Life Coach in Vail, AZ

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Record snowfall and rain have helped to loosen drought’s grip on parts of the western U.S. as national forecasters and climate experts warned Thursday that some areas should expect more flooding as the snow begins to melt.

The winter precipitation wiped out exceptional and extreme drought in California for the first time since 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday in a seasonal, nationwide outlook that came as parts of the state are underwater. In neighboring Nevada, flood warnings were in effect and rushing water prompted some evacuations overnight in one of Arizona’s tourist towns.

Elsewhere, NOAA’s forecast warned of elevated flood risks from heavy snowpack this spring in the upper Midwest along the Mississippi River from Minnesota south to Missouri.

Despite the receding drought, experts cautioned that the relief may be only a blip as the long-term effects persist from what has been a stubborn dry streak.

Groundwater and reservoir storage levels — which take much longer to bounce back — remain at historic lows. It could be more than a year before the extra moisture has an effect on the shoreline at Lake Mead that straddles Arizona and Nevada. And it’s unlikely that water managers will have enough wiggle room to wind back the clock on proposals for limiting water use.

That’s because water release and retention operations for the massive reservoir and its upstream sibling — Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border — already are set for the year. The reservoirs are used to manage Colorado River water deliveries to 40 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico.

Lake Powell could gain 35 feet as snow melts and makes its way into tributaries and rivers over the next three months. How much it rises will depend on soil moisture levels, future precipitation, temperatures and evaporation losses.

Paul Miller, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, said that sounds like a lot of water for one of the nation’s largest reservoirs, but it still will be only one-third full.

“It’s definitely moving in the right direction, but we’re far from filling the reservoirs in the Colorado River system and we’re far from being at a comfortable point from a water supply perspective,” Miller said during Thursday’s NOAA briefing.

Federal forecasters outlined other predictions for temperature, precipitation and drought over the next three months, saying the spring wet season is expected to improve drought conditions across parts of the northern and central Plains and Florida could see dryness disappear there by the end of June.

Overall, the West has been more dry than wet for more than 20 years, and many areas will still feel the consequences. The northern Rockies and parts of Washington state will likely see drought expand over the spring, while areas of extreme to exceptional drought are likely to persist across parts of the southern High Plains.

An emergency declaration in Oregon warns of higher risks for water shortages and wildfires in the central part of the state, and pockets of central Utah, southeastern Colorado and eastern New Mexico are still dealing with extreme drought.

Ranchers in the arid state already are planning for another dry year, and some residents are still reeling from a historic wildfire season.

Jon Gottschalck, chief of the operational prediction branch at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said the start of the fire season in the Southwestern U.S. likely will be delayed.

“But it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t end up being a very strong season,” he said. “It’s just likely to be a more muted beginning for sure.”

Gottschalck said warmer than average temperatures are forecasted for New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas to the Gulf Coast and up the eastern seaboard, as well as in Hawaii and northern Alaska. Lower than normal temperatures are probable, he said, for North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota and the Great Basin region.

The real standout this winter has been the Great Basin, which stretches from the Sierra Nevada to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. It has recorded more snow this season than the last two seasons combined. That’s notable given that over the last decade, only two years — 2017 and 2019 — had snowpack above the median.

“We’ve pretty much blown past all kinds of averages and normals in the Lower Colorado Basin,” Miller said, not unlike other western basins.

Tony Caligiuri, president of the preservation group Colorado Open Lands, said all the recent precipitation shouldn’t derail work to recharge groundwater supplies.

“The problem or the danger in these episodic wet year events is that it can reduce the feeling of urgency to address the longer-term issues of water usage and water conservation,” he said.

The group is experimenting in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, the headwaters of the Rio Grande. One of North America’s longest rivers, the Rio Grande and its reservoirs have been struggling due to meager snowpack, long-term drought and constant demands. It went dry over the summer in Albuquerque, and managers had no extra water to supplement flows.

SB 1700 would grant parents the right to remove books they deem inappropriate from their child’s library.

SB 1700 would require the Arizona Department of Education to keep a list of books that schools may not use or make available.

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) -A bill making its way through the Arizona Senate would require the Arizona Department of Education to keep a list of books that schools may not use or make available to students.

Supporters of SB 1700 say this bill will strengthen parental rights by protecting children from reading and viewing sexually explicit or lewd material without their permission.

