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SEATTLE — More aid could be coming to western Washington to help federal prosecutors tackle hate crimes.
Tanya Woo grew up in the Chinatown International District and is a lead volunteer for the Chinatown International District Community Watch.
The group walks through the Chinatown International District several times a week to check on people in the community after a rise in racism and crime.
“They say you punch one of us, we all feel it and I really do feel the pain and the hurt and the fear, especially over these last couple of years which have been really tough for this community,” said Woo.
The number of anti-Asian hate crime cases nearly doubled in King County at the start of the pandemic. The numbers dropped last year, but Woo said hate crimes are severely under-reported.
“A lot of seniors here don't want to report because it goes against a lot of cultural values. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves, we don't want to talk about unhappy things, it's unlucky and shameful,” said Woo.
Woo said there are a lot of hurdles when it comes to reporting hate crimes including language barriers and mistrust of police because of past trauma.
“It all begins with the community and helping victims and letting them know it's ok to talk about it,” said Woo.
That’s what U.S. Attorney Nick Brown is working on, by making sure the community knows they want to hear about hate crime activity.
“A lot of our outreach is making sure that they understand that we're here as a resource,” said Brown.
Brown said people of color, LGBTQ members, and religious facilities are being targeted.
“It's also really important for us to be doing that outreach. So we're hearing from them the issues that they're facing, rather than trying to prescribe for them what we think are the problems,” said Brown.
More help for federal prosecutors could be on the way. Seattle could join other districts as part of a national program that will bring federal resources for community outreach. The goal is to spread awareness and encourage people to report hate crimes no matter the severity.
“Sometimes they're big, violent hate crimes, and sometimes they're small, more benign forms of discrimination that we also want to know about so we can tackle those problems as well,” said Brown.
Brown said knowing about a crime early can help prosecutors build evidence in often complex and lengthy investigations.
“To build that evidence, we need to actually prove the motive in a case. Usually, it takes more time, and so we try to be on the ground quickly and work collaboratively with law enforcement earlier on in the process,” said Brown.
Woo thinks those efforts could help people come forward and give a better sense of the number of hate crimes happening.
“Having a community base that is culturally competent to be able to reach out to community members here would be really helpful,” said Woo. | https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/federal-outreach-hate-crime-reporting-initiative/281-1e67d515-9223-4bc5-84df-5dfceac5643a | 2022-08-04T05:46:25 | 1 | https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/federal-outreach-hate-crime-reporting-initiative/281-1e67d515-9223-4bc5-84df-5dfceac5643a |
DRAPER — Emery Earl Harman departed this life July 25, 2022, to meet his Father in Heaven and rejoin Bonnie, his wife of 52 years. Emery was born Dec. 13, 1930, in Yates Center, Kansas and passed away in his sleep at Beehive Homes in Draper Utah, July 25, 2022, with family by his side.
Funeral services will be Monday, August 8, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Twin Falls 7th Ward, 847 Eastland Dr in Twin Falls. Viewing will be at the church 10:00-10:45 a.m.. Burial with military honors will follow at the Twin Falls Cemetery. | https://magicvalley.com/news/local/obituaries/funeral-notices/emery-earl-harman/article_b32d59b6-af1b-54f8-9e51-8315d2f53b52.html | 2022-08-04T05:48:31 | 0 | https://magicvalley.com/news/local/obituaries/funeral-notices/emery-earl-harman/article_b32d59b6-af1b-54f8-9e51-8315d2f53b52.html |
May 16, 1933—Feb. 26, 2022
TWIN FALLS — LaVerna Rudolph, age 88 of Twin Falls passed away February 26, 2022 in Yuma, Arizona. There will be a graveside celebration of life at Sunset Memorial Park on August 10, 2022 at 10:00 am with a light meal to follow at 145 Filer Ave. W., Twin Falls. | https://magicvalley.com/news/local/obituaries/laverna-rudolph/article_64f1d504-5bb5-5747-9f1d-3908aea561d0.html | 2022-08-04T05:48:37 | 0 | https://magicvalley.com/news/local/obituaries/laverna-rudolph/article_64f1d504-5bb5-5747-9f1d-3908aea561d0.html |
Chillin’ with a chiller
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Multiple security cameras videotaped Diquan Meriwether on Jan. 14, 2020, walking up to the house where he’d be killed, going in and then rushing out, holding his chest from a gunshot wound.
Jurors saw the whole recording Wednesday, including the aftermath where individuals came to the house at 2827 Abbott St., and took things out. And the jurors saw it from multiple angles.
Expert witness William Smock, a medical doctor and crime scene analyst, told jurors what they didn’t see, though: blood on Kennisha Jackson, then 19, who is on trial for Meriwether’s murder.
Jackson, now 21, said she shot Meriwether in self-defense after he forced his way into the house and battered her. When her relatives arrived in the video, she is seen in the security footage with a compress on the side of her head. Injuries around her eye are also visible in her mugshot.
But there’s no blood on her shirt or on her face, Smock said. And she left no blood on things she touched, such as the doorjamb, as she followed Meriwether out the screen door while holding a gun.
Smock told jurors that faces bleed profusely. If Jackson’s face had been injured before the shooting, blood would’ve been evident.
He also said the crime scene had been tampered with, and he said he saw no evidence that Meriwether carried a gun on him when he went into the house. However, after the shooting and Meriwether ran out, Jackson is seen standing in the house’s doorway and switching a semiautomatic pistol from her right to her left hand.
The bullet went through 19-year-old Meriwether’s heart, Smock said. Although Meriwether had enough blood pressure to make it to the car he came in, he could never have survived it.
Using a mannequin torso, Smock showed jurors how he could trace the downward path of the bullet through Meriwether’s body, from about his right breast and out through his left back near the bottom of the ribcage.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Donald Swanson, Smock said he thought the scene was tampered with for a few reasons. The bullet that killed Meriwether wasn’t inside him and apparently hit a wall in the house and left a mark, but investigators couldn’t find it.
Investigators also couldn’t find the shell casing from the automatic handgun, which would’ve been ejected, and they couldn’t find any guns in the house. They also couldn’t find the pink hoodie Meriwether went in with but left without a few minutes later, and there wasn’t enough blood for either Meriwether’s wound or Jackson’s eye wound.
Swanson also asked Smock, who’s also a police officer, “do you believe a person has a right to protect herself?”
Swanson said in his opening statement Tuesday that Meriwether went to the house to collect $80 for a marijuana debt, and Jackson shot to defend herself when he battered her.
This is the third time this case has gone to trial. It was postponed in October 2020 when Swanson wanted to introduce evidence the prosecution hadn’t been informed of during pretrial discovery.
The second time was ruled a mistrial Aug. 11 when jurors couldn’t reach a verdict. | https://www.journalgazette.net/local/courts/expert-testifies-murder-scene-was-tampered-with/article_7f929e50-138e-11ed-8d15-afa4bc697b6d.html | 2022-08-04T06:03:33 | 1 | https://www.journalgazette.net/local/courts/expert-testifies-murder-scene-was-tampered-with/article_7f929e50-138e-11ed-8d15-afa4bc697b6d.html |
On April 21, Alesha Lynn Miller pleaded guilty to three felonies in the beating death of her stepson, but now she wants to back out.
In a letter sent to Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull last week, Miller wrote she was not “in my right frame of mind” when signing the plea agreement and consenting to it in court. She wrote that she hadn’t been in the right frame of mind for seven months since the Dec. 18 death of 9-year-old Elijah Thomas Ross.
The 30-year-old Miller pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and two counts of neglect of a dependent and is set to be sentenced to 30 years on Dec. 30.
Gull will likely decide whether to allow Miller to rescind her guilty pleas.
“I feel I have made rash decisions in my case without even thinking,” Miller said in her letter, filed with the court July 26. She wrote that she has since had time to understand what she accepted and discuss things with her family and that she thought the 30 years was a cap on her sentence, not the sentence itself.
She also said she was only told she’d be pleading to the aggravated battery plea and found out about the other two charges when it came time to sign the agreement.
“I felt very pressured into that since I was told at the last minute,” she wrote.
“I have been able to think clearly for once,” she said. “I don’t believe this plea is in my best interest to accept and continue with.”
In the letter, Miller said that she had asked three weeks earlier for another public defender because she felt her attorney didn’t have her best interests at heart. Miller’s public defender, Ryan Gardner, couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday evening.
Miller was charged with four felonies. The two higher felonies, aggravated battery and neglect of a dependent resulting in death, each carry a sentence of 20 to 40 years. The two lower felonies, both neglect of a dependent, carry sentences of six months to 18 months each.
Miller and Elijah’s mother, Jenna M. Miller, 37, brought the boy to Lutheran Downtown Hospital at 1:17 a.m. Dec. 18. Medical staffers applied lifesaving measures but pronounced the child dead at 2:09 a.m.
The women, who were married, originally told the police that they were at a company Christmas party when they got a call about a fight between Elijah and an older brother.
Fort Wayne Police Detective Aaron Johnson said in a probable cause affidavit he saw multiple bruises on the boy’s face, back of his arms, shoulders, lower back and buttocks. The boy also had visible bruises and swelling on his shoulders.
Dr. E. Jon Brandenberger, the county coroner, ruled the death a homicide and determined that Elijah died of multiple blunt force injuries. Those included a subdural hematoma, which is a traumatic brain injury caused by a buildup of blood.
Alesha Miller’s plea agreement also required her to testify against Jenna Miller, who’s scheduled for a jury trial the week of Nov. 29.
In the letter to the judge, Miller said that she blacked out that night and can’t remember it, although she is sure she hurt Elijah.
“I’m not a reliable witness to testify against Jenna Miller,” she said. “I want to be honest and take responsibility because Elijah deserves that, but I also want a fair chance as well.”
Jenna Miller is charged with four felonies: two counts of neglect of a dependent resulting in death and two counts of neglect of a dependent placing the dependent in a dangerous situation. She faces 20 to 40 years in prison each on the ones for neglect resulting in death and faces six months to 18 months each on the lesser felonies.
Jenna Miller also filed for divorce Feb. 24, and the last hearing for it was held June 17.
Mike McAlexander, chief deputy prosecutor for Allen County, declined to comment on the case because it’s still in process.
“I presume this will be set for a hearing, and a judge will decide if it’s an appropriate motion,” McAlexander said. | https://www.journalgazette.net/local/courts/stepmom-wants-to-take-back-guilty-plea-in-boys-fatal-beating/article_fe56eba2-1360-11ed-b57b-837e6aee953a.html | 2022-08-04T06:03:39 | 0 | https://www.journalgazette.net/local/courts/stepmom-wants-to-take-back-guilty-plea-in-boys-fatal-beating/article_fe56eba2-1360-11ed-b57b-837e6aee953a.html |
Beauty under the hot sun
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DES MOINES, Iowa — A 49-year-old woman died and four more remain hospitalized after a crash in Des Moines Wednesday evening, according to a Des Moines Police Department press release.
Police say that an SUV occupied by two people and a sedan collided at the intersection of E. 43rd Court and Hubbell Avenue at approximately 6:37 p.m.
A passenger in the sedan died. The four hospitalized victims have non-life threatening injuries, according to police.
This is the 12th traffic-related fatality of 2022.
Local 5 will update this story as more information becomes available. | https://www.weareiowa.com/article/news/local/des-moines-crash-traffic-related-fatality/524-b10d6ee0-e1a4-412d-a52f-8d1bed020a93 | 2022-08-04T06:07:48 | 1 | https://www.weareiowa.com/article/news/local/des-moines-crash-traffic-related-fatality/524-b10d6ee0-e1a4-412d-a52f-8d1bed020a93 |
AUSTIN, Texas — Austin-based fitness company F45 Training plans to lay off roughly 80 employees across the country, including around 30 in Austin, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The plans came to light in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act letter from F45 Training to the Texas Workforce Commission. A WARN letter is a federally mandated notice that employers are required to provide to state governments in the event of major layoffs.
F45 Training, founded in Australia, has roughly 1,900 fitness studios across nearly 70 countries as of March and plans to open 350 to 450 more this year. Originally, this year's estimates for openings totaled 1,000 studios.
The company sold over 20 million shares for a $1.46 billion market value in July 2021, according to the Statesman. Shares today have fallen to $1.75 from $16 at its initial public offering that July, which saw the company raise $325 million.
The Statesman said F45 Training blames "ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty" for the drop.
F45 Training offers 45-minute workouts in which participants cycle through stations related to circuit, functional and high-interval training. Celebrities such as Cindy Crawford and Mark Wahlberg have backed the business as ambassadors, investors or partners.
Read the full report here.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/austin-based-f45-lay-off-workers-locally-nationwide/269-73638de1-8580-488b-a8a5-ec1eda066be0 | 2022-08-04T06:08:00 | 1 | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/austin-based-f45-lay-off-workers-locally-nationwide/269-73638de1-8580-488b-a8a5-ec1eda066be0 |
AUSTIN, Texas — As fires continue to spark across Central Texas, the City of Austin's Homeless Strategy Division gave an update on Wednesday night on how it's handling fires in parks and camps.
Leaders with the City's Homeless Strategy Division said multiple departments are coordinating fire risk mitigation and working on educational materials to provide to people who live at camps. The division is doing routine cleaning and encampment fire debris reduction.
Dianna Grey, the homeless strategy officer, said the City's proposed budget includes increases to reduce accumulated fire and debris.
As for the heat, the City has opened cooling centers at community centers and libraries.
During the meeting, leaders also discussed the Finding Home ATX program. The goal is to raise $515 million to house 3,000 people in three years.
"In order to achieve that, [we're] really recognizing how difficult our housing market is. We intend to create 1,300 brick-and-mortar units that are set aside for that population. And then finally, we're really making some investments in strengthening our homeless response system," Grey said.
Those 1,300 units are expected to be completed by the end of 2024. Some are already in the works and are set to open late 2022 and early 2023.
As of April, Grey said the City raised 82% of its $515 million goal for the project.
The American Rescue Plan Act will be used to fill gaps between private and other government funding. The ARPA funds total $106.7 million and are divided into three phases. Phase one is housing stabilization, phase two is crisis response and phase three is supportive services.
The Homeless Strategy Division team also gave updates on the encampment management.
Another update is set in three months.
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WIMBERLEY, Texas — A day after three large fires sprouted up across Central Texas, a new fire is now threatening homes in the Wimberley area.
Wimberley Fire Rescue first reported the fire around 5:20 p.m. in the River Mountain Ranch area between Bluff View and the Blanco River. The fire is located off of FM 3237 (Old Kyle Road) and River Mountain Road.
Evacuations have started in the fire's vicinity. Law enforcement will be contacting residents in the area. The Hays County Office of Emergency Management said about eight homes were asked to evacuate out of an abundance of caution. Specifically, homes in in the 500 to 700 block of Bluffview were asked to evacuate. Around 45 households voluntarily evacuated.
A shelter has been set up at the First Baptist Church of Wimberley at 15951 Winters Mill Parkway.
The Texas A&M Forest Service is calling the fire Hermosa. The fire is currently 20 acres and is 0% contained as of 6:57 p.m. Wimberley Fire Rescue said firefighters from Caldwell, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe and Blanco counties were responding to the fire. STAR Flight and the Texas National Guard are also responding by providing air support and dropping water and fire retardant. Hays County Wildland Task Force is also providing air support.
