By L. Parsons During last week’s Winslow City Council meeting City Manager John Barkley gave a brief status update, which included a comment on the reopening of city facilities in its entirety. “Right now, we are looking at July 1 for a more comprehensive opening of our city services. We are sanitizing all city facilities before and after visitors and are offering masks at city hall for those who need to come there. The library is not open to the public yet but there are things going on there through our website, www.winslowaz.gov. We are still encouraging telephone, email and other telecommunications to take care of city business. Barkley also spoke on the search for a police chief to replace recently retired Chief Dan Brown. “The deadline for applications is June 12 so once those are received, we will continue the process of finding a new police chief, which is a high priority.” During call to the public, Jane Manthei began her three minutes of allotted time by thanking the mayor and council members for allowing the community to gather at a prayer vigil last week. “However, my heart has been broken with every murder and every death on the news. We are lucky to have been able to meet in front of the Winslow Police Department but Winslow is not exempt from the national conversation on race issues being highlighted by Black Lives Matter and there is work that needs to be done here.” Manthei then challenged the community and its leaders to look at itself saying, “Winslow is a border town with a long history of anti-indigenous racism. I ask the mayor and council, what is changing in Winslow? What are we uniting for? I would like to see Winslow growing and thriving and doing the anti-racism work specific to our town.” Mayor Tom McCauley said, “I am grateful for our NAACP and Brenda Graham for putting together a fine program.” Also during the call to the public, resident Olivia Todd once again addressed the council regarding complaints she has expressed over her former supervisor Elias Jouen. “At the May 26 meeting, Finance Director Elias Jouen presented an expenditure limitation report. He used that to attempt to exonerate himself from accusations I brought forth last July. This report does not exonerate Mr. Jouen in any way. The report he presented was the fiscal year 2019 expenditure limitation report, which was based on actual expenditures for 2019. I told you about issues with the expenditures on the fiscal year 2020 official city budget form. Your finance director has for years falsified information on this form.” In a break from protocol for call to the public, McCauley replied to her statements by stating, “Your accusations were immediately brought to the attention of the Winslow Police Department and (then) Chief Dan Brown, the auditor general’s office and our third-party auditor. Under no circumstances on any of the allegations you made, in any way, shape or form was Mr. Jouen guilty of any of the accusations. This is coming from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. They didn’t see anything but a difference in philosophy.” Arizona Public Service (APS) Northeastern Division Manager Neil Travers spoke to the council about fire mitigation. “APS is reducing the risk of having a fire ignition problem. The most important thing for all of us is safety. Because of that, we have implemented a comprehensive fire mitigation plan. The first part of the five-part plan is integrated vegetation management, where we cut back trees and keep the right of ways clean and open. We also keep the area around poles clean 10 feet in diameter. We patrol our line for public safety by foot, by truck and by drone to make sure the equipment is in good order. We have a protocol on our lines that will turn power off in the instance of something falling or flying in to the lines. During fire season, we disable that equipment because it not only turns off the power when there is debris, but it will also turn the power back on. We don’t need that during fire season.” In other business, the council: * Heard a quarterly report from Winslow Fire Chief James Hernandez. “We are kind of at a standstill due to the COVID business, but we have implemented some new measures and practices for responding. One of those is that we have them wearing masks,” he noted. * Approved a liquor license application for Chevron, located at 2001 N. Park Drive and for Conoco, located at 500 W. Third St. The next meeting of the Winslow City Council will be at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, at the Hubbell building, located at 523 W. Second St.