But opponents believe this is another step in the wrong direction.

“When you ban a book completely, it sets a very bad tone, and a very bad precedent for any sort of future expression,” said Margaret Chaney, president of the Tucson Education Association.

SB 1700 will allow parents the right to request that school districts or charter school libraries remove books and material that are lewd or sexual, promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns, or groom children into normalizing pedophilia.

Senator Justine Wadsack of Tucson said this bill is needed as it has been a growing concern among her constituents.

“There have been a couple of schools, in particular Vail school district where they had the, The Diary of an Indian, that raised a lot of concern from parents. Just over the last few years, it’s been a lot of graphic, almost cartoon versions of sexual acts,” said Sen. Justine Wadsack of Tucson. “It’s gotten to the point where K-12 parents are not interested in having these types of books, with this level of graphics introduced to their children.”

But opponents have a problem with this bill, especially in regard to the issue of gender fluidity and pronouns.

“Every day that I would walk into a campus or that our students walk into campus, we want them to feel safe. We want them to be able to sit down and get right to work. What I’m not interested is having our students not feel welcomed in they’re not field seen in our classrooms,” said Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association.

Wadsack said it is the schools responsibility to teach students reading, writing, and math, not gender fluidity and sexuality. She believes through this bill parental rights will be strengthened.

“This puts the power back into the hands of the parent, it’s not a book banning bill. We’re not setting books on fire, but what it does is it gives the parents some recourse, some ability to say, hey, I don’t approve of this book,” said Wadsack. “Then take it to the Department of Education and say, what do you guys plan to do about this and start the process of determining whether or not it is a book that is legitimately appropriate, especially for the age groups that they’re being introduced to.”

However, opponents believe this should be left up to local school boards rather than the state.

“I don’t understand why we’d want the state and government to be making those types of decisions and not the school board member who maybe shops with me at the grocery store every Sunday and understands what’s going on in our community,” said Garcia

Opponents add that they feel the language of the bill could create a slippery slope that leads to the banning of books such as “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “The Color Purple.”

But Wadsack said that is simply not true.

“I think it’s very clear as to what this bill is really for, and we need to stop the other narrative that is trying to beat this down. We are not book banning, we are trying to make sure that our children are learning what is appropriate,” said Wadsack.

Opponents said it is bills like this one that contribute to the current teacher retention problem. They ask, what is stopping teachers from moving to a neighboring state where they can make more money and face less restrictions on what they can teach.

Copyright 2023 13 News. All rights reserved.

IF YOU GO:

As spring approaches, and the weather warms up, many of us are already planning our visits to national and state parks. Luckily, Colorado author, Scott Graham, just published the eighth book in his “National Park Mystery” series so you can visit Saguaro National Park on the page before you visit in person.

Graham will visit The Bookworm on Tuesday, March 14 at 6 p.m. to celebrate the new release of the eighth page-turning installment of his series, which follows Janelle Ortega and Chuck Bender as they are drawn deep into a threatening web of hostility and deceit. Graham’s newest novel, “Saguaro Sanction,” introduces readers to the landscapes and cultural histories of Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona, providing an inside look at the wonders of the wildly popular national park and its archaeological and cultural complexities.

“Saguaro Sanction” is the eighth book in the series, and Graham says you can read his books in any order. “My eight National Park Mysteries are written to be read separately. That way, folks can choose the books set in the parks that most interest them, rather than needing to start at the beginning and read their way through to those particular parks,” Graham says. “That said, Carmelita and Rosie, the daughters of protagonists Chuck Bender and Janelle Ortega, are a year older in each book, so reading the series in order provides the opportunity to watch the girls grow up over the course of the series.”

Graham, like Carmelita and Rosie, grew up exploring the outdoors. “I was fortunate to be raised by parents who took me camping and backpacking all across the West as a child,” Graham recalls. “I ventured farther afield with my wife when I grew older, backpacking and mountaineering in the Andes, Himalayas and Canadian Rockies. My love of the outdoors continues today, with whitewater rafting and backcountry skiing among my current favored pursuits.”

In order to make his books as authentic as possible, Graham visits each park that he features in his books. “I’ve found that this makes me best prepared to share with readers the sights and sounds and smells, that is, the true sense of place, of the park I’m writing about,” Graham said.