Roadways in the area may be closed in the area, including in Bluff View. Drivers are asked to avoid the area. Officials also ask drivers not to block narrow roads as officials are working the scene.
The cause of the fire is not yet know, but it is believed to be accidental. The source of the fire was near a construction sirte.
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AUSTIN, Texas — KVUE is excited to begin receiving applications for the 2022 TEGNA Foundation Grants.
With the housing and rental market at all-time highs, inflation seeing record levels, and gasoline still expensive, people in Central Texas are struggling. Because of this, for our 2022 granting process, KVUE is committed to awarding grants to organizations that help Central Texans with affordability, specifically the housing crisis or cost-of-living increases and inflation.
The application deadline is Aug. 29, 2022. To apply for a grant, you will need to complete the following:
1. Completed TEGNA Foundation Grant application form
2. IRS letter of determination for 501(c)3 tax exemption
3. Your organization’s non-discrimination policy
4. One-page project budget, and a one-page summary organizational budget
5. Project proposal of no more than three pages that includes:
- A needs statement:
- objectives of the project to be funded
- whether the project is new or ongoing
- constituency to be served
- community and volunteer involvement
- A sustainability statement:
- your organization's qualifications to carry out the project
- how the project will be evaluated
- plans for continued funding, committed and applied for
Pertinent recent publications may also be included
Hard-copy applications mailed to KVUE will not be accepted. Requests that don’t include the above will not be accepted.
What TEGNA does not fund
Like many donors, TEGNA and KVUE receive more requests than they can fund. As a result, grants will not be considered for the following purposes:
- Individuals
- Private foundations
- Organizations not determined by the IRS to be a tax-exempt public charity under §501(c)(3)
- Organizations classified by the IRS as 509(a)(3)
- National or regional organizations unless their programs address specific local community needs
- Programs or initiatives where the primary purpose is the promotion of religious doctrine or tenets
- Elementary or secondary schools (except to provide special initiatives or programs not provided by regular school budgets)
- Political action or legislative advocacy groups
- Endowment funds
- Multiple-year pledge campaigns
- Medical or research organizations, including organizations funding single disease research
- Organizations located in or benefiting nations other than the U.S. and its territories
- Fraternal groups, athletic teams, bands, volunteer firefighters or similar groups
KVUE reviews all submissions within one month after the deadline. Applicants will be notified whether they were selected around 90-120 days after the deadline. Due to the large volume of applications, KVUE will be unable to provide individual feedback. Please direct any questions to KVUE’s director of marketing, Enrico Meyer, at emeyer@kvue.com.
KVUE awards grants in collaboration with the TEGNA Foundation through its Community Grant program, which serves the greater good of its communities by supporting nonprofit activities where TEGNA does business. The average grant amount ranges from $1,000 to $5,000. TEGNA Inc. is the parent company of KVUE-TV, the ABC affiliate in Austin, Texas. KVUE is dedicated to “making Austin better,” through storytelling, client partnerships and community involvement. | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/kvue-seeks-applications-from-local-nonprofits-for-the-2022-tegna-foundation-grants/269-4df06be3-f532-405a-bc7e-700bc68bb4dc | 2022-08-04T06:08:18 | 0 | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/kvue-seeks-applications-from-local-nonprofits-for-the-2022-tegna-foundation-grants/269-4df06be3-f532-405a-bc7e-700bc68bb4dc |
BLANCO COUNTY, Texas — The Smoke Rider fire in Blanco County, just off the border with Hays County, is still ablaze.
As of 6:40 p.m. Wednesday, it was 60% contained.
The fire tore through a property off of RM 165. The family of the owners of the property let KVUE on to survey the damage.
No one was hurt as far as they know, though their RV was destroyed. The rest of their property was burned as well.
The fire caused a total of 800 acres of damage. The damage to the property is emotional for Justin Rossi, the son of the family that lives there.
"It's kind of a loss," he said. "I was born and raised on this property. This is everything we've ever had. This is where I grew up. I played in all those hills, and everything is just kind of burned to a crisp."
He told KVUE they have no water, no electricity and their plumbing has been burned.
Evacuees are now allowed back to their homes.
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HENLY, Texas — When Keith Miller got the call his nanny goats were in danger of the Smoke Rider Fire, he was more than an hour away.
Miller has owned goats for seven years, joking that he bought his first one – named Maggie – as a gift for his wife.
"The book said that the goats couldn't be by themselves," Miller said. "So one thing led to another, and we bought another one."
He now owns 120 goats that he raises and sells for meat. He's still trying to grow his herd, and his mother goats gave birth to 50 kids this year, which he calls a down year. He expects about 70-80 kids each birthing season.
He keeps his 55 nanny goats at his friend's property a few miles away where they have more space to graze. On Tuesday, the house-sitter for the property called Miller saying the Smoke Rider Fire was baring down on the property and the goats needed saving.
"I really got scared when I got to Oak Hill and I could see the smoke from Oak Hill, so I knew it was big," Miller said.
Miller's son arrived at the property first with a trailer and hauled away the first 30 or so goats. Miller arrived soon after to pick up the rest. The pasture they were grazing burned soon after.
"Shocked. Devastated. I mean, luckily, we still have the houses that are out here, but just seeing this char in the background was pretty, pretty tough," Jared Rossi, one of the sons of the property owner, said on Wednesday.
Rossi grew up on the property with his brother. The fire burned within feet of his childhood home.
"It was a little emotional, but it's done now and the houses are still here, so happy about that," Rossi said.
With the pasture burned, Miller is now looking for a new area with at least 50 acres for his goats to graze. If you have property meeting that criteria or know someone who does, Miller can be reached at 512-461-3851.
As of Wednesday night, the Smoke Rider Fire burned 800 acres, destroying three homes and one trailer, including a unit used as an Airbnb on the Rossi property.
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BAYTOWN, Texas (KTRK) -- A Baytown family is stunned after receiving a message that their dog who was stolen five years ago was found more than 600 miles away.
The Malmstrom family still can't get over the video that recently arrived on their phones.
"We were all crying," Stephanie Malmstrom recalled. "Me and my girls were just boohooing."
The excitement was triggered by a mysterious text message.
"I was like, 'No way,'" Malmstrom recalled. "This is insane. Like I won $1 million and a cruise also."
Five years ago, the family's home surveillance captured what happened to their German Shepard named Sheba.
As she slept outside, cameras caught how Sheba went missing.
"She runs from underneath the porch, they scoop her up, walk around the back side of the truck, load her up and take off," Malmstrom explained.
A story ABC13 highlighted five years ago remained a mystery until Monday.
An animal control officer more than 600 miles away in Texas' Panhandle spotted the dog on the street.
"Her behavior just showed me this isn't the normal dog running loose," Borger Animal Control Officer Jared Harper said.
Harper doesn't know who had the dog, or how it ended up more than 600 miles away. He does know though who the real owners are.
Since finding the dog, he's shared images and done virtual video calls with the Baytown family.
"It's unbelievable, Jared," Malmstrom said. "Thank you so much."
"Of course," Harper said. "I mean for me. I'm just doing my job."
The officer isn't the only one who the family wanted to thank. Former ABC13 reporter Deborah Wrigley covered the original story. She was called during our interview with Malmstrom to learn the good news.
"I wanted to reach out to you and tell you, 'Thank you for covering our story five years ago,'" Malmstrom said to Wrigley.
It's an appreciation with an almost perfect ending, which could be only days away. The family is working with organizations to fly Sheba home.
"We had steak night once a week," Malmstrom recalled. "Dad cooks the best steaks, so we already have steak night planned for when she gets home."
A weekly ritual revived after the video they never expected to receive arrived on their phones.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/texas/baytown-dog-stolen-found-5-years-later/269-b05694a4-131d-4969-905d-57ffbc37fafc | 2022-08-04T06:08:37 | 0 | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/texas/baytown-dog-stolen-found-5-years-later/269-b05694a4-131d-4969-905d-57ffbc37fafc |
EL PASO, Texas — On Aug. 3, 2019, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, leaving 22 people dead.
Prosecutors said Patrick Crusius targeted Mexicans in hopes of scaring Latinos into leaving the U.S., and that he had outlined the plot in a screed published online shortly before the attack.
The related video above was originally published August 5, 2019.
A man who was wounded in the shooting died in April 2020 after months in the hospital, raising the death toll to 23.
Crusius has pleaded not guilty to state murder charges; he also faces federal hate crime and gun charges.
A memorial was created outside the Walmart to honor the victims. The 30-foot tall golden obelisk called the “Grand Candela,” or “Big Candle. You can see photos of that memorial below.
Photos: Memorial honors the victims of El Paso mass shooting
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SMITHVILLE, Texas — The University of Texas Police Department is investigating a potential arson at a biological research facility in Smithville.
Police were alerted to the incident around 2:12 p.m. on Wednesday at the university's Stengl Lost Pines Biological Station on the 400 block of Old Antioch Road.
Officials believe the fire occurred after 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday night. The Bastrop Fire Department responded shortly after to contain the fire. No injuries were reported.
UTPD detectives will be working with the Texas A&M Forest Service to determine if the fire was set intentionally, noting that the case is currently being investigated as a potential arson.
Anyone with more information is asked to call UTPD at 512-471-4441, extension 9.
According to the university's website:
"The Stengl 'Lost Pines' Biological Station (SLP) at the University of Texas at Austin is hundreds of acres of research and teaching space, akin to having a piece of the 'Piney Woods' of east Texas less than 50 miles from Austin. Characterized as Post Oak Savannah, the community is remarkably similar to the Black Oak Savannas of more northern States and southern Canada. Elements of both the Blackland Prairie (the property is only a few miles from the Fayette Plains) and the East Texas Piney Woods, however, increase the potential biodiversity of the site."
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/utpd-potential-arson-stengl-lost-pines-biological-station/269-a2c9cc0e-6fa9-4015-b4dc-5f2027e666c3 | 2022-08-04T06:08:49 | 0 | https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/utpd-potential-arson-stengl-lost-pines-biological-station/269-a2c9cc0e-6fa9-4015-b4dc-5f2027e666c3 |
DENVER — A woman who died after falling off an escalator inside Empower Field at Mile High Saturday night has been identified.
The initial call for an outdoor death investigation at 1701 Bryant St. came in at 10:52 p.m., Denver Police Department (DPD) said.
Investigators determined the woman was attending the Kenny Chesney concert and was sitting on an escalator railing when she fell, landing in the concourse below and dying from her injuries.
The victim was identified as 49-year-old Jimi Goodman by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner, and her death was ruled an accident.
Empower Field at Mile High released the following statement on the death:
"We extend our deepest sympathies to the loved ones of the woman involved in the tragic incident that occurred at the end of Saturday's concert at Empower Field at Mile High."
"There is nothing more important than the safety of our guests, and Stadium Management Company is in communication with the Denver Police Department as it investigates this unfortunate incident."
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PORTLAND, Ore. — After the infamous 2020 wildfire season, Oregon is taking steps to let people know if their home is in a vulnerable area during wildfire season.
Though it would seem people would want to know if their home is at risk during those summer months, there's been a lot of fallout. Some homeowners, especially in rural parts of Oregon, say it has caused their insurance rates to go way up. But forestry officials say they're trying to save lives.
In 2021, Oregon passed Senate Bill 762 to address future wildfires. Part of the law led the state to create a wildfire risk assessment map. It shows the location of homes that are considered at high or extreme risk of wildfires, and whether homeowners should take additional steps to protect their homes.
Those steps could become a requirement come next spring. Derek Gasperini with the Oregon Department of Forestry explained what that might look like.
"There should be time for folks to understand the risk and then understand what defensible space will look like. But there are some best practices for defensible space," said Gasperini. "To make sure forest debris is cleared from the ground around property for a certain number of feet. Limbing trees up from the ground to a certain distance so there is space for firefighters to work and for creating fuel breaks to where a home and lives are not in danger. That really is the purpose of defensible space, not necessarily to keep a fire from starting in that particular geographical area, but to defend lives and property."
ODF said there are about 80,000 homes across Oregon that are in the "high or extreme" risk category that might be required to take some of these protective measures — mostly in southern, central and northeastern Oregon and around the Columbia River Gorge. These are places where the state has had the most wildfires over the past few years.
In the past few weeks, homeowners in these areas have gotten letters about the new wildfire map, and what steps they're advised to take for their properties. The parts of the map that are in red are considered "extreme" risk
A lot of homeowners are upset about this, saying their insurance companies are now raising rates on their homeowners policies — or dropping them from coverage altogether.
ODF has held several virtual town halls to hear these concerns, and some of the meetings have gotten heated.
"I actually received three notices, but I was made aware of the map about three weeks ago when my renewal came up on one of my properties. The insurance company, Travelers, let me know they were not gonna be renewing because of the designation of extreme wildfire. And I'm like, what are you talking about?" one citizen explained. "That's how I was able to access the map. I had no recourse, and so I had to shop other insurance companies, and the result is I was able to get insurance through Safeco because they were the cheapest, but my rate basically doubled. So this insurance issue that people are asking about has already happened."
Others have said their rates have doubled or even tripled in cost, and they are mad.
Oregon Sen. Jeff Golden (D-Ashland) addressed citizens concerns at one of the town hall meeting, saying the insurance issue is real and that if someone does everything they can to protect their property, they should "be sure to have access to insurance at a reasonable rate," adding that there may be some things the legislature can do to make that happen.
Golden also said he has heard from insurance companies that ever since the Camp Fire in northern California, companies have been developing their own wildfire risk maps, which have already made it more challenging for people to secure policies.
Opponents also argue the map was put together too quickly and includes too many errors and irregularities in categorizing homes as high or extreme risk. They say it's unfair to homeowners who are now on the hook for making changes to their properties, with their only recourse being to file an appeal with ODF by mid-September.
"We had issued a letter saying the maps are flawed and inaccurate, and that is because I heard that directly from state agencies. I was literally repeating what I was told by those who put the maps out," said Oregon Rep. Kim Wallan (R-Medford). "For instance, there is an example of a duplex where half of the duplex is listed as extreme and other half of the duplex is not. And where you have properties that have manicured landscaping, flat lands that is all green and is listed as extreme, or across the street, you have vegetation that is not irrigated and clearly dry brush and is not listed as extreme."
A number of Republicans in Oregon are now asking ODF and the state of Oregon to at least pause the process, take time to review each geographical site and create a new map.
KGW reached out to Gov. Kate Brown's office on the matter. A spokesperson issued the following statement:
"Governor Brown believes that the wildfire risk map, required by SB 762, is an important tool to help inform decision making and planning related to mitigating wildfire risk for communities throughout Oregon. We understand that there are concerns with the initial map release, and our office is working closely with the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) to help ensure those concerns are addressed. The agency is taking feedback very seriously and is considering all options moving forward to ensure public engagement, as outlined in law, is thorough and meaningful." | https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregons-wildfire-risk-map-homeowners-insurance/283-edb866f8-02f7-4ce5-bf10-1b209dce02ed | 2022-08-04T06:10:27 | 1 | https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregons-wildfire-risk-map-homeowners-insurance/283-edb866f8-02f7-4ce5-bf10-1b209dce02ed |
Raymond O. Bartels
July 13, 1935-August 1, 2022
OELWEIN-Raymond O. Bartels, 87, of Oelwein, Iowa, died peacefully on Monday evening, August 1, 2022, at MercyOne Oelwein Senior Care.
