During the Jan. 24 Holbrook City Council meeting, Mayor Bobby Tyler broached the subject of naming the city’s recreation building, a former Arizona Public Service Co. office sold to the city for $1. “APS is willing to be such a strong partner with the city that I think it would be appropriate to honor that and to recognize our citizens in naming the building,” he said.

His recommendation was to name the building after the late Mike Machusak, a Holbrook resident who passed away in 2002. He had been employed at Cholla Power Plant for many years, working his way up to plant manager.

“He has also done a lot for the community, and I would like to see the building named after him,” said Tyler.

Councilman Richard Peterson responded that it would be good to have a policy in place when it came to naming city-owned property.

“I don’t know this person and am just hearing about this for the first time. I would like to see a policy in place, maybe it should be someone the people propose, perhaps someone else deserves it as well,” said Peterson, adding that he did not want it to be misinterpreted that he was against Mr. Machusak or the fact that he may be very deserving of the recognition.

Vice Mayor Wade Carlisle added his thoughts to the matter, saying, “I don’t mind community recognition, but I never knew him. The management building is named after him at APS, so he must be very popular. I don’t know that there aren’t other families like the Garcias or the Dyers who had the store across the tracks, people who for generations have been a part of this community. I would like to get more input instead of springing it like this. I would like a policy or at least a public comment.”

Councilwoman Francie stated that the approach was two-fold in honoring APS and Machusak, but admitted that there were other APS employees who served the community such as Randy Johnson and Bob Slade. “I think the pool should be from that,” she said.

Tyler offered no comment, but went ahead with the motion to allow the building to be named after Machusak, which was approved 5-2, with Mayor Tyler, Vice Mayor Carlisle, Councilwoman Payne, and Councilmen CJ Wischmann and Earl Kester voting in favor, and Councilmen Peterson and Tim Dixon voting against it.

The council agreed to table the next item, naming the splash pad, until a future meeting.