Graham takes these sights and sounds and infuses them into his mystery novels. “I can’t imagine a more evocative way to share my love of the outdoors than by setting the stories I write in the most iconic landscapes America has to offer,” Graham says. “In addition, I weave an environmental or social justice issue specific to each book’s particular park setting.”

In “Saguaro Sanction” Graham highlights social justice issues from Saguaro National Park through certain archeological and cultural aspects of the park. “The archaeological complexities, and the plot of ‘Saguaro Sanction’, revolve around the incredible array of petroglyphs, etchings on stone, created by the peoples who lived in the Sonoran Desert hundreds and even thousands of years ago,” Graham said. “The cultural complexities explored through the storyline involve the realities of migrant passage across the forbidding Sonoran Desert today.”

Graham learned much about these realities of migrant passage from his son. “When I wrote ‘Saguaro Sanction’, my son was employed as a paralegal on the U.S.-Mexico border, representing child asylum seekers who had risked their lives to cross the border through the desert and present themselves to authorities,” Graham said. “Through the book’s plot, I want to share with readers, as evenhandedly as I possibly could, a sense of that heartrending experience, and what drives children to that level of desperation.”

Not only does Graham want his book to shed some light on the realities of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, but also the rich history and vulnerability of this part of the country. “I’d love for readers to gain an appreciation for the beauty and fragility of the Sonoran Desert, including an awareness of the ongoing human habitation of the desert in southern Arizona over thousands of years,” Graham said. “I hope readers will come to understand the need to protect and preserve the region for future generations, both within the boundaries of Saguaro National Park and all across southern Arizona.”

Copy This Embed Code:

Ad

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — UPDATED (12/12) — A push to incorporate the community of Vail into a town or city is moving forward, but now also being held back by controversy.

The "Incorporate Vail, AZ?" committee plans to put the incorporation question on the ballot next fall. Committee members announced that news at a community meeting at Cienega High School on Thursday, Dec. 1.

The Vail Voice—a monthly newspaper serving Vail and Southeast Tucson—featured an article on the front page of its December issue that recapped the meeting.

However, that issue was published and mailed to homes in Vail as early as Wednesday, Nov. 30, before the meeting actually took place.

The article featured quotes, details and observations from a meeting still days away.

"Incorporate Vail, AZ?" president David Hook says there was no intent to deceive anyone.

“The Vail Voice said they would be able to hold off mailing The Vail Voice until December 3rd,” he said. “[The committee] wrote it as though there was a reporter there in the room… We agreed that it would be OK for her to have that information in The Vail Voice, as long as it wasn’t delivered to people until after the meeting.”

However, when the paper went out before the meeting, confusion and concern broke out on social media sites like Nextdoor and Facebook.

“It became more obvious that we weren’t supposed to know this was pre-written,” said Vail resident Chuck Decker. “I was upset. I still am. [Incorporation] is an important question.”

Decker and others believe the article being written before the event took place damages the committee’s and the newspaper’s integrities.

“If they did this once, what did they do that I don’t know?” said Decker. “And what are they doing next?”

“Are they credible? Are they actually telling us what the truth is?” asked Jessica Ogiba, another Vail resident.

Last week, Hook told KGUN “everything in the article came true,” explaining that the committee knew the meeting schedule and who would be speaking ahead of time.

But some readers also took issue with certain excerpts from the article, which seemed to anticipate that the community’s response to the incorporation meeting would be positive:

• “Promptly at 5:30 p.m. the doors were open and long line [sic] of awaiting residents rushed to occupy the best seats in Cienega High School’s student union.”

• “The news was greeted with claps and cheers. And history was made.”

Vail residents also criticized the committee and newspaper for not having a quicker or stronger response to the controversy.

“I was just more disappointed to see that they didn’t try and handle it immediately,” said Ogiba.

After an apology was posted on the committee website on Wednesday, Dec. 7, The Vail Voice held a town hall on Zoom to hear concerns from the community on Thursday, Dec. 8., where Hook apologized to listeners.

“It’s completely our fault and we completely own this,” he said. “And it may end up in major changes moving forward… We cannot let an organization that’s trying to represent the people of Vail have any hint of impropriety.”

The Vail Voice owner and editor Lucretia Free clarified at the beginning of the meeting that the newspaper "does not take a position on issues and has no paid reporters," using volunteer writers for content.

Anne Gibson writes for the paper and wrote the controversial article. She also served as "Incorporate Vail, AZ?"'s Director at Large.

“I’m truly, truly sorry,” she said during the virtual town hall. “It has been the most humiliating and embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me."

She later added, "I truly, truly believe that incorporation is the best thing for Vail, but I don’t expect you to believe anything I say.”

Gibson did not say why she wrote the article as if the meeting had already happened.

Now when it comes to the incorporation debate, people in Vail say they just want clarity.

“I would hope it would resolve itself in some way,” Decker said of the situation. “So that the community would get honest, straightforward, trustworthy information, that people could make a decision.”

When asked for an interview, Free instead directed KGUN to the virtual town hall meeting and provided a link to the audio recording.

Allison DeRoque Platt confirmed to KGUN she resigned on her own as an "Incorporate Vail, AZ?" committee member on Monday, Dec. 5 because of The Vail Voice article incident.

Nancy Campman-Crofts told KGUN she also resigned from the committee, but says it was because her work responsibilities increased.

In a new apology posted Sunday night, the "Incorporate Vail, AZ?" committee said Gibson has resigned as her role as Director at Large.

The post described Gibson as "just an overly enthusiastic 83-year-old woman, that has been serving this community for decades, projecting her excitement for our community to become a real town."

On Monday, Hook described to KGUN the committee’s approval process used for the original article. Hook said that while Gibson emailed the article to committee members before publication, he is unsure how many, if any, read it.

Hook said only Gibson, the committee’s communications director, and himself, the director, were required to officially sign off on the article before sending it to The Vail Voice. Hook says he was out of town and never formally approved the article before it was sent to the newspaper for publication.

----

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US ANYTIME, ANYWHERE

Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Report a typo

Copy This Embed Code:

Ad

VAIL, Ariz. (KGUN) — For the first time in a decade, there’s a push to make Vail an incorporated town or city.

It’s a move that could be beneficial, but also complicated for the quickly-growing suburban community southeast of Tucson.

“A lot of people move out to Vail because they like the rural nature out here. And I love it too,” said Pima County Planning and Zoning Commission chair David Hook, who lives in Vail. “It’s a very rural. But when I was growing up in Phoenix, there were a lot of rural areas that are now cities and towns.”

Hook leads a committee called “Incorporate Vail, AZ?” The name, much like the idea itself, still has a question mark.

“It’s the voters of Vail that would make this decision,” Hook said. “It’s not my decision. It’s not the committee’s decision. We’ve got a great committee, great team. But ultimately it’s Vail that will make the decision.”

In fact, voters did make a decision in 2013. The same question was asked then, with about 55 percent of voters saying ‘No,’ keeping Vail unincorporated.

Now there’s a renewed incorporation effort.

Hook says if there’s enough support this fall, the goal would be to put the question on the ballot in Fall 2023.

While he says the end result doesn’t matter to him and he just wants voters to be informed, Hook personally believes the community would be better off incorporated, largely because it would have more autonomy.

“In 2013, I don’t think the temperature was right yet for people to vote to incorporate,” he recalled. “As Tucson continues to grow, Vail will either be their own community, or maybe get subsumed by Tucson. So we have to—Now’s the time to determine ‘Do we want to direct our own future, or do we want to be part of somebody else’s future?’”

As a city or town, Vail would also be entitled to money from the state of Arizona, such as a share of state sales tax revenue.

But it also opens the door to new taxes for those who live in Vail, like sales or property taxes.

“When you do become a town, there is a cost involved,” Hook said.

That cost goes toward establishing departments to handle utilities, roads and more.

Vail currently partners with Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Rincon Valley Fire. But as a town or city, it would have to decide whether to establish its own public safety departments.

“You have to have an attorney, you have to have an administration, you have to have a council, you have to have a mayor. All of those things. But that’s the bare minimum,” Hook advised.

For some, that could be a dealbreaker.

“People do not want another layer of government,” said Hook. “People don’t trust government. Government is a bad word today. And you tell people we’re gonna have another layer of government and people get scared about that.”

After already hosting hundreds in local meetings on the topic, there are six additional neighborhood discussions scheduled for September.

----

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US ANYTIME, ANYWHERE

Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.