Funeral Service: 11:00 A.M. Thursday, August 4, 2022, at the Jamison-Schmitz Funeral Home, Oelwein with Rev. Rick Johnson officiating.
Visitation will be for one hour before the service at the funeral home on Thursday.
Graveside Military Service by the Iowa Army National Guard.
Interment: Floral Hills Memorial Gardens, rural Oelwein.
A Memorial Fund has been established in his name.
Online obituary at www.jamisonschmitzfuneralhome.com
Raymond Otto Bartels was born on July 13, 1935, at the family home in rural Arlington, Iowa, the son of Otto & Ruth (McCray) Bartels. He graduated from Arlington High School. On January 24, 1959, he was united in marriage to Carol Lee Wilhelm at Volga, Iowa. The couple made their home in Oelwein where Ray worked at J.C. Penney for 32 years and then for City Laundry, Greenley Lumber and Buds N Blossoms. He proudly served in the United States Army of the Iowa National Guard for 30 years. Ray enjoyed woodworking and cheering on the Cubs. He will be remembered as a family man, enjoying day trips with Carol and attending the activities of his children and grandchildren.
Ray is survived by his 7 children: Randy (Esther) Bartels of Oelwein; Robert Bartels of Phoenix, Arizona, Roger Bartels of Anchorage, Alaska,
Kathy Bartels of Oelwein, Sherrie (Joel) Kilts of Mason City, Lisa Backer of Independence and Rod (Teresa) Bartels of Sioux City; many grandchildren; step grandchildren; great grandchildren; step-great grandchildren; sister: Dorothy Becker of Sargent Bluff and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents; wife: Carol on January 3, 2016; daughter-in-law: Brigitte Bartels and son-in-law: Harry Backer.
The family wishes to express their appreciation to the doctors, nurses and all care givers at MercyOne in Waterloo and Oelwein and at MercyOne Oelwein Senior Care for the compassion and care they gave to Ray and his family these last months. | https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/raymond-o-bartels/article_41c615de-c709-5934-8c27-0d5a2eef66b1.html | 2022-08-04T06:25:29 | 0 | https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/raymond-o-bartels/article_41c615de-c709-5934-8c27-0d5a2eef66b1.html |
Richard Ellsworth Campney
August 1, 2022
FOREST CITY-Richard Ellsworth Campney, age 88, of Forest City, died on Monday, August 1, 2022 at MercyOne Medical Center North Iowa in Mason City, Iowa.
A memorial service for Richard will be held at 1:00 PM on Friday, August 5, 2022 at the United Methodist Church, 305 S. Clark St. in Forest City, with Pastor Les Green officiating.
The service will be livestreamed beginning at 1:00 Friday. Simply go to www.schottfuneralhomes.com and click on Richard's information. The link can be found under the “Tribute Wall” tab just under Richard's name.
You can contact the family with on-line condolences at:
641-585-2685 | https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/richard-ellsworth-campney/article_db820533-687e-5c03-9396-8475829faa34.html | 2022-08-04T06:25:35 | 0 | https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/richard-ellsworth-campney/article_db820533-687e-5c03-9396-8475829faa34.html |
Dec. 29, 1924 - Dec. 2, 2016
HOBART - Frances Christine Ballard (nee Bubas), age 91, passed away peacefully on December 2, 2016. A private service was conducted at Calumet Park Cemetary by Rees Funeral Home with Reverend Craig Forwalter presiding. Frances was born to Joseph F. Bubas and Katherine Bubas (nee Jurkovich) on December 29, 1924 in Gary Indiana. She played basketball for the Lew Wallace Hornets and graduated in 1942. After working in the family business, Bubas Hardware in Gary, Frances married Walter R. Ballard and raised three children. She was a Hobart resident for 66 years. Frances leaves behind two children: Richard J. Ballard of Saint Louis, MO and Christine R. Ballard of Gurnee, IL. She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; her brother, Edward F. Bubas; and her daughter, Katherine J. Ballard. Her brother, Victor A. Bubas, passed away in 2018.
Frances was a lifelong member of the Croatian Fraternal Union (CFU) Lodge 170 in Gary (and later in Merrillville) Indiana, enjoying the activities and the generational friendships initiated by her parents. Frances became a member of the Hobart First United Methodist Church (FUMC) soon after moving to Hobart. While raising her children Frances was very active at church, teaching Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, and leading the Junior and Senior Methodist Youth Fellowships (MYF). Frances' parents always emphasized the value of education, and Frances was proud that each of her children obtained college graduate degrees. Frances worked outside the home through age 72; her last position was at Rees Funeral Home in Hobart where she enjoyed helping people. Frances enjoyed cooking, art, sewing, gardening, and traveling with family. Frances was a Hobart Brickies football dedicated fan who loved attending games and cheering the team. Frances was a Hobart Economic Industrial Development Corporation (HEIDC) active member.
Rees Funeral Home, Hobart Chapel, 600 West Old Ridge Rd, 219-942-2109 or online at www.reesfuneralhomes.com | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/frances-christine-ballard-nee-bubas/article_1685762e-5109-5df3-8c36-695250d89391.html | 2022-08-04T06:26:29 | 0 | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/frances-christine-ballard-nee-bubas/article_1685762e-5109-5df3-8c36-695250d89391.html |
April 7, 1954 - April 4, 2015
HOBART - Katherine J. Ballard, age 61, passed away on April 4, 2015. Katherine was cremated by Leppert Mortuary and Crematory Services, Carmel IN, and a private service was held at Calumet Park Cemetery, Merrillville Indiana, led by Reverend Craig Forwalter. She is survived by her brother, Richard J. Ballard of Saint Louis, MO; and her sister, Christine R. Ballard of Gurnee, IL. She was preceded in death by her father.
Katherine was born to Walter R. Ballard and Frances C. Ballard (nee Bubas) on April 7, 1954 in Gary, IN. She grew up in Hobart Indiana and graduated from Hobart High School in 1972. Katherine enjoyed music, cooking, sewing, knitting and traveling. Katherine shared her talents through helping friends and family; she was skilled working with her hands and had a keen eye for color. During high school Katherine wore dental braces; she became fascinated with the science and art of dentistry.
Katherine obtained her undergraduate degree (Dental Hygienist Certificate and Bachelor's of Public Health) at Indiana University School of Dentistry, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in Indianapolis in 1976. After working as a dental hygienist at Highland Dental Clinic in Indiana, she returned to IUPUI and graduated as a dentist in 1985.
After graduation Katherine worked as a dentist in Indianapolis dental offices. Then Katherine became the dentist for the Marion County Indiana Department of Public Health. Her responsibilities included attending dentist on the Smile Mobile, a mobile dental office that provides dental care to school children; providing dental checkups and education at the annual Indiana Black and Minority Health Fair; and providing dental care at Marion County Indiana retirement homes and AIDS clinics.
Katherine later headed a Topeka Indiana dental office providing dental care and education to the Amish community; she provided dental services, and she managed and renewed the office's IUPUI funding grant. She wrote a series of articles explaining dental care for the Topeka newspaper. Katherine was proud of her dentistry and public service.
Rees Funeral Home, Hobart Chapel 219-942-2109 or online at www.reesfuneralhomes.com. | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/katherine-j-ballard/article_8ff33fba-9ba9-5457-aa09-25fc49eff770.html | 2022-08-04T06:26:35 | 1 | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/katherine-j-ballard/article_8ff33fba-9ba9-5457-aa09-25fc49eff770.html |
Nancy Kay Butler
Oct. 31, 1959 - Aug. 1, 2022
RENSSEALER - Nancy Kay Butler, 62, of Rensselaer, IN, formerly of Lowell, IN, passed away Monday, Aug. 1, 2022 at Franciscan Health Crown Point. She was born in Amarillo, TX on Oct. 31, 1959 to Albert Ward and Betty Sue (Galloway) Ward. On Oct. 31, 1977 she married David Allen Butler.
Nancy's family meant everything to her and she was the "greatest mom and grandmother in the world".
She is survived by her loving family: husband, David Butler; two daughters: Nancy (Ron) Albrecht and Rebecca (Anthony) Shoun; five grandchildren: Jer, Zack and Makayla Fortner, and Lori and Nicklaus Albrecht; six siblings: Carol Martin, Diane (Danny) McKern, Larry (Tracey) Ward, Susii Tremain, Tami Prekas and Jeni (Jason) Orndorff; one sister-in-law, Diana (Richard) Nicholas; and one brother-in-law, Mike (Cheryl) Butler. Numerous nieces and nephews also survive.
She was preceded in death by her parents; one sister, Peggy Fusner; and one brother, James Ward.
Per Nancy's wishes cremation will take place. Steinke Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.SteinkeFuneralHome.com. | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/nancy-kay-butler/article_6b5eba4f-4e77-567d-acbc-ebd7dfce858f.html | 2022-08-04T06:26:41 | 1 | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/nancy-kay-butler/article_6b5eba4f-4e77-567d-acbc-ebd7dfce858f.html |
HAMMOND - Patrick O'Keefe, age 66 of Hammond, IN formerly of East Chicago (Harbor), IN passed away Tuesday, August 2, 2022 at home. He is survived by his loving wife of 45 years, Karen O'Keefe; cherished daughter, Brittney O'Keefe and spouse, Aaron Wigsmoen; siblings: late Joseph O'Keefe, Jean (Eugene) Nikruto, late Mike (Debbie) O'Keefe, Harold O'Keefe, late Jim O'Keefe and Shawn (Shannon) O'Keefe; half brothers: Nick (Debbie) Prucak and Pete Prucak; step siblings: Miles, Rodney and April Cotillier and Johnny Hughes, Jr.; in-laws: Gail Szanyi, Joan (Bill) Forsythe, Tim and Robert Szanyi and late Wayne Szanyi; dear nephew, Joe Nikruto; and many other nieces and nephews. Preceded in death by his father, Eugene (Dorothy) O'Keefe; mother, Josephine Prucak.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. DIRECTLY at St. Casimir Church, 4340 Johnson Avenue, Hammond, IN with Rev. Eduardo Malagon officiating. Burial to follow at Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens, Schererville, IN. Visitation at the FIFE FUNERAL HOME, 4201 Indianapolis Blvd., East Chicago, IN will be from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Friday, August 5, 2022 and from 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the Church on Saturday morning.
Patrick was a Sheet Metal Worker for Local #20 and a former employee at Wicker Park Golf Course. He was a U.S. Army Veteran and a member of the American Legion Post #232. Patrick's greatest joy in life was his daughter, Brittney. He was an avid golfer, loved playing guitar, poker and having bonfires. Pat was proud of his dark hair that never grayed. To share an online condolence, logon to www.fifefuneralhome.com. | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/patrick-okeefe/article_8a2347f6-0ed4-5e2f-b6cf-6eb86b3877b5.html | 2022-08-04T06:26:47 | 1 | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/patrick-okeefe/article_8a2347f6-0ed4-5e2f-b6cf-6eb86b3877b5.html |
Sept. 29, 1938 - Aug. 4, 1992
IN LOVING MEMORY of our Mom on her 30th Anniversary in Heaven. Our love and memory of you will never fade. Bill, Kathy, Jim and Becky.
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Sign up to get the most recent local obituaries delivered to your inbox. | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/shirley-nowak/article_00211501-b395-5397-b08a-90cd1329ed53.html | 2022-08-04T06:26:54 | 1 | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/shirley-nowak/article_00211501-b395-5397-b08a-90cd1329ed53.html |
Thomas Frederick Moehl
CARMEL - Thomas Frederick Moehl, 89, of Carmel, died July 28, 2022. Mass of Christian Burial at 11:00 a.m. August 3, 2022, at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, 14598 Oak Ridge Road, Carmel. Visitation on Wednesday, August 3, 2022 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, 14598 Oak Ridge Road, Carmel. Burial at Our Lady of Peace Cemetery, Indianapolis. Condolences: www.randallroberts.com. | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/thomas-frederick-moehl/article_be4fc325-cd6f-5c5e-9121-edfb9a3db42b.html | 2022-08-04T06:27:00 | 0 | https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obituaries/thomas-frederick-moehl/article_be4fc325-cd6f-5c5e-9121-edfb9a3db42b.html |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As the California State Fair was winding down for the season on Sunday evening, a lesbian couple says they were assaulted by a man who shouted homophobic slurs at them.
A Cal Expo spokesperson said the Cal Expo Police Department is now investigating the incident, which was partially caught on camera.
"I just feel really sad that this is the world we're living in still," said 20-year-old Kyla, who asked that ABC10 identify her only by her first name.
Kyla said she and her girlfriend were near the petting zoo Sunday night when a teenager threw a drink at them, shouting a homophobic slur. Kyla's girlfriend followed the teen and captured his father on camera knocking the phone out of her hand.
Kyla then alleges that the man pushed her girlfriend to the ground and kicked the phone, striking her finger. The woman sought medical attention from Cal Expo staff.
"It’s much more than just an assault. It’s a lot bigger than that," Kyla said, adding that she and her girlfriend are still fearful after the incident.
"Yeah, extremely actually. The day after this happened, I went to the store and bought us both pepper spray, to keep with us at all times, and we both agreed that we’re never going back to the State Fair again," Kyla said.
Despite that, Kyla said she believes it's important to come forward.
"We’re not going to give up, and we’re not going to stop fighting until we get justice," Kyla said.
WATCH ALSO: | https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/lesbian-couple-says-man-assaulted-them-california-state-fair/103-8631cc49-f71d-40cb-bac2-423a899de494 | 2022-08-04T06:32:48 | 1 | https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/lesbian-couple-says-man-assaulted-them-california-state-fair/103-8631cc49-f71d-40cb-bac2-423a899de494 |
The MTA is no longer tracking mask wearing compliance, but the rules haven't changed at all.
Masks are still required on subways, buses and all indoor stations, but according to the transit agency's website, the last actual survey of usage was in April.
That's when the federal government stopped enforcing masks at airports, on planes and trains.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has kept the face-covering requirement in place for public transit in New York. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/mta-stops-tracking-mask-compliance-on-subways-buses-but-theyre-still-required/3809211/ | 2022-08-04T06:41:50 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/mta-stops-tracking-mask-compliance-on-subways-buses-but-theyre-still-required/3809211/ |
MIDLAND, Texas — The Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance held a luncheon Wednesday on the air quality in the Permian Basin. This is in light of a recent Environmental Protection Agency notice.
Local businesses and lawmakers gathered to discuss what this notice means and how it could impact the local economy, specifically in oil and gas.
This EPA notice could make the Permian Basin a "non-attainment" area. Non-attainment areas are considered to have worse air quality than average.
If this goes through, the way we do business here, especially in the oil and gas industry, would have to change.
"The Permian Basin currently produces 43% of all crude oil in the United States, and 50% of it's natural gas," said Michael Lozano with the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.
However, oil and gas production might be more restricted.
"They're trying to say that the air quality in the Permian Basin doesn't meet a federal standard," said State Representative Brooks Landgraf. "Of course that's hard to believe since we don't have any air monitoring stations. But the idea is that there is a federal law called the Clean Air Act and they're saying, the EPA is saying, the Permian Basin is not in compliance."
Local leaders said they've done their own measurements, and the ozone numbers are within means.
"We have just recently done some monitoring all across the Permian Basin, and are showing that our ozone levels are much below the current threshold that's required by the EPA," said Kevin Sparks, Texas Senator elect.
If the Permian Basin is listed as a non attainment zone, it could mean more red tape for businesses and infrastructure.
"It can impact whether we're able to build roads, or whether we have to choose between drilling oil wells and building roads," said Sparks.
Now, local lawmakers and others are pushing back.
"I've been in very close talks with Governor Abbott and his office," said Landgraf. "Since the EPA's initial announcement came down, the governor is fully engaged on this. Also Congressman Pfluger is very active on the federal level, so we have all hands on deck in this situation."
Right now things are up in the air, but industry leaders want to continue to produce oil and gas while also keeping the area around it clean and safe
"It is our opinion, and it has been our opinion for more than half a century, that the Permian Basin is a vital part of our portfolio in this country and the world, and our members want to safely and responsibly use our natural resources and are committed to environmental action to do so," said Lozano.
Moving forward, there will likely be public comment on the issue. It is important to remember that this is just a notice, so nothing is official as of right now. | https://www.newswest9.com/article/news/local/motran-holds-air-quality-luncheon-amid-epa-notice/513-57610b91-3ce5-4b5f-8cfe-5268304fdc0d | 2022-08-04T07:02:35 | 0 | https://www.newswest9.com/article/news/local/motran-holds-air-quality-luncheon-amid-epa-notice/513-57610b91-3ce5-4b5f-8cfe-5268304fdc0d |
Grover G. Wilson, 89, of Twin Falls died Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, at St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center, Twin Falls. Arrangements are under the care of Serenity Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services of Idaho, Twin Falls.
Patrick M. Callahan, 63, of Twin Falls died Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, at St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center, Twin Falls. Arrangements are under the care of Serenity Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services of Idaho, Twin Falls.
Reuben L. Dutt, 83, of Filer died Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, at Serenity Transitional Care Center in Twin Falls. Arrangements are under the care of Rosenau Funeral Home.
Roberta Lee Riedesel, 85, of Twin Falls died Aug. 2, 2022, at Canyons Retirement Community in Twin Falls. Arrangements are under the care of White-Reynolds Funeral Chapel. | https://magicvalley.com/news/local/death-notices/article_5f058440-0f6a-11ed-a7fd-07397e9b0c50.html | 2022-08-04T07:41:52 | 0 | https://magicvalley.com/news/local/death-notices/article_5f058440-0f6a-11ed-a7fd-07397e9b0c50.html |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The City of Sacramento is launching a new effort called the African American Experience Project, and they're looking for input from the community.
Former Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn is featured in the first video for the project.
“The way the local government in Sacramento and every other city across our nation discriminated against all sorts of people, but in this case African-American people, and now they are one of the co-leaders of a project to tell that history, I think is a pretty significant evolution for our city,” Hahn said.
The City of Sacramento has even dedicated on section on their website for the community to get involved.
“They’re asking for our community to use their own voice. They’re not trying to tell the story for us. They are trying to get us to tell the story, and so far, people have been responding. And I know there is always a concern that the whole story doesn’t get told, so let’s tell our story,” he said.
Sean DeCourcy is the Sacramento Historic Preservation Director
“This project is the first project in an effort to document the history of culturally significant groups in our city and tell their story and allow their voices to come through,” DeCourcy said.
The project will include extensive research, oral histories, community outreach, workshops, and final documents to record and encompass all findings of this project.
“I just think people who are in their 20s have no idea what it was like versus now," DeCourcy said. "Most of our neighborhoods, you couldn’t live in if you were Black into the 60s. I think most people today find that hard to believe. People have a bias towards California anyway... We always think California is this utopia. I’m like, 'No, we did the same stuff everybody else did.'”
The first community meeting is tomorrow. If you’d like to learn more about the African American Experience Project, the meeting is tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Sacramento Youth Center Theater on Del Paso Boulevard.
WATCH ALSO: | https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/sacramento-input-african-american-experience-project/103-bf3d3d16-00af-4d67-9e33-654a4fea5bb5 | 2022-08-04T08:04:02 | 0 | https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/sacramento-input-african-american-experience-project/103-bf3d3d16-00af-4d67-9e33-654a4fea5bb5 |
A Brooklyn community is on a mission to find a beloved bodega cat that was stolen from its own doorstep.
Boka the cat hasn't been seen since Friday, when his owner said that surveillance video showed a guy hanging outside his store and scooping up the cat when it went outside.
Abdul Majeed is part owner of Green Olives Deli & Grill in Park Slope, but everyone who frequents the shop knows Boke pretty much owns the place.
"It’d be like 'Oh you wanna get coffee and see Boka?' You know, that was just routine,” said Annie Caltrider, a shop customer.
Majeed adopted Boka back in January when he was just 2 weeks old. Since then, Majeed has shared Boka with the whole neighborhood, giving the little feline a big family.
"They’ll be like 'Are you here to see the cat?' I’m like of course, always” said Muna Begum.
That family is now deeply concerned, after Boka was seen on camera getting snatched up on the sidewalk right outside the store Friday afternoon.
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"The guy, he looked so weird because he was waiting outside, was hiding in the corner. He spent time,” said Majeed.
He said that Boka sometimes would sit outside, walk around a little bit or go to see the neighbors’ cat — but always came back. After two days of waiting, Majeed checked the cameras and saw a man looking inside the shop and then hanging by the corner.
When the man spotted Boka going around the corner, he can be seen on video following him — and then picking up him before walking down Eighth Street.
"As soon as I saw the video, I called the police and the police came and I filed a report,” said Majeed.
Customers shared Majeed’s posts on Instagram and reddit to help spread the word. One neighbor even printed out posters. People stopped by Seventh Avenue and Eighth Street all day, worried and checking in.
"We’re kind of on the lookout, we looked at his picture a million times. I have a lot of words for that person,” said Caltrider.
While that customer may have a lot to say to the person who took off with the beloved Boka, Majeed only has a few.
"Return the cat back, and if he really likes cats, go adopt one,” he said. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-community-searches-for-missing-bodega-cat-after-video-shows-man-swipe-feline/3809249/ | 2022-08-04T08:17:17 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-community-searches-for-missing-bodega-cat-after-video-shows-man-swipe-feline/3809249/ |
WATERLOO — Bond has been set at $32,000 for a Waterloo man accused of assaulting two people in July.
Antwan Johnson, 40, was arrested Sunday on charges of willful injury causing bodily injury and child endangerment.
Witnesses allege Johnson became involved in an argument with a woman on July 20 in the 200 block of Lafayette Street and pulled her from a vehicle. The woman’s 13-year-old daughter intervened and Johnson allegedly punched the daughter in the stomach, according to court records.
Then, on July 25, Johnson allegedly knocked an 18-year-old unconscious and continued striking him in the head. Johnson left before police arrived, and the victim suffered a concussion. The person was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Photos: Missing children in Iowa(tncms-asset)4395427a-623a-11ea-9c13-00163ec2aa77[0](/tncms-asset) | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/waterloo-man-arrested-in-assaults/article_54fab46a-e243-5b73-aab3-0b44aedb5eac.html | 2022-08-04T08:33:48 | 1 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/waterloo-man-arrested-in-assaults/article_54fab46a-e243-5b73-aab3-0b44aedb5eac.html |
A signal of summer relief comes in the form of a sign at the mall
A sign advertising the change of seasons is not too far away popped up at Sikes Senter Mall earlier this week.
Spirit Halloween began advertising that it will soon open in the mall located on Midwestern Parkway. The seasonal store's website says it is the largest specialty Halloween chain in North America with more than 1,400 stores in the U.S. and Canada. The store has a habit of making people guess, “Where is it going to be this year?"
One year it was in the old Pier 1 building on Kemp and one time it was where Big 5 Sporting store use to be. According to a previous Times Record News story, the shop carries a wide variety of costumes for children, adults, masks, makeup, animatronic displays, pet costumes, wigs, home decor and accessories.
This year it will be inside the mall where Old Navy use to be. | https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/08/04/a-signal-of-summer-relief-comes-in-the-form-of-a-sign-at-the-mall/65391513007/ | 2022-08-04T08:43:29 | 0 | https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/08/04/a-signal-of-summer-relief-comes-in-the-form-of-a-sign-at-the-mall/65391513007/ |
Alliance City Schools teachers have a new contract that runs through June 30, 2025
ALLIANCE – Teachers for Alliance City Schools will start the 2022-23 school year with a new three-year contract.
The district's Board of Education approved the labor agreement with the Alliance Education Association on June 1.
More:Ruling gives Alliance firefighters new contract with pay raise
According to school district officials, the contract with the Alliance Education Association starts July 1, 2022, and runs through June 30, 2025. The teachers will receive pay raises of 3% in year one, 4% in year two and 5% in year three of the deal.
The other highlights of the agreement included:
- Teachers can accumulate 275 sick days; previously, it was 250.
- Entry-year teachers required to attend district meetings outside of the school day will now be paid $25 an hour; previously, it was $20.
- Teachers can now donate six days of sick leave in a career; previously, it was 5.
- There is now a monetary incentive for teachers who do not use sick or personal days - $1,000 for no absences, $500 for 1 or 2 days and $250 for 3 days.
- Extra meetings for teachers can now total 8 hours; previously, 7.5 hours.
- Foreign language has been added to the list of departments that can receive extra if they have enrollment over 170 students.
- Teachers can now get $1,000 in tuition reimbursement; previously, it was $800.
- Teachers with Individualized Education Plan (IEP) writing responsibilities will be paid $150 for 1-8 IEPs and $300 for 9 or more.
And lastly, when a teacher substitutes during their planning period they will be paid $25 an hour; previously, it was $22.
"It's always a high priority for us to provide appropriate and competitive wages while being fiscally responsible with our public funds," Superintendent Rob Gress said in a news release.
Gress said the district is spending taxpayer funds wisely.
"We're pleased that the district and the Alliance Education Association were able to come together and find a way to meet our common goal of making Alliance City Schools a great place for staff and students," he said. "We're spending our local, state, and federal tax money wisely and staff are being compensated at a level comparable or beyond that of similar Stark County districts."
Reach Benjamin Duer at 330-580-8567 or ben.duer@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @bduerREP. | https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/alliance/2022/08/04/alliance-schools-teachers-contract-2022-2025-ohio/10190749002/ | 2022-08-04T09:53:57 | 1 | https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/alliance/2022/08/04/alliance-schools-teachers-contract-2022-2025-ohio/10190749002/ |
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., re-introduced the Espionage Act Reform Act today to rewrite the hundred-year-old law governing when reporters and whistleblowers can be prosecuted for discussing government secrets.
The Wyden-Khanna-Massie legislation reaffirms First Amendment protections for journalists who publish classified information, and ensures whistleblowers can effectively report waste, fraud and abuse to Congress. The bill mirrors the original legislation introduced in 2020, but with bipartisan support.
“Journalists should never be prosecuted by the government for what they publish. Especially when politicians abuse the law to keep the public in the dark about misconduct or abuse,” Wyden said. “The Espionage Act currently provides the executive branch with sweeping powers that are ripe for abuse to target journalists and whistleblowers who reveal information some officials would rather keep secret. This bill ensures only personnel with security clearances can be prosecuted for improperly revealing classified information and that whistleblowers can reveal classified abuses directly to Congress, federal regulators, and oversight bodies.”
“When one journalist is prosecuted for doing his or her job, that’s a threat to all journalists,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “My bill with Senator Wyden would shield journalists from being charged under the Espionage Act, which was written to protect our country against spies. Our nation’s strength rests on the freedom of the press and reporters must be allowed to work without fear of persecution.”
“At a time when government officials claim the right to perform warrantless surveillance upon all American citizens, there is an urgent need to zealously guard freedom of the press and to demand government transparency and accountability,” said Rep. Thomas Massie. “The ongoing attempts to prosecute journalists like Julian Assange under the Espionage Act threaten our First Amendment rights, and should be opposed by all who wish to safeguard our constitutional rights now and in the years to come. I join my colleagues, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Ro Khanna, to introduce bipartisan legislation to reform the Espionage Act so that whistleblowers and journalists seeking to expose the government’s wrongdoing are protected.”
The Espionage Act Reform Act:
• Protects journalists who solicit, obtain or publish government secrets from prosecution.
• Ensures that each member of Congress is equally able to receive classified information, including from whistleblowers. Currently, the law criminalizes the disclosure to Congress of classified information related to intercepted communications, unless it is in response to a “lawful demand” from a committee. This puts members in the minority party and those not chairing any committee at a significant disadvantage.
• Ensures that federal courts, inspectors general, the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission and Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board can conduct oversight into privacy abuses.
• Ensures that cybersecurity experts who discover classified government backdoors in encryption algorithms and communications apps used by the public can publish their research without the risk of criminal penalties. It is up to governments to hide their surveillance backdoors; academic researchers and other experts should not face legal risks for discovering them. | https://theworldlink.com/news/local/wyden-khanna-massie-introduce-bill-to-protect-whistleblowers/article_5be8e1a8-11c7-11ed-9008-372947c126fd.html | 2022-08-04T09:53:57 | 0 | https://theworldlink.com/news/local/wyden-khanna-massie-introduce-bill-to-protect-whistleblowers/article_5be8e1a8-11c7-11ed-9008-372947c126fd.html |
Hall of Fame Village development coming to life on eve of enshrinement
CANTON – The plan has been to develop a Hall of Fame Village as a destination, and visitors for this week's Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement will get a look at what's here and what's to come.
"The village is coming to life," Michael Crawford, president and chief executive office of Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Co., said Tuesday at a ribbon cutting for the ForeverLawn Sports Complex at Hall of Fame Village.
Hall of Fame Village work continues, company hopes to resolve Johnson Controls dispute
Where to park in Canton for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Festival
Crawford stood in a plaza area next to Don Scott Field, which now is surrounded by seven additional athletic fields and buildings for concessions and bathrooms. The gridirons also can be used for soccer and other sports, as well as non-sporting events.
ForeverLawn, based in Marlboro Township, has been involved with the athletic fields since 2016 when only two had been constructed. The company helped install new fields and has been maintaining them.
Last year, the company began talking with Hall of Fame Resort about sponsorship for the fields.
"This is going to go for the next decade and hopefully beyond," Dale Karmie, who started ForeverLawn 20 years ago with his brother Brian, said during Tuesday's program.
New at the Hall of Fame Village
The ForeverLawn Sports Complex is booked with events through the fall, Hall of Fame Resort officials said.
The fields have been referred to as the south campus of Hall of Fame Village.
North of the fields is the Center for Performance, a fabric-domed facility that can be used for a variety of sports and non-sport programs. Several hospitality events will take place in the new structure this week as part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement.
The Center for Performance will be a year-round entertainment facility, said John Lytell, director of public affairs for Hall of Fame Resort.
"We'll be using different assets at different times of the year," he said.
North of the dome is the Play-Action Plaza. The Soaring Football Zipline is in place, while the Ferris wheel planned for the site will be installed later. A walking path that wraps around the park-like setting is ready for use, as is the amphitheater. Plans are to have food trucks in the plaza this weekend.
The Constellation Center of Excellence is home to offices for Hall of Fame Resort, as well as a Starbucks. Tenants have been lined up for the building's third and second floors, but none of moved in yet.
Still under construction at Hall of Fame Village
Work continues for the retail buildings on the west side of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The strip has been dubbed the Fan Engagement Zone and consists of two buildings. A smaller building next to the Constellation Center for Excellence will be home to a TopGolf Swing Suite that is affiliated with The Brew Kettle, and a Rush Street sports betting center.
The second building will house a Don Shula's restaurant, a Helix eSports complex operated by Esports Entertainment Group, a Build-A-Bear shop, Smoosh Cookies and other businesses.
Lytell said all of the businesses in the Fan Engagement Zone will stand out because of the Hall of Fame Village's connection to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and licensing agreements with the NFL. For example, the Don Shula restaurant will be able to display Shula memorabilia from the Hall. Brew Kettle will have a special football-themed beer that won't be sold elsewhere. Build-A-Bear will feature items tied to the NFL and college football.
'This is going to be a great destination for our county.'
Most of the streets leading into the Village have been rebuilt and paved. A traffic circle is part of the reconstructed Blake Avenue NW that runs from Fulton Road NW to 17th Street NW.
Further north, closer to Fulton Road, heavy equipment is being used to prepare for the construction of a 180-room Tapestry by Hilton hotel, along with a water park. Work on those structures is expected to begin later this year and completion is expected toward the end of 2023.
Crawford, who worked nearly 25 years for the Walt Disney Co. and led development of Shanghai Disney Resort, said the Village will continue to grow.
Projects currently being developed are part of what Hall of Fame Resort has called phase two, while construction of Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium and the initial athletic fields were phase one. A third development phase has been suggested in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
All of the pieces come together to create a football-themed destination that will draw visitors to Canton.
"This is going to be a great destination for our county," Crawford said.
Reach Edd at 330-580-8484 or edd.pritchard@cantonrep.com On Twitter: @epritchardREP | https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2022/08/04/hall-of-fame-village-development-coming-to-life-on-eve-of-enshrinement/10204879002/ | 2022-08-04T09:54:03 | 0 | https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2022/08/04/hall-of-fame-village-development-coming-to-life-on-eve-of-enshrinement/10204879002/ |
PHILADELPHIA — The remains of two children killed in the 1985 bombing by police of a Philadelphia home used as the headquarters of a Black radical group have been returned to their brother, the man said Wednesday.
The remains of Katricia and Zanetta Dotson will be cremated and taken to North Carolina to be buried, Lionell Dotson told reporters outside the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office.
“For the city to give me this is a momentous occasion," Dotson, who was 8 when his sisters died, told WCAU-TV. Katricia was 14 and Zanetta was 12. “It’s not about me; it’s about them. Finally giving them a resting place permanently – I can do this for them.”
The city said officials were meeting with next of kin but wouldn't provide details “out of respect for the families.”
MOVE members, led by founder John Africa, practiced a lifestyle that shunned modern conveniences, preached equal rights for animals and rejected government authority. They took the last name Africa.
The group clashed with police and neighbors, and police seeking to oust members used a helicopter to drop a bomb on the house on May 13, 1985. Five children and six adults inside died, and the resulting fire destroyed more than 60 row houses.
A 1986 commission report called the decision to bomb an occupied row house “unconscionable.” MOVE survivors were awarded a $1.5 million judgment in a 1996 lawsuit.
The city's health commissioner resigned in May last year after officials said partial remains from the bombing had been cremated in 2017. The city later said, however, that the remains had not been destroyed and had been found at the medical examiner's office. | https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/brother-remains-2-kids-killed-1985-bombing-returned-move/521-0128a7f4-2fa1-47c9-947c-a2b38abd1123 | 2022-08-04T10:17:39 | 1 | https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/brother-remains-2-kids-killed-1985-bombing-returned-move/521-0128a7f4-2fa1-47c9-947c-a2b38abd1123 |
TUPELO • Alivia Roberts may hail from a small town, but she’s always had big dreams.
The native of Shannon, Mississippi — located about five miles south of Tupelo — graduated as Shannon High School's valedictorian in 2014. She then made her way to Mississippi State University in tat fall.
Prior to her freshman year, however, she began her journey with the Miss America Organization as a contestant in the Miss Mississippi pageant.
Now, Roberts is heading to Miss America after seven years of competing in the organization - this time as Miss Washington, D.C.
To the small-town girl and longtime pageant competitor, the opportunity to compete for the title of Miss America is a dream come true.
"Coming from a small town, you don't always see people who look like you in these positions in D.C. or in Miss America," she said.
A dream come true
Roberts first competed for the title of Miss Mississippi in 2014. She competed again in 2015. Then 2016, and again in 2017.
She never won the Magnolia State’s title, but after relocating to Washington, D.C., she opted to try for the title there.
Roberts began competing for the title of Miss Washington, D.C. in 2019. The pandemic canceled 2020’s competition, but she returned in both 2021 and again this year.
Twice, Roberts was named runner-up. In June, after years of dedication, Roberts finally earned her crown.
"When I heard my name, I was in disbelief and shocked,” she said. “I had no idea this would be the year when I was crowned because I had gotten so close the past years.”
She currently serves as an aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, but in her spare time, Roberts continues her passion of ballet, which she'll take to the Miss America stage for the talent category.
Although Roberts lives in the U.S. capital, her roots in her home state run deep.
"I am originally from Shannon, Mississippi, and am a very proud former resident of Mississippi," Roberts said.
For the seasoned pageant competitor, Roberts' new title is a dream come true.
"It was very surreal to have this dream since I was 4 years old come alive," she said. "All of those emotions from years of ballet training and competing in Miss Mississippi's Outstanding Teen, Miss Mississippi and Miss Washington, D.C. had come to life.”
A ‘village of instructors’
As a child, Roberts was just as active as she is now. She developed a love for soccer while also juggling a passion for ballet. But in the fourth grade, scheduling conflicts prompted her mom to push her to choose one or the other.
"I chose soccer,” she said. “My mom said, 'What will you do for your talent at Miss America?,’ and I told her I would do soccer tricks.”
After taking some time to rethink her choice, Roberts changed her mind and pursued ballet instead.
Roberts attributes her many successes in life to her upbringing in Shannon, especially those that poured into her throughout adolescence.
"I thank my village and instructors in Shannon who invested in me,” she said. “They play and continue to play a large part in who I am.”
The White House employee grew up as a devoted 4H member which she said helped her gain vital speaking skills and initial exposure to Washington, D.C. while traveling to the capital to receive a Congressional Gold Medal.
"When I came to D.C. to receive the medal, I stood on the steps of the Capitol, called my parents and said, 'I think I found myself,'” she said. “I have done everything in my power to make that happen.”
Besides her 4H involvement, one of the most influential parts of Roberts' time in Mississippi came from church. A member of White Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Tupelo, Roberts credits pastor Jeffrey Daniel for keeping her motivated.
"Anytime I was discouraged, he would pep me up and pray with me," Roberts said.
Attaining the ‘unattainable’
Using scholarships she earned during her time in the Miss America Organization, the Mississippi-turned-D.C. queen earned her master’s degree from George Washington University.
From now until the Miss America Pageant, Roberts' goal is to delve into the community service aspect of her role by promoting her Social Impact Initiative, DREAM.
"Right now, I'm really working hard to build relationships and partnerships across the District to promote DREAM which is a mentorship program that stands for Determination Responsibility Excellence Accomplishment and Motivation," Roberts said.
Throughout her year, Roberts' primary aim is to make herself as accessible as possible to those that she serves.
"I'm also making sure the community knows who I am," she said. "I want people in the community to know I'm accessible and reachable and here to serve them."
For the little girls in Shannon, Mississippi who aspire to reach their lofty goals, Roberts has one piece of advice she has strived to live by:
"I received a piece of advice from my cousin Dr. David Beckley - 'Don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do because you're from Shannon, Mississippi,'” she said. “That advice continues to motivate me.”
That same small community, she said, is what made her who she is.
"I'm a small-town girl living big life dreams in Washington, D.C.,” she said. “It's not anything I thought was attainable growing up, but because of my community, it's something that absolutely was."
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Error! There was an error processing your request. | https://www.djournal.com/news/local/shannons-alivia-roberts-achieves-lifelong-dream-heads-to-miss-america/article_8b56dc7a-f60c-54c3-a893-745a9c371c98.html | 2022-08-04T10:33:12 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/news/local/shannons-alivia-roberts-achieves-lifelong-dream-heads-to-miss-america/article_8b56dc7a-f60c-54c3-a893-745a9c371c98.html |
TAMPA, Fla. — A home in Tampa is now "uninhabitable" following an early morning fire, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said.
Fire crews responded around 3:30 a.m. to a home on 66th Street near Broadway Avenue and 19th Avenue after a fire was reported.
A spokesperson said 11 fire trucks responded to the fire and fire crews were able to extinguish it shortly thereafter.
No one was inside the home when the fire happened. And, no one was hurt, the spokesperson added. However, at least half of the house was seriously damaged and is now "uninhabitable."
The cause of the fire is under investigation. | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/hillsboroughcounty/tampa-home-fire/67-3ecc207b-8875-4542-8165-7d7039c3f227 | 2022-08-04T10:34:34 | 0 | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/hillsboroughcounty/tampa-home-fire/67-3ecc207b-8875-4542-8165-7d7039c3f227 |
WATERLOO — A Waterloo teen has been detained after police found him carrying a stolen handgun Tuesday.
According to court records, police were investigating an ongoing drug and firearm case shortly after noon Tuesday when they attempted to stop Montavious Kentrell Saffold in the 900 block of Grant Avenue.
Saffold allegedly tried to run and was detained a short time later. Police found he was carrying a loaded 9 mm Canik pistol that had been reported stolen. A search of his home on Grant Avenue produced significant amounts of marijuana and a digital scale, records state.
Saffold, 17, was charged with felon in possession of a firearm, carrying weapons, fourth-degree theft and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. He was charged as an adult.
Court records state Saffold was detained in October for a charge of possession of a sawed-off shotgun after police responded to a disturbance at his house and found a single-shot 20-gauge shotgun under his mattress.
Photos: Guns in Northeast Iowa crime cases
Evidence photo of the Ruger 9mm pistol used to kill Jada Young-Mills in Waterloo in November 2020.
Contributed
Evidence photo of the .44-caliber revolver used to shoot Jean Smith at her Dundee home in March 2009.
Contributed photo
Evidence photo shows a 9mm Taurus PT92F handgun found in a couch during the search of 122 W. Wellington St. in January 2021.
contributed photo
Hi-Point C9 9mm handgun police seized from Marcus DeShawn Harmon-Wright in April 2020.
Contributed photo
Court exhibit photo shows a shortened .22-caliber Mossberg Plinkster rifle seized in May 2019 that had the fingerprints of Devonner Coleman.
contributed photo
Court exhibit photo shows a shortened .22-caliber Mossberg Plinkster rifle and bags of marijuana seized in May 2019 that had the fingerprints of Devonner Coleman.
Contributed photo
A SIG Sauer pistol investigators found near a truck parked at Dan Niebuhr’s Fairbank home in March 2019.
A SIG Sauer pistol investigators found near a truck parked at Dan Niebuhr’s Fairbank home in March 2019.
Jeff Reinitz
Police seized four handguns in connection with an investigation into three shootings on Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Contributed photo
Court exhibit photo shows military-style rifles, a handgun and ammo found in a trunk during a March 12, 2016, traffic stop in Charles City.
COURTESY PHOTO
Prosecutors allege Kyle Hattrup pointed this Mossberg shotgun at an officer who went to his home after Hattrup allegedly started a fire in his parents’ garage in 2015.
JEFF REINITZ
Courier staff writer
Prosecutors allege Kyle Hattrup pointed this Mossberg shotgun at an officer who went to his home after Hattrup allegedly started a fire in his parents’ garage in 2015.
JEFF REINITZ
One of five shotgun shells found in the street near where Gary Lee Wilson collapsed after being shot in the early morning hours of Aug. 2, 2014.
Police found a shotgun shell after responding to a report of gunfire in the area of Linn and Cottage streets on Thursday, June 4, 2015.
JEFF REINITZ
Police seized a .40-caliber Glock pistol found in Steve William Fordyce’s pickup truck shortly after Donald Harrington was shot on Locust Street in August 2015.
JEFF REINITZ
A pistol and magazine sit in a squad car after police found the weapon in the backyard of a home following gunfire on West Parker Street on Sunday.
JEFF REINITZ
Evidence photo shows a .40-caliber Smith and Wesson pistol ATF agents found in an Elma home were Michael Duane Strain was living in 2011.
contributed photo
Court exhibit of a .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol found while searching Damon Montano’s RV in July 2018.
Contributed photo
Exhibit from government's sentencing memo shows photo of three pistols found on Wayne Jones' phone.
Contributed photo
This .22-caliber Sig Sauer pistol was stolen during an April 2011 burglary to a home on William Drive. Police recovered it when they stopped Queshandis Seals in July 2014. Seals was found guilty of firearm and drug charges following trial in August 2015.
Contributed photo
A .22-caliber Chiappas Firearms pistol found during a May 2014 traffic accident in Dunkerton had been stolen from a New Franken, Wis., gun shop in May 2013.
COURTESY PHOTO
Police seized a .25-caliber Raven Arms pistol following a shooting at the former Rumors Bar on July 22, 2012.
Contributed photo
Waterloo police seized a 9mm Tec-9 handgun, left, and a .380-caliber Lorcin pistol while searching a home at 525 Locust St. on Wednesday, June 19, 2013. (COURTESY PHOTO)
COURTESY PHOTO
Evidence photo shows an AR-7 takedown rifle ATF agents found in an Elma home were Michael Duane Strain was living in 2011.
Jeff Reinitz
Evidence photo of a refurbished Mosin Nagant, a Russian bolt-action surplus rifle ATF agents found when searching Michael Duane Strain’s Elma home in 2011.
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Authorities found this Ruger rifle during a June 6, 2017, search in Ossian while investigating opioid sales. The same gun had been seized in October 2012 during an investigation into a shooting in Calmar.
Contributed photo
Evidence photo showing a rifle seized during a search of an Ossian home during the investigation into furanyl fentanyl and heroin distribution on June 6, 2017.
Contributed photo
Police found a handgun, sawed-off shotgun and a shortened rifle in a Lehman Circle mobile home following a shooting Nov. 23, 2013.
COURTESY PHOTO
Authorities recovered an AK-47 style rifle, a 45-caliber handgun and a .40-caliber Glock handgun from Jeremiah Mumford and William Clayton following a bank robbery, chase and shootout that spanned two counties in October. A second rifle was found in the getaway vehicle. (Contributed photos)
Authorities recovered an AK-47 style rifle, a 45-caliber handgun and a .40-caliber Glock handgun from Jeremiah Mumford and William Clayton following a bank robbery, chase and shootout that spanned two counties in October. A second rifle was found in the getaway vehicle. (Contributed photos)
Authorities recovered an AK-47 style rifle, a 45-caliber handgun and a .40-caliber Glock handgun from Jeremiah Mumford and William Clayton following a bank robbery, chase and shootout that spanned two counties in October. A second rifle was found in the getaway vehicle. (Contributed photos)
Evidence photo shows a shotgun that ATF agents found in an Elma home were Michael Duane Strain was living in 2011.
contributed photo
Authorities found this Remington shotgun during a June 6, 2017, search in Ossian while investigating opioid sales. The same gun had been seized in October 2012 after it was used in a shooting in Calmar.
Contributed photo
Police found this altered Mossburg shotgun in the back of a parked car in August 2013. On Dec. 31, 2013, jurors found Patrelle Green-Bowman guilty of felon in possession of a firearm and unauthorized possession of a sawed-off shotgun following trial.
Courtesy Photo
Police found this altered Mossburg shotgun in the back of a parked car in August 2013. On Dec. 31, 2013, jurors found Patrelle Green-Bowman guilty of felon in possession of a firearm and unauthorized possession of a sawed-off shotgun following trial.
Courtesy Photo
Authorities said a resident found this Smith & Wesson handgun in an alley in April 2014 a few blocks from a June 2013 fatal shooting. It was entered as evidence in the trial of Antonio Hutchins on Monday, Jan. 12, 2015.
JEFF REINITZ
Waterloo police said they found this .22-caliber Beretta handgun in an alley behind Travon Jones’ Iowa Street home in Cedar Falls in January 2015.
JEFF REINITZ / Courier Staff Writer
Police photo of a .45-caliber handgun and a .22-caliber handgun recovered during the investigation into the death of Ronald Randall.
Waterloo police said they seized this H&R revolver in September 2017. The weapon was an exhibit in the trial of Davionte Dashawn Barksdale in February 2018.
JEFF REINITZ
An AR-15 rifle recovered by police in a traffic stop following a July 2018 shooting in Waterloo.
JEFF REINITZ
An AR-15 rifle recovered by police in a traffic stop following a July 2018 shooting in Waterloo.
JEFF REINITZ
The .38-caliber revolver that Vickie Butler was shot with during an argument with Michael Fristo in October 2016. Fristo was acquitted of charges in the shooting following trial on Nov. 30, 2017.
JEFF REINITZ
A photograph of the .357-magnum revolver prosecutors said was used to kill Robert Shannon as he sat in a car on Dec. 14, 2011. Introduced as evidence in the trial of Montez Caples on Oct. 31, 2012. (JEFF REINITZ/ Courier Staff Writer)
Police found a sawed-off Ithaca .410-bore shotgun in the back of Adrian Zarate’s girlfriend’s SUV when it was parked at the Isle Casino Hotel parking lot in October 2018.
Contributed photo
Police found a Jimenez Arms .380-caliber handgun with an obliterated seriall number in Adrian Zarate’s hotel room in October 2018.
Contributed photo
Savage Model 67F 20-gauge shotgun found while searching Levi Farren Miller’s West Mullan Avenue in Waterloo in February 2019.
Contributed
Crime scene photo shows were police found a shotgun resting in a cat dish while searching a Waterloo apartment on Feb. 2, 2019.
Police found this Ruger handgun under Delvonn Battles’ seat during a traffic stop in Waterloo in January 2013. The weapon was used in a Des Moines shooting in December 2012. (Contributed photo)
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EVANSDALE — After the City Council discussed the police department’s current Teamsters union contract Tuesday, Mayor DeAnne Kobliska said elected officials have agreed on a pay bump for officers.
She expects the Aug. 16 meeting to include a contract amendment for the council to formally consider and approve.
The $22.84 base rate would go up $2.16, or about 9%, to $25 per hour.
That hike, she said, will apply across the board to the other pay scale steps in an officer’s second, third, fourth, fifth, eighth, 10th, 12th and 15th years.
Those years will remain the same, despite one of the previous proposals having the scale top out at the 10th year.
Additionally, Kobliska said the council agreed to offer $1,500, $1,500 and $2,000 bonuses after their first, second and third years, respectively, once they complete their in-house police training.
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Developer Nick Graham had considered deviating from the familiar name, but decided against it for brand recognition.
In addition to other minor incentives, another perk will be a “lateral transfer” clause. That means an officer coming from a different department would carry their years of service over and apply it to the Evansdale’s pay scale.
Police Chief Mike Dean made it clear last month leading up to this latest development that the council needed to do a better job attracting candidates for positions in his department, or else it’d be at risk of not having a 24/7 department because of not having enough officers to work the streets.
A couple of hundred people attended an hour-long celebration of life ceremony for Tyler and Sarah Schmidt and their six-year-old daughter, Lula. The Cedar Falls family members were found shot to death July 22 in their tent at Maquoketa Caves State Park.
Councilors have discussed bringing about changes in recruitment across all city departments, after having struggled to attract viable candidates to fill its city clerk position.
Before settling on a $25 per hour base, the previous proposal had officers starting at $26 per hour, and then guaranteeing officers reach 3% salary hikes each of their first three years, and then 4% the fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth years.
Instead, council agreed with 3% across the board until the 15th year. | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/evansdale-city-council-agrees-to-police-officer-raises-incentives/article_76e2dade-b20c-5623-8a7d-613c8fd9efee.html | 2022-08-04T10:34:59 | 0 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/evansdale-city-council-agrees-to-police-officer-raises-incentives/article_76e2dade-b20c-5623-8a7d-613c8fd9efee.html |
WATERLOO — The classrooms of the Grout Museums got a makeover, courtesy of the Youth Art Team, and they have even more projects for the community right around the corner.
On Wednesday, members of the Youth Art Team provided the finishing touches on a set of murals they painted in the rooms. The week before, a team taking part in the organization’s summer camp undertook the mural project, covering the walls with representations of the different exhibits of the museum, spanning from Native American culture to industry and the stars in the planetarium. According to Heidi Fuchtman, executive and creative director for the Youth Art Team, the decision to do the Grout Museum was made in part by their older students.
“They help decide what projects we do and then when we do the projects, they’re making decisions about what we’re representing in the artwork,” Fuchtman said. “So all of the decisions about what you see in those murals were made by the students.”
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The classrooms themselves are heavily used by the Museum School students. According to Carrsan Morrissey, programming and outreach director at the museum, this amounts the entire third grade class of the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area – or upwards of 1,400 students between September and May.
The students who worked on the murals were in the classes themselves at that age. The exhibits they chose to represent were drawn from their own memories of those displays that stuck with them the most growing up. They were also allowed to go through the museum itself to gather ideas. One artist, Niara Myles, found her inspiration in the railroad tracks, which were incorporated into one of the rooms.
“I think the railroad shows where people started – how Black people and white people were separated in what they do today and what they did back then,” Myles said. “It shows our progress as a community.”
Myles added that it’s her hope that the students will not only see the art, but be inspired to make their own mark on the community.
“I think when the kids start Museum School, the murals will show them what they can do in the future,” she said.
But the Youth Art Team also has other major projects on the docket. This week, it was announced that they’d been chosen for a $10,000 grant, courtesy of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs for their upcoming Vision Project. The idea behind this project is for the Youth Art Team to get together with artists who are blind and visually impaired, to learn how they go about the creative process and the tools they use. They will then put together kits to help students with visual impairments create.
Having just found out about the grant, Fuchtman says they are still in the planning stages of the Vision Project and what it will fully entail. | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/grout-museum-gets-new-murals-courtesy-of-youth-art-team/article_2debd18f-f471-5c90-8d01-37e6d4a19daf.html | 2022-08-04T10:35:05 | 1 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/grout-museum-gets-new-murals-courtesy-of-youth-art-team/article_2debd18f-f471-5c90-8d01-37e6d4a19daf.html |
If all goes according to plan, North Miami residents can expect a newly developed and vibrant urban center, brimming with restaurants, housing and recreational areas for all to enjoy.
The city is looking to revitalize its nine-acre downtown area – the heart of which is found at the intersection of NE Seventh Avenue and NE 125th Street – through a public-private partnership, or P3, expected to result in the redevelopment of three key institutions.
The partnership, officially announced July 28 at a symposium held by the city, will be conducted through a phased-out approach. The first phase will bring about the construction of an entirely new four-story City Hall of approximately 110,000 square feet.
Next, the city is planning for an annex to the police station to add about 45,000 square feet to the existing department building, followed by an expansion of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) of approximately 25,000 square feet through a vertical addition to the cultural arts institution.
The partnership will also create a structured parking garage for both public and private use with more than 400 parking spaces in the heart of the downtown complex, as well as opportunities for workforce housing, spaces for public and commercial use, and a new hotel.
For now, much remains undecided as the city embarks on a search for a private developer to bring the first phase to fruition. That process will begin in the coming week as the city releases an initial request for proposals and is expected to conclude by the end of October, after which the developer will work with the P3 team and city government to form an official construction plan and timeline by spring of next year.
Each phase thereafter is expected to be completed by a separate developer, according to North Miami’s P3 consultant, Lee A. Weintraub of Becker & Poliakoff.
Also up in the air is a specific dollar amount representing the city’s budget for the whole project, but that detail and more will be settled once the team can meet with the selected contractors and developers who will ultimately bring the city’s vision to life.
“Because we are dealing with a private partner, we are allowing them to provide us with how they believe they can fulfill what we’re looking for,” said City Manager Theresa Therilus.
“We’re just going to make the best decision for our residents and ourselves,” said Councilwoman Kassandra Timothe, who spearheaded the idea for a public-private partnership before it was unanimously approved as an ordinance in February.
Still, for councilmembers, one thing is for certain: North Miami needs a makeover.
The sixth-largest city in Miami-Dade County, North Miami is a coastal community adjacent to Biscayne Bay that is home to Oleta River Park – the largest urban park in Florida – and Dezerland Park Miami, the county’s largest indoor attraction.
Now, with the revitalized downtown, the city is aiming to live up to its own name.
Councilman Scott Galvin, the longest-standing member with a 23-year history on the city council, says he hasn’t seen any changes in the area since he was a kid living in the area 50 years ago. To him, some of the one-story storefronts that comprise the area are reminiscent of an aesthetic that hasn’t been around since the 1950s.
Likewise, the decision to begin with a new City Hall is nothing short of intentional. The city has largely outgrown its current facility, according to Therilus, who says that some offices have been forced into smaller buildings and trailers nearby.
“Development has happened everywhere around us, whether that’s Midtown, Wynwood, Overtown,” Galvin said. “Everybody’s got all this new stuff, and North Miami is untouched. It’s time for some of the development that you see in other parts of the county and the state to come to North Miami.”
But for people who wince at the thought of new developments in fear of gentrification, Galvin says, hope should soon be restored. He and others involved assure that the results of the partnership will do much to benefit the diverse population that already resides in the city.
The developments are expected to attract new business owners to the upgraded area, providing for more restaurants in a locality that Galvin presently refers to as a “food desert.” He also anticipates a decrease in the tax rates currently paid by residents as new business revenue begins to provide alternative sources of income for the city.
“The city hasn’t reinvested in itself in 50 years, so why should other people?” Galvin said. “This shows our commitment to the area and to the city at large, so others will come into it.”
Both Timothe and John Lorfils, North Miami’s economic development director, mirrored that sentiment at last Thursday’s symposium, where interested developers were present to learn more about the upcoming project.
“We know right now North Miami District 2, and North Miami in general, is the epicenter of development,” Timothe said. “Developers are knocking at our door. If we can create a revitalized downtown where we have shops and restaurants, it would change the graphic of our community.”
“Our city elected officials and staff are 100% committed to redeveloping North Miami’s downtown and making the city a place where [residents] can live, work and play,” added Lorfils. | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/big-changes-ahead-for-city-of-north-miami/article_b88edf2a-12fd-11ed-8799-9b032be87a66.html | 2022-08-04T10:36:48 | 1 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/big-changes-ahead-for-city-of-north-miami/article_b88edf2a-12fd-11ed-8799-9b032be87a66.html |
Rep. Christopher Benjamin, the first Muslim elected to the Florida Legislature, believes he can best serve the people in District 107.
His Haitian American opponents, Wancito Francius and Pierre Prime, beg to differ.
Because Florida is a closed-primary state, only Francius’ name will appear on the ballot beside Benjamin’s on Aug. 23, leaving Prime to face off with the victor in November.
The seat covers parts of North Miami, North Miami Beach and Miami Gardens, and now also stretches into Biscayne Gardens.
Benjamin, a practicing attorney, has the second-most campaign funds at more than $37,400, with Prime at only $1,300 because of a commitment to not accept funds from large corporations. Francius has a total of $53,172, including loans.
“The corporations are giving you money in the lobbying sense, expecting you to do things that will be in their interests,” said Prime. “The people are who you have to be beholden to.
“In 2020, I told folks that I was the best-prepared candidate and I was,” Benjamin told The Miami Times. “That preparation served me well in Tallahassee. In this election, I’m not only the best-prepared candidate but the best-experienced candidate, and I remain the best person for the job and tasks ahead.”
Benjamin has helped pass legislation to diminish barriers for homeless youth, increase educational opportunities for disabled veterans and expunge nonjudicial arrest records of minors who complete a diversion program, and a Homestead property tax exemption bill for educators, first responders, active-duty service members and child welfare professionals.
Attempts to secure funding for educational programs such as Florida Memorial University’s (FMU) Legal Scholars Pipeline and Cyber Innovation Hub initiatives, and a coding certificate program at Dade Institute of Technology in North Miami Beach, fell short with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto.
Overall, Benjamin has co-sponsored hundreds of bills, nearly 30 focused on health care and 19 on education. A resolution he created will bring a Muslim Heritage Month celebration this year.
“We can make the community better if we make good laws, laws that keep people safe and allow people to prosper and to thrive,” he said, disclosing a lifelong desire to help change the community.
Born and raised in Hollywood, Fla., Benjamin joined the military in 1991 following his high school graduation. From there, he went on to Florida Memorial University to study political science.
He served as vice president for the Miami-Dade chapter of the NAACP at one point, and has also served on various county boards.
Benjamin was encouraged to run by outgoing Rep. Barbara Watson, who was termed out of the seat.
Slinging barbs
“I believe that my opponent just went to Tallahassee for an easy paycheck,” said Francius of Benjamin. “Most people who are running for office aren’t there to really help people.”
Francius, an entrepreneur who owns and operates a small security firm, said holding Benjamin accountable was the only way to get him to vote in favor of the people while in office.
“He only recalled his vote on HB 403 and HB 735 after I put out a press release,” said Francius. “Those bills take the local power away from the local government and give it to the state of Florida. This isn’t what we vote for … Most politicians get paid to follow their own interest.”
The bills, which did not pass, would have authorized courts to award attorney fees and other costs in some civil actions filed against local governments, and prohibit Florida counties from issuing contractor licenses for trades not regulated by the state.
Like many immigrants, Francius came to America in search of a better life. He worked hard to learn the English language and attended Lindsey Hopkins Technical College before pursuing a degree in criminal justice at Miami Dade College.
A desire to become a public servant led him to Georgia for a policy academy program in 2012, but a family emergency hindered his ability to complete training. Upon returning to Miami, he opened several businesses to provide tax, valet parking, cleaning and construction services.
Francius, who unsuccessfully ran for several seats in three separate races for seats in North Miami, said he is not intimated by his opponent’s experience in office.
“[Benjamin] really only had two years in Tallahassee,” he said, disclosing that he is positive voters will choose him over his opponent. “I consider that as someone who is still learning [the ropes]. And a really bad learner, [at] that. This ‘experience’ he has will destroy the community.”
Francius hopes a business background, footprint in the community and stint as a consultant for the House of Representatives in Haiti can help him win the seat.
Prime shares similar thoughts about his opponents.
New kind of candidate
“A lot of what Christopher does is in Miami Gardens,” said Prime of Benjamin specifically. “For me, serving the community goes beyond only the community that I live in, whereas with the other candidates, that’s the case.”
At 3 years old, Prime moved to Miami with his immigrant parents who had worked as tomato pickers in Naples to make a living.
Like Benjamin, he studied political science with a goal of putting the degree to the people’s benefit.
Growing up, he was often in trouble with the law and constantly got into fights at school. Wanting to help young men like himself turn over a new leaf, he created the Urban Peace Project to provide mentorship and educational resources to at-risk youth.
Prime is also a small business owner who is often contracted by local and county governments for property maintenance services.
“I think my running for office will be a good thing to invigorate young people and those who are discontent with the government,” he said, referencing his background and locked hair. “Most of us who aren’t satisfied decided to either not vote or pay attention to politics altogether.”
Referring to both parties as two sides of the same coin, he decided to run as an NPA, or nonpartisan association, candidate.
His wife, Mykita Cherry-Prime, is also running for office in Miami Gardens. Focusing on her campaign, he says, is one of the reasons why he hasn’t gotten as much spotlight as his opponents.
Tackling issues
All three candidates say they will prioritize the affordable housing crisis.
Benjamin wants to strengthen the Tenant’s Bill of Rights that was recently passed by the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners by placing a cap on the percentage at which rent can increase in a given year.
If reelected, he hopes to begin the process of sitting down with county leaders like Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to discuss ways to make this happen in the Legislature.
Prime, on the other hand, says he is not opposed to fighting for rent control, in addition to creating a statewide Tenant’s Bill of Rights.
Francius wants to approach the issue with a tax freeze to lighten the cost burden on senior citizens living on fixed incomes.
When it comes to criminal justice reform, Benjamin wants to increase the age at which a child can get arrested from 7 to 13, and to continue pushing legislation to allow state-elected officials access to county jails for pop-up visits, a failed bill he sponsored.
His opponents, Francius and Prime respectively, say they will prioritize creating more opportunities for small businesses and develop more youth intervention programs to support those living outside of inner cities.
“We can’t act unless you act,” said Benjamin, encouraging voters to help their representative in bringing more funding and better legislation to their community. | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/christopher-benjamin-runs-to-keep-his-house-seat/article_bc6261ce-1304-11ed-8c75-9720910690f9.html | 2022-08-04T10:36:54 | 1 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/christopher-benjamin-runs-to-keep-his-house-seat/article_bc6261ce-1304-11ed-8c75-9720910690f9.html |
Without a clear budget or detailed plan, Miami commissioners approved a proposal to house the city’s homeless population in tiny portable homes on Virginia Key, an island south of Brickell and home to Miami’s first “colored only” beach.
City officials are considering relocating 50-100 chronically unhoused individuals from densely populated areas like downtown, Overtown, Little Havana and Wynwood to the historic park.
There, they would supposedly receive on-site treatment for drug addiction and mental health and outreach services, in addition to health screenings and access to showers and meals. Residents of the tiny homes would be prohibited from using drugs, drinking or committing acts of violence under a zero-tolerance policy also utilized at most traditional shelters, which the long-term homeless typically avoid.
The controversial move was supported by Commissioners Joe Carollo and Christine King without hesitation at a meeting last Thursday after a presentation from the city’s director of human services, William Porro.
It was initially axed with only two commissioners in support but later revived when Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla surprised everyone with a vote reversal an hour later.
“Your presentation and your proposal, which came last minute, is insulting to me,” he first told Porro during the meeting. “The sites that you’ve picked (don’t) work. It’s not well-thought-out. It’s not deliberative. It’s not what serious people do.”
Three sites were identified during the presentation: Virginia Key, which was listed as the optimal site for its size and distance from residential areas; a state-owned fenced lot at Northwest 71st Street and Fifth Place under Interstate 95; and a privately owned lot in Allapattah at 2451 NW Seventh Avenue.
Porro was criticized for not consulting with the Virginia Key Advisory Board and other relevant stakeholders during the process of identifying sites. He told commissioners that Virginia Key had the capacity to receive 150-200 people for the tiny homes program.
Other temporary shelter options such as tents and folding unit structures were considered before the tiny home model was approved.
When asked about the cost required to fund such a project, Porro said he could only provide “very rough” estimates. He said approximately $800,000 would have to be paid annually to a contracted company to manage the site and another $100,000 per year to rent mobile showers. The estimate does not include costs to bring utilities or repairing and prepping the site to be used for the project’s purpose, nor does it address a provision for wraparound social services.
“[This is] not just to put them somewhere out of site. it’s to create a community amongst them,” said Porro. “It’s not a jail, it’s voluntary. They don’t have to go there but they also can’t continue to camp on the sidewalk.”
Unsatisfied with the answers provided to their questions, Commissioners Manolo Reyes and Ken Russell cast the two dissenting votes.
Russell, whose district includes Virginia Key, was the only commissioner to completely oppose the idea of building a city-sponsored homeless transition camp.
“I think the conversation seems to be which of these sites is the best,” he said to the other commissioners Thursday. “But I think the bigger question is whether or not we should be doing this at all … whether we’re equipped to do this.”
His stark opposition to the proposed site mirrored the concerns of many residents, activists and Virginia Key employees, who are all concerned about its proximity to the Virginia Key Outdoor Center, Virginia Key Beach Park and the county’s sewage plant.
The 125,000-square-foot plot of land in question is an open field that lies between the Virginia Key Outdoor Center and the North Point mountain bike trail.
“This is a city park. It's not an isolated area,” said Esther Alonso, owner of the outdoor center, during public comment. “It’s a heavily used area … an area that provides services for our community. We are already facing a shortage of park space.”
“Is it perfect? No. But it is an option,” said King, the commission’s chairwoman, before casting her affirmative vote.
Freswell Major, a Miami Gardens resident who made the long drive to City Hall last week for the meeting, said he was disappointed to see the only Black commissioner on the dais – King – vote in favor of placing something like this in the area.
“To me, that’s like a kick in the face … She’s young and doesn’t know what this means to us,” he said. “My family came here in the mid-50s and during that time, Virginia Key was very important to us because the only beach we could go to was there. And now for them to say they’re going to set up a homeless camp [nearby]? I think that’s wrong. It’s a historical landmark.”
Major said he isn’t against seeing the homeless housed but it's the location that poses an issue.
Porro will again stand before the commission Sept. 22 with a report that includes a full economic analysis, a public safety plan and additional site suggestions for a final vote on location. Virginia Key is the only one of the three sites that remain on the list for next month’s meeting.
“Nobody wants this in their neighborhood. It’s always in somebody else’s they wanna dump it in,” said Carollo, who proposed the idea along with other controversial approaches, such as an adopt-the-homeless program last year. “We can see if it works in one site if we want to expand it in any of our districts where it would make sense.”
Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, told The Miami Times he plans to meet with Carollo.
Book was very vocal about his opposition to the creation of a tent city but said the tiny homes project is a much better solution to address countywide homelessness.
According to the Homeless Trust, there are 972 unsheltered individuals in Miami-Dade County compared to 8,000 about 27 years ago. More than half of the county’s homeless population live within the city of Miami.
“Before the commission took up the item, we were diametrically opposed to Commissioner Carollo’s plan for an encampment,” Book explained. “We don’t support encampments ... [but] we would support any pilot program for tiny homes. Where they put it, is not our business. We are not in support or opposed to A-B-C-D-E-F or G sites.”
Had commissioners voted to construct the tents or an encampment instead, the Trust would be in danger of losing its annual $41 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to fuel a “housing-first” mindset when addressing homelessness.
In fact, Book said the Homeless Trust itself had already been looking into creating tiny homes for half a decade.
“This has the potential to be an experiment that gets expanded significantly as we work our way into an end of homelessness in our community,” he said. “If somebody has a problem with a tiny homes project, then they are just not willing to find solutions to ending homelessness because [this] is a legitimate option that people all across the country are beginning to look at.”
Indeed, tiny home villages for the homeless have popped up in Detroit; Syracuse, N.Y.; Los Angeles; Springfield, Mo.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Seattle.
“The city of Miami is not trying to reinvent the wheel here, we’re trying to do what’s been successful in other areas,” said Carollo, who listed various cities where tiny home communities have worked, including Seattle.
The village in Seattle consists of 8′ x 12′ homes, the size of a small bedroom, with electricity, vent insulation, windows and a lockable door. Each home costs $2,500 according to Sharon Lee, the founding executive director of the Low Income Housing Institute.
“I think the tiny homes by themselves would probably cost the city in the $8-$12 million range,” Book estimated. “Just based on my knowledge of tiny homes, but much of that will be determined by how much infrastructure may need to be put in. Things like running sewer and power line to the site.” | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/could-historic-virginia-key-beach-house-homeless/article_c47b8308-1337-11ed-b0df-c331b67a0893.html | 2022-08-04T10:37:01 | 0 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/could-historic-virginia-key-beach-house-homeless/article_c47b8308-1337-11ed-b0df-c331b67a0893.html |
The candidates for the District 2 Miami-Dade County Commission seat are participating in one forum after another as they inch closer to the start of early voting on Monday, Aug. 8.
Wallace Aristide, Monique Barley-Mayo, Marleine Bastien, Philippe Bien-Aime, Josaphat “Joe” Celestin and William “DC” Clark all want to replace termed-out Jean Monestime.
Among the many subjects touched upon at a recent forum moderated by the Miami Herald’s Caribbean correspondent, Jacqueline Charles, candidates for the predominantly Black district addressed the housing affordability crisis, public transit accessibility and ending gun violence.
According to voter data as of July 2022, there are 32,884 Black women in District 2, 25,816 Black men, 16,501 Hispanic women, 13,827 Hispanic men, 2,651 white women and 2,697 white men. There are 104,121 registered voters in total.
“We welcome everybody, whether you’re from the LGBTQ community or whether you’re from the faith-based community,” Bien-Aime said about his plans to promote culture, fair representation and inclusivity.
But inclusivity is hard to achieve with ensuing neighborhood gentrification and rent increases of more than 30%, leaving many residents to demand action from their representatives in government.
Clark, Barley-Mayo and Bastien all expressed support for rent control, which the Florida Legislature blocked in 1977 and is now being researched at the behest of County Commissioner Kionne McGhee.
Celestin, a former mayor of North Miami, expressed opposition to rent control because of its prior failure to gain traction in Tallahassee.
“I’m not for something that is illegal,” he said.
“When we’re talking about affordable housing shortage and single-family homes, we’re not talking about those people making $15-$16 an hour, that’s public housing,” Bien-Aime said. “We need to address mixed-use and mixed-income housing so we can address public housing for those people making $15-$16 an hour who cannot afford affordable housing.”
Bastien retorted that “affordable housing is housing” and Clark pointed out that people making $15 per hour represent a large percentage of the district’s population and should not be brushed aside.
Celestin suggested entering agreements with developers to provide for lower cost units during a project’s zoning process.
“If I am going to allow taxpayer dollars to give them costs to develop, then I can set conditions to make them set lower rent or not to increase rent to a person for a number of times,” he said.
Preferring to talk about homeownership, Barley-Mayo expressed that the county needs more self-sufficient programs in public housing so renters can become first-time homebuyers.
The public transit system was derided for its insufficient options and cost, which has led to reduced ridership.
Aristide said the county must prioritize investing more revenue into making mass transit more accessible and affordable, particularly for people with disabilities, while Celestin stressed the need for more wheelchair accessible buses and Bastien called for “humanizing” the transit system.
“I would be for investing to provide free rides to the disabled,” she said.
With gun violence left as the final topic, Celestin said he would create more police substations for faster response.
Clark recommended better community policing, with officers embedded in neighborhoods more consistently. He also suggested workforce housing for police officers and trade hubs so the “criminal element” can learn a trade instead of turning to crime for a living.
Bien-Aime, the current mayor of North Miami, said his city council reduced crime by 23% with community policing, and by providing police with the training and equipment they need.
“And we brought different programs to the youth to address gun violence,” he added.
Bastien, the founder and chief executive of Family Action Network Movement, concurred, saying the county needs to invest more in families.
“If we invest in these families, because they’re not born criminals, then we won’t even need the police,” she said. | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/county-commission-candidates-address-housing-crisis/article_cbdf6a8c-12f2-11ed-87cb-4fed8d5493ed.html | 2022-08-04T10:37:07 | 1 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/county-commission-candidates-address-housing-crisis/article_cbdf6a8c-12f2-11ed-87cb-4fed8d5493ed.html |
The NFL has suspended Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and fined him $1.5 million for tampering with Tom Brady and Sean Payton following a six-month investigation stemming from Brian Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit against the league.
The league’s investigation found the Dolphins did not intentionally lose games during the 2019 season, but did have impermissible communication with Brady and his and Payton’s agent, Don Yee. The league announced the findings of the investigation on Tuesday.
The Dolphins will forfeit a first-round selection in the 2023 NFL draft and a third-round selection in the 2024 draft. Ross is suspended through Oct. 17, 2022.
“The investigators found tampering violations of unprecedented scope and severity,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “I know of no prior instance of a team violating the prohibition on tampering with both a head coach and star player, to the potential detriment of multiple other clubs, over a period of several years. Similarly, I know of no prior instance in which ownership was so directly involved in the violations.”
The investigation concluded the Dolphins violated the league’s anti-tampering policy on three separate occasions. The Dolphins had impermissible communications with Brady as early as August 2019 through the 2020 postseason, while he was under contract to the New England Patriots.
Dolphins vice chairman/limited partner Bruce Beal conducted “these numerous and detailed discussions” and kept Ross and other team executives informed of his conversations with Brady.
The Dolphins again had impermissible communications with both Brady and Yee no later than early December 2021 and after the season, while he was under contract to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Those discussions focused on Brady becoming a limited partner in the Dolphins and possibly serving as a football executive, although at times they also included the possibility he would play for the Dolphins. The league says Ross and Beal participated in these discussions.
Brady briefly retired in February before the seven-time Super Bowl champion chose to return for another season with the Buccaneers.
The third tampering violation involved Payton.
In January, the Dolphins had impermissible communications with Yee about having Payton serve as Miami’s head coach. The Dolphins did not seek consent from New Orleans to have these discussions, which occurred before Payton announced his decision to retire from the Saints. Miami requested permission to speak to Payton for the first time after that announcement but New Orleans declined to grant it.
Ross’ suspension ends the same day Deshaun Watson is eligible to return from his six-game suspension. A disciplinary officer handed out Watson’s punishment on Monday after the Cleveland Browns quarterback was accused by two dozen women in Texas of sexual misconduct during massage treatments. The NFL is mulling whether to appeal that decision.
Ross may not be present at the team’s facility and may not represent the club at any team or NFL event during his suspension. He also may not attend any league meeting before the annual meeting in 2023, and he is removed from all league committees indefinitely.
Beal was fined $500,000 and may not attend any league meeting for the remainder of the year.
Regarding Flores’ allegations the Dolphins wanted him to “tank” games to secure the top draft pick, investigators said the team didn’t intentionally lose and neither Ross nor anyone from the team instructed Flores to lose on purpose.
However, investigators found Ross expressed several times during the season his belief that draft position should take priority over win-loss record. Flores considered the comments a suggestion that he lose games and expressed his concerns in writing to senior club executives. Ross no longer made any such comments to Flores after that.
Investigators said there are differing recollections about the wording, timing and context of Flores’ claim of a $100,000-a-game offer from the club to tank, but it “was not intended or taken to be a serious offer, nor was the subject pursued in any respect” by Ross or anyone else at the club.
“I am thankful that the NFL’s investigator found my factual allegations against Stephen Ross are true,” Flores said in a statement. “At the same time, I am disappointed to learn that the investigator minimized Mr. Ross’s offers and pressure to tank games especially when I wrote and submitted a letter at the time to Dolphins executives documenting my serious concerns regarding this subject at the time which the investigator has in her possession.
“While the investigator found that the Dolphins had engaged in impermissible tampering of ‘unprecedented scope and severity,’ Mr. Ross will avoid any meaningful consequence. There is nothing more important when it comes to the game of football itself than the integrity of the game. When the integrity of the game is called into question, fans suffer, and football suffers.”
Goodell chastised Ross for making the comments.
“An owner or senior executive must understand the weight that his or her words carry, and the risk that a comment will be taken seriously and acted upon, even if that is not the intent or expectation,” Goodell said. “Even if made in jest and not intended to be taken seriously, comments suggesting that draft position is more important than winning can be misunderstood and carry with them an unnecessary potential risk to the integrity of the game. The comments made by Mr. Ross did not affect Coach Flores’ commitment to win and the Dolphins competed to win every game. Coach Flores is to be commended for not allowing any comment about the relative importance of draft position to affect his commitment to win throughout the season.”
Ross issued a statement claiming the league cleared the team of tanking and calling Flores’ allegations “false, malicious and defamatory.”
“I strongly disagree with the conclusions and the punishment,” Ross said of the tampering conclusion. “However, I will accept the outcome because the most important thing is that there be no distractions for our team as we begin an exciting and winning season.”
Former U.S. Attorney and SEC Chair Mary Jo White and a team of lawyers from the Debevoise law firm led the NFL’s investigation. | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/nfl-fines-dolphins-owner-1-5m-and-takes-away-draft-picks/article_017996c4-1288-11ed-9fc6-5fd8eb9c4e89.html | 2022-08-04T10:37:13 | 1 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/nfl-fines-dolphins-owner-1-5m-and-takes-away-draft-picks/article_017996c4-1288-11ed-9fc6-5fd8eb9c4e89.html |
The Underdeck committee is looking for feedback from residents regarding the name of a linear park that will sit beneath Interstate-395 once the highway has been reconstructed from Overtown to Biscayne Boulevard.
The area of recreation has been in the planning stages for months now as the city of Miami prepares to restitch neighborhoods originally torn apart by the highway's construction in the 1960s. But the name of the space remains unsettled, as residents of Overtown strive to reclaim the space that once divided their neighborhood in half, and then into quarters.
Now, after a series of monthly community meetings and past surveys have resulted in feedback from locals looking to establish their heritage and legacy within the branding of the park, the Underdeck committee and newly hired design agency Jacober Creative are once again asking for help.
A newly released survey will allow residents to provide input on the feel of the official name and logo for the Underdeck before planners make their final recommendations to the city. That survey can be found online at UnderdeckMiami.com and will be available until August 5. | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/planners-seek-help-from-residents-for-project-name/article_78bb9fd4-12f1-11ed-87e2-4fe4f88013ff.html | 2022-08-04T10:37:19 | 0 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/planners-seek-help-from-residents-for-project-name/article_78bb9fd4-12f1-11ed-87e2-4fe4f88013ff.html |
After visiting with Miami's Haitian community on Monday, Congresswoman Val Demings set her sights on Broward County Tuesday with a late afternoon campaign stop at Island Space Caribbean Museum in Plantation, where she talked about affordable housing and gun violence, and her Republican opponent's inaction to address either. The stump speech was aimed at helping her unseat Sen. Marco Rubio in November. Demings then went on to campaign at the Miramar Multi-Service Complex.
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August 3-9, 2022
Recent Obituaries
Recent Headlines
- Biden signs executive order to protect travel for abortion
- Could historic Virginia Key Beach house homeless?
- Veep Harris visits Miami
- Val Demings stumps in South Florida
- County commission candidates address housing crisis
- NFL fines Dolphins’ owner $1.5M and takes away draft picks
- New USPS election division will oversee mail-in ballots
- Christopher Benjamin runs to keep his house seat | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/val-demings-stumps-in-south-florida/article_25e3d1e8-130d-11ed-b823-17f401bce81d.html | 2022-08-04T10:37:25 | 1 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/val-demings-stumps-in-south-florida/article_25e3d1e8-130d-11ed-b823-17f401bce81d.html |
Vice President Kamala Harris visited Miami on Monday to announce a $1 billion investment toward climate resiliency projects across the nation – $50 million of which will go toward protecting low-lying neighborhoods from sea-level rise and storm surge right here at home.
The investment will fund climate-driven programs in 343 cities, towns and counties. Local governments will have the ability to apply for grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), dictating what sort of programs will suit their communities best.
Whereas Miami’s most dire needs may consist of protecting coastal communities from rising seas and record-breaking hurricanes, funding will serve other states in combatting region-specific climate change and natural disasters, such as safeguarding California from raging wildfires or the Midwest from extreme drought.
Funding for the federal program, known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, has doubled since President Joe Biden and Harris took office in 2021. Last month, Biden announced that the investment will double once again to reach $2.3 billion during the next fiscal year.
The announcements come as the climate crisis continues to tear through cities across the U.S. Last year, the country experienced a total of 20 extreme weather events, each of which caused more than $1 billion in damage and collectively resulted in the deaths of approximately 700 people, according to Harris.
Most recently, floods that began in eastern Kentucky just last week have thus far killed at least 35 people, including children.
“The climate crisis is here,” said Harris. “It has arrived, and we are experiencing it in real time.”
At the same time, she said, “we know that the impact of the climate crisis is not felt equally across all communities.”
For instance, heat waves are worse for people who don’t have air conditioning or who work outdoors, she said. By the same token, evacuation routes in the wake of an emergency are especially inaccessible to those who have a disability and require frequent medical attention.
“The climate crisis has exposed and intensified generations of economic and environmental inequities that have been present in communities across our nation, and our administration remains committed to addressing those inequities through environmental justice,” Harris said.
As such, she said, part of the BRIC initiative is to prioritize projects that will help low-income and minority communities, all while creating union jobs that will provide for an improved and equitable economy.
The increased funding for BRIC is just one of the administration’s approaches to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. Last year, the Biden-Harris administration set a goal of cutting total carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050.
“Some say that is an ambitious goal,” said the vice president. “I say it is doable.”
Tens of billions of dollars have been made available through the bipartisan infrastructure bill, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to help the nation transition to clean and renewable energy.
One particular focus is the transportation sector, which is the leading cause for greenhouse gas emissions in the country. Miami-Dade County, for instance, has ordered 50 electric school buses in an effort to electrify its fleet.
But everyone seems to agree that the feat is too great to achieve alone. During the event, which took place at Florida International University’s main Sweetwater campus, Harris sent a call out to Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, introduced last week by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, since referred to as the largest climate investment in legislative U.S. history.
The bill, along with reducing costs for health care and prescription drugs, will also invest $369 billion in “energy-related provisions” with a particular focus on zero-emission vehicles.
Despite provisions within the bill that would actually ease permitting for coal, oil and natural gas projects – included as a method to dampen opposition from leading oil companies – analysis has found that the bill would nonetheless decrease emissions by 40% by 2030.
Schumer plans to bring the bill to the Senate for a vote this week.
Local Reps. Frederica S. Wilson and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick were both present Monday to support Harris’ announcement and encourage continued efforts against climate change.
“We know that our world is changing fast and furiously,” said Wilson, whose district has been reorganized since the 2020 census to encompass many of the at-risk coastal communities along the Biscayne corridor. “We must act, but most importantly, we must lead by example. As a nation, we are proud to work alongside this administration and to remind the world that Democrats deliver.”
Also present to speak at the Aug. 1 event were U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Richard Spinrad, as well as Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, whose city will be hosting next year’s annual “Aspen Ideas: Climate,” a multi-day conference featuring global and local climate crisis leaders, in March.
Cherfilus-McCormick emphasized the importance of improving both sustainability and equitability in the fight against climate change during Monday’s event.
“Incorporating climate justice and resilience includes prioritizing the well-being of people and communities most exposed to climate harm and least able to cope with it,” she said. | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/veep-harris-visits-miami/article_88b960e4-130d-11ed-b7b0-5bd51bed8cc1.html | 2022-08-04T10:37:31 | 0 | https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/veep-harris-visits-miami/article_88b960e4-130d-11ed-b7b0-5bd51bed8cc1.html |
CAPE MAY — A proposed million-dollar liquor license transfer before Cape May City Council failed this week for a lack of votes after a lengthy discussion.
With one member absent, two votes for and one against, Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock at first thought the measure passed, but city attorney Christopher Gillin-Schwartz said the resolution needed three votes, a majority on the five-member council.
Mullock is a neighbor of the property and had decided to abstain. After the vote on Tuesday, he stuck with that decision.
The license was set to be transferred from The Merion Inn to a new company to allow the sale of alcohol to guests of The Southern Mansion on Washington Street. According to Marcus Karavan, an attorney representing the applicant, the license would only have been used to sell beverages to guests at special events or to “guests with room keys” staying at the Inn.
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Others would not be able to walk in and order a drink, he said.
The liquor license for The Merion Inn on Decatur Street became available when the building was purchased by the owners of the Mad Batter on Jackson Street, according to Mullock, who said both businesses, adjoining in the back, now operate under a single license.
But state laws prevent The Southern Mansion from acquiring the license, because owner Barbara Wilde also owns Willow Creek Winery in West Cape May, Mullock said. State law prevents someone from simultaneously holding two types of licenses to sell alcohol, in this case a farm winery license and a plenary license.
Her daughter, Hamilton Wilde, founded New Jersey Farmers Cooperative Group LLC, taking the name from a non-profit organization of which Barbara Wilde is the director.
Documentation provided to City Council states that the Southern Mansion is owned by the Bray Family Partnership, in which Hamilton Wilde holds no interest, while Barbara Wilde holds no ownership or interest in New Jersey Farmers Cooperative Group LLC.
As proposed, the new LLC would sell alcohol within the Southern Mansion, leasing the area within the other business.
“It’s complicated,” Mullock said Wednesday.
It was complicated enough that the primary concern expressed by members of City Council was that the matter should have been brought before the Zoning Board for more thorough consideration. Loraine Baldwin, the lone vote against the transfer, said she believed the matter required a use variance for the Southern Mansion, although the city’s zoning officials decided it did not.
Council member Shaine Meier, a vote for approval, also said he would have liked the Zoning Board to give input.
Council discussed the issue for more than two hours on Tuesday, after delaying a decision at a previous meeting.
“We were hoping for more information,” Mullock said.
Several neighbors spoke at the meeting, questioning the plan and its potential impact on their quality of life. Council member Stacy Sheehan, who did not attend the meeting, did send a message that she opposed the approval of the license transfer.
Council member Michael Yeager said the proposal could be an improvement. The Southern Mansion already hosts weddings, and alcohol is served at most of those events. The end result could just be better trained bartenders at weddings and a convenience for the guests when there is not an event underway.
Karavan said larger weddings would be held at the Willow Creek winery. At the meeting, he said the purchase price for the license under the agreement of sale was more than $1 million.
Contacted after the vote, Karavan declined to comment on the decision.
Speaking to council on Tuesday, Karavan said his clients had agreed to several concessions, both at the request of the city and from neighbors before the meetings.
“We met with the residents on Corgie Street. We listened to their concerns, and we believe we came up with a plan that will work for everyone,” Karavan said. Corgie is a narrow, one-way street running parallel to Washington Street, home to the closest neighbors of the Southern Mansion.
According to the inn’s website, the sprawling building was built in 1863 as a private home, later seeing use as a boarding house before falling into disrepair. The current owners began extensive renovations in 1994, with the project completed in 1997.
Mullock said he decided to abstain from the vote because he is a neighbor, close enough that he would have received notice if the proposal did require a use variance.
That led to the 2-1 vote. Even if the final vote were delayed, it would have likely been 2-2, with Sheehan’s stated opposition. After teh vote, council held a brief recess for Mullock to discuss with Gillin-Schwartz whether he needed to abstain. He decided to stick with his decision rather than change it based on the result.
In May, the Merion Inn announced it would not open this summer. The building has operated as a restaurant since 1885 and as the Merion Inn since 1906, according to a history posted by the former owners, who said they did not sell the business or the name.
In its place at 106 Decatur will be The Cricket Club. | https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/alcohol-license-transfer-falls-short-in-cape-may/article_5fdac51c-1364-11ed-9a83-03197c873bb5.html | 2022-08-04T10:53:02 | 1 | https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/alcohol-license-transfer-falls-short-in-cape-may/article_5fdac51c-1364-11ed-9a83-03197c873bb5.html |
MILLVILLE — Plans to redevelop the former Wheaton Glass Factory may include cannabis cultivation.
The City Commission agreed on July 19 to amend a redevelopment plan for the decaying factory to include written support for licensed cannabis operations at a proposed set of warehouses at the site.
After New Jersey voters endorsed making recreational marijuana legal in 2020, the city acted to permit Class I-IV cannabis licenses to operate within the “I-1 General Industry Zone,” where the dormant factory is, city Solicitor Brock Russell said last week.
The move is a part of a years-long process of trying to have one of Millville’s oldest buildings redeveloped to support the local economy.
“The city’s interest is seeing the buildings demolished and seeing the site developed,” Russell said.
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Without being written into the redevelopment plan, recreational marijuana businesses, specifically cultivation, wouldn’t be able to operate, should the warehouses be built, though that is the intention of developer Anthony DeSantis, according to the ordinance.
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“When there’s a redevelopment plan, that supersedes the local zone,” Russell said. “That is why it was necessary to amend the zone to clarify that cