Appendix B - Public Scoping Meeting Materials (4.1 MB pdf)
Appendix C - Agency Coordination and Consultation (664 kb pdf)

Scoping materials

Scoping meeting display boards (1.3 MB pdf)
Scoping meeting presentation (630 kb pdf)
Comment form - online
Newsletter - January 2010
Scoping meeting announcement poster (600 kb pdf)
Scoping meeting advertisement (151 kb pdf)
Scoping meeting news release - January 21, 2010
Project area map

Project updates

Notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (56 kb pdf)
EIS determination

Contact information

Ms. Mary Barger
NEPA Document Manager
Western Area Power Administration
P.O. Box 6457
Phoenix, AZ  85005-6457
Fax: 602-605-2630
E-mail: quartzsitesolarEIS@wapa.gov

 
From the Yuma Sun opinion section:


SOLAR ENERGY DESTROYS AREAS

April 14, 2011 6:31 PM

An article in the Yuma Sun on April 2 reported that Bureau of Land Management is considering amending the land use plan for a large area north of Quartzsite. Quartzsite Solar Energy LLC has applied for a right of way to construct a facility covering approximately 1,450 acres with mirrors that will reflect to a 654-foot tower.

Currently the area is designated as “Visual Resource Management Class III.” This designation indicates that change to the landscape in the area should only be moderate. But 1,450 acres of mirrors and a 654-foot tower could hardly be considered moderate.

There are already three solar projects under construction between Dateland and Gila Bend. A large ranch in the Chino Valley area has closed its gates, causing Arizona Game and Fish to close the 19B Wildlife Management area to hunting in the late summer and fall. Part of the ranch is state trust land.

These solar projects cover thousands of acres of wildlife habitat and open spaces. Wildlife travel corridors to feed and water are being disrupted. Sportsmen and recreationists are being forced to go elsewhere.

What do Arizona and the local communities get out of all of this? Not much. Maybe a little cash for leases and taxes. There has been no indication that a single watt of energy will be provided to customers in Arizona. The indications are that all of the power will go to California.

If California has such a great need for energy, let them destroy the habitat within their own borders.

BLM will hold two public meetings: one in Yuma from 6-8 p.m., April 18, at the Yuma BLM Field Office, 2555 E. Gila Ridge Road, and one in Quartzsite from 6-8 p.m., April 19, at the Quartzsite Town Hall, 465 N. Plymouth Ave. If you value the outdoors, be there and voice your opinion.

George Reiners

Yuma

Quirky Quartzsite makes LA Times!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-quartzsite-20110416,0,1914587,full.story

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

April 16, 2011

Reporting from Quartzsite, Ariz.— 

Desert town clings to its quirkiness

Quartzsite, Ariz., is a truck stop town of 3,600 that draws about 1 million visitors in winter with its gem shows, swap meets and 'naked bookseller.' Officials are looking for ways to boost revenue in the off-season, but locals and the snowbirds don't want the town's character to be lost.

Debbie Eldridge was lolling about her 40-foot-long Monaco Diplomat luxury motor home with her twin sister, Betty Hayden, cooling off with a Diet Pepsi after a marathon morning at the flea markets.

Eldridge, 58, had reaped a modest haul — a dog toy for her beloved bichon, Boomer, and a decorative sun sculpture that she planned to display in the backyard of her real home in Merced, Calif.

Hayden was sporting her newest acquisition: a pink fringed T-shirt that read, "Quartzsite, Arizona."

The girls, as their husbands call them, come here every winter for some shopping, some sun and a break from the rhythm of retired life. Begrudgingly, they bring the boys along, too.
 
PHOTOS: The "naked bookseller," snowbirds and the desert 


The couples moor their RVs side-by-side at the Desert Oasis trailer park off Highway 95, where about $300 a month gets you a parking space, sewer hookups and a front-row seat for one of America's oddest annual migrations.

During the scorching summer months, Quartzsite is little more than a hiccup on the highway, a truck stop town of 3,600 baking in the Sonoran Desert where road trippers pull off for gas before crossing into or out of California.
Then winter blows in.

From October to April, more than 1 million people pass through, town officials estimate. Some stay only a week or two. Others call it home for the season.

During that time, Quartzsite may be the most eccentric place in the country, a weird Western outpost where "tea party" retirees mingle with cigarette-rolling rock hounds and white-haired hippies — and where no one bats an eye at a bare-bottomed bookseller.

But with that diversity come various views of what the town should be, and sometimes they conflict. After decades of watching its population rise and fall, Quartzsite has hit a midlife crisis, with some wondering if the town needs to rein in its freewheeling ways.

"This was like an Old West town," said Jake Jakubec, a 66-year-old retired truck driver who has wintered in Quartzsite since the 1990s. "We bought and sold and partied and camped. We had a ball here."

Jakubec, who lives out of a souped-up Chevrolet van, was sitting on a porch just off Main Street, trading tall tales with his old friend Harold Donaldson, 64. Both men have the archetypal Quartzsite look: sun-freckled skin that bears a resemblance to boot leather, and T-shirts the color of dust.

"Alien intervention is very real," Donaldson was saying when Jakubec cut him off.

"Harold, am I right or am I wrong?" Jakubec said. "They're trying to make this place into Palm Springs."

"Ah, it's a commercial deal now," Donaldson said, sighing. "It used to be you could just drive up here, throw your tarp down, pay the property owner $5, and that was all."

Town Manager Alex Taft would like naysayers like Donaldson and Jakubec to spend a week in her shoes. Then they'd have to reckon with the question she faces: How is a town with no supermarket and only 13 police officers supposed to cope with such a massive swell of people?

"It's kind of a wall of humanity," Taft said. Some days, traffic is so thick it's faster to walk than drive.

The snowbirds putter in from all directions in motor homes and campers, which they hitch up at one of Quartzsite's 70-plus trailer parks or on the federal land that sprawls in all directions beyond the town limits.

With metal roofs glittering amidst the saltbush and saguaro, the rigs look like covered wagons from a distance. Some part-time residents, like the Eldridges, dress up their lots with plastic flamingoes and fake palm trees.

Many are drawn by the gem and mineral shows that materialize each year in windswept tents along the side of the road.

One of the largest is the Tyson Wells Rock and Gem Show, a temporary tent city where bargain hunters pick through cardboard boxes brimming with onyx, rose quartz, meteorite and Brazilian jade. Other essentials for sale include gun holsters, hula hoops and diabetic socks, along with the sorts of deep-fried concoctions typically hawked at state fairs.

At 10 a.m. on a recent day, patrons were already knocking back cold ones at Beer Bellys, a bar set up on a patch of AstroTurf in the middle of it all.

"It's kind of like a big carnival," said Charlene Mullens, 58, who was dusting off jewelry at Dave's Bead Emporium. "People just have a good ol' time."

Nobody's sure exactly how Quartzsite became a haven for the RV set. But many say it may have started in the 1960s when a woman traveling west broke down on Interstate 10.

She had four young girls and no money to fix her station wagon, so she sold the kids' toys. Soon, others were imitating, exhibiting their wares in the backs of pickup trucks.

A man named Howard Armstrong decided to make it official. He started a winter swap meet called the Main Event, which drew crowds with its bargains and diversions (hot air balloon rides and camel races). Armstrong died in 2004 and the ownership changed. The swap meet still takes place every January, but now "a lot of that festivity is gone because he's gone," Taft said.

Taft is from Connecticut, by way of Phoenix. She is slim with chin-length silver hair and wears a silk scarf patterned with cats. She started coming here in the 1990s and stayed because the climate helped her health. She volunteered at the library — which sees 1,000 daily visitors in the winter — and was eventually drafted to help the town deal with its unique budget challenges.

Taft said the town charges vendors only $50 for a six-month license. Quartzsite does not collect property taxes and relies heavily on grants, which help pay for extra workers in winter. What the town needs, Taft says, are year-round attractions, fairgrounds maybe, as well as industry and stores. But she said the seasonal population shifts make it hard to attract investors.

Still, Police Chief Jeff Gilbert said growth is inevitable. "It's kind of a blank slate," he said. "It's a prime opportunity!"

To some folks, that's the problem. Jade Jones, editor of the Desert Freedom Press, helped organize a campaign this year to recall five of seven town council members.

A few weeks before the March election, Jones, 45, was bent over a laptop in a cramped trailer, strategizing with her closest political allies, Michael Roth, who pens a column in the paper called "The Patriot's Corner," and Quartzsite Mayor Ed Foster. A row of caged dogs howled at full volume. (Jones also runs a pet grooming and boarding business.)

"I get about as much respect here as I get on the council," Foster said.

"You probably get more here," Jones quipped.

Jones and Roth met a few years ago at a presidential campaign event for Ron Paul. They were upset with town officials, who they felt were too intent on steering Quartzsite away from its free-market swap-meet roots.

So they started attending council meetings with cameras and posting the footage on YouTube. Roth was arrested at one meeting. Not long after, Jones was arrested at her home after an altercation with a building inspector. Her framed mug shot hangs near her collection of dog show trophies.

"We're taking back America one small town at a time," Jones said.

When voters went to the polls March 8, they chose not to recall the council members. Taft, the town manager, said the results showed that people want to move Quartzsite into the future.

But for now, eccentric Quartzsite remains. Consider Shanana "Rain" Golden-Bear, editor of the town's other weekly newspaper, the Desert Messenger, who has thunderclouds tattooed on her cheeks; or Pinky Williams, a mountain man from Texas who journeys to Quartzsite each year to sell knives fashioned out of arrowheads and raccoon jaws. "I was born a hundred years too late," he says.

And then there's Paul Winer, who started coming here with his wife, Joanne, 61, in the 1990s to sell used books — three for $1 — out of a tent, but who now owns a bookstore with 180,000 titles.

Winer, 67, saves on taxes because the store, which has plastic tarp walls that unfurl from a frame, is technically an outdoor structure. He's good at skirting laws. A nudist, he covers up at work with a teeny thong, narrowly fitting the criteria for public decency.

Quartzsite's famed "naked bookseller" estimates that he poses for photographs 8,000 times a year with a variety of visitors, from Asian tourists to Willie Nelson types. He once performed across North America, family in tow, as an "adult cabaret" artist (stage name "Sweet Pie").

In 1991, after watching "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" with his daughter while on the road, she asked, "What is a neighborhood?" So they settled in Quartzsite, near Yuma, where Winer's parents retired.

Several years later, his daughter died at age 8 of a viral heart infection. Winer said he and his wife stayed "because this is the place where people remember her."

They stayed, too, because Quartzsite is a good fit. As night fell on the desert, Winer sat at a piano in his shop and danced his fingers across the keys, unsettling dust.

"I got a little nothing," he crooned. "A little nothing nowhere."

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Former Mayor Richard Oldham takes legal action against Quartzsite

A Notice of Claim was served upon the town yesterday afternoon, through it's CEO, Mayor Ed Foster by process server Duce Minor.. This is the prerequisite first step to a lawsuit over the destruction of Oldham's airstrip by Quartzsite Public Works employeees without a court order. The town will now have 90 days to pay Oldham $250,000 for diminuation of his land under the AZ Property Protection Act, or risk a full blown lawsuit they have no hope of winning. Oldham intends to sue the town and councilmembers both jointly and severally, according to the Notice.  He reports filing two unanswered requests for the work order showing who authorized this warrantless action, but has received no response as of yet.

Mayor challenges recall

Friday, Quartzsite Mayor Ed Foster filed papers in the La Paz County Superior Court to contest the petitions for his recall. Apparently, several pages did not have the proper notary seal as required by law. 
ARS 41-313-B-2 "2. Provide and keep the official seal that is imprinted in dark ink with the words "notary public", the name of the county in which the notary is commissioned, the name of the notary as it appears on the notarial application, the great seal of the state of Arizona and the expiration date of the notarial commission.")
Additionally, there appear to be discrepancies with some of the signers - for instance, the address allegedly used by former Horizon Community Bank Manager Susan Fonda may not match...more on these claims as information becomes available.

Mesa, AZ fire chief caught with pants down...in the barn???

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/fire-chief-caught-lamb

Fire Chief Caught On The Lamb

Arizona man, 52, found with pants down in neighbor's barn

 

MARCH 7--If our mail is any indication, many of you are very interested in the case of the Arizona man who was arrested this weekend after being found in a neighbor's barn with his pants down and a gray lamb at his side. Leroy Johnson, a deputy chief with the Mesa Fire Department, was nabbed shortly after the neighbor's teenage daughter watched him drag the animal into the family barn Saturday afternoon. When later confronted, the 52-year-old Johnson, who apparently had been drinking, told the neighbor (who has the improbable name of Alan Goats), 'You caught me Alan, I tried to fuck your sheep.' We'll let you explore all the gory details yourself, via a (too) detailed Maricopa County Sheriff's Office report. Johnson, seen at right in a booking photo, was charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, and public sexual indecency. Along with releasing its report on the incident, the sheriff's office provided TSG with evidence photos of the poor lamb--who is pictured below--and the alleged scene of the crime. We'll excuse ourselves now. We have to shower. (8 pages)

Ad Hoc - ad nauseum...

They're back...and they're as petty as ever! The members of the Quartzsite Town Council who barely retained their seats in the March recall election are wasting no time wasting more money. While they whine and snivel about the cost of their own recall, they recalled Mayor Ed Foster out of spite. Clearly the message is do as I say, not as I do.

Now, they have convened yet another "Ad Hoc" meeting to take action against the Mayor. Funny, but I don't remember that being approved by a majority vote at the council meeting, so I suppose you can just spend the money and waste all that effort as some sort of perverted group therapy. After all, they know that no action can be taken except "censure", which is the official proclamation of "we hate you at taxpayer expense".

Interestingly, a notice was hastily posted about the possible quorum, but no agenda was listed. Hmmm, another open meeting violation? Or just an oversight in their zeal to contrive a diversion over the 14 MILLION dollar waste water treatment expansion that we can't afford? After all, the HURF piggy bank is now empty...how will they pay for all their pet projects and balance the budget?

Watch the Ad Hoc here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/1qtown