The Winslow City Council heard a presentation from former Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen. Allen has been working with other rural communities to submit maps to the Independent Redistricting Committee (IRC) currently assessing Arizona to establish new legislative districts to correspond with 2020 census numbers.
Currently, parts of Navajo County are in Legislative District 7 alongside parts of Coconino, Mohave, Apache, Greenlee, Graham, Pinal and Gila counties.
Allen argued that some of those areas do not reflect the livelihoods and lifestyles of rural Northern Arizona. Further, the proposed redistricting maps add parts of Maricopa County, including Apache Junction.
She stated, “I am so passionate about rural Arizona. We are different, a minority in the state. We have issues here that are different than what our urban neighbors deal with. That’s why we need a rural legislative district.
“Basically, what I am here tonight to propose, is that we tell the redistricting committee good job but we would like more changes. We would like to keep rural Arizona together so that we have a voice on who gets elected and they know what we deal with up here.”
According to Allen, Pinetop-Lakeside has already passed a resolution to support the rural redistricting.
Councilmember Rickey Jackson said, “It’s vital that people take a look at these maps. I like the idea of staying rural. There is a proposed map out there that keeps the entirety of Navajo and Apache counties together, to me, we should look at that. When you look at these maps, you see what these communities have in common. I would argue that we have more in common with the communities along the I-40 corridor north than with our neighbors to the south. I’m not prepared to support this so I would vote to table this until we have more of our council members to discuss this.”
The council agreed, so in the absence of councilmembers Jim MacLean and Robin Boyd, as well as Vice Mayor Samantha Crisp, the council decided to continue the item and take no action until a special meeting could be scheduled.
Winslow Police Chief Ken Arend also gave a quarterly report to the council. He highlighted a few points of his report and said, “Our Part 1 crimes (violent and property crimes) continue to fall. That has been falling extensively for the last few years. We are down 16.3% for the last quarter. Overall, on the year statistics, you can see that our violent crime is down 44% and our total property crimes are down 22.5%.”
Arend also pointed out that despite being short staffed in the patrol department, WPD is continuing to practice proactive policing. “The patrol officers are going out and working very, very hard to reduce crime trends. Our men and women of your police department are working really hard and doing their jobs. As far as staffing, we are down and we continue to be down. Over this quarter we have done 43 applications for positions within the police department. With that 43, we were able to hire four. Only one of those was a sworn position.”
Winslow City Manager John Barkley presented his bi-monthly status report. “The first item I have to talk about is that we have made quite a bit of progress over the last two months or so on the Winslow Levee Project. Mayor Cano and I just finished up a series of meetings with our congressional delegation and with the leadership of the Army Corps of Engineers.
He added that the federal government is within 90 days of finalizing a budget that is expected to include monies for the project. He said, “That should be between December and January.” According to Barkley, that finalization will assure Winslow receives additional funding, on top of the $500,000 already promised by the Water Resources Development Act for the planning stages of refurbishing the levee.
Having the levee declared safe by the Federal Emergency Management Agency will not only protect the area from potential flooding, but also bring the cost of flood insurance to a reasonable level and encourage development in Winslow.
Barkley added, “This is all thanks to our congressional delegation. We have made inroads with the leadership and they’re hearing us now.”
Also in his status report, Barkley mentioned electric vehicle charging stations that are functional at Mojo’s Coffee, located at 1700 N. Park Drive and the four others that are set to be built at the Winslow Visitor’s Center, located at 523 W. Second St.
In other business, the council:
* Approved a $500 contribution for the 2022 Because We Care Committee for grad night.
* Appointed Kayla Weishan to the Winslow Arts Council until April 1, 2024.
* Appointed Heather Pruett to the Board of Adjustment until April 30, 2022.
The next regular meeting of the Winslow City Council will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 14, in the Hubbell Building, located at 523 W. Second Street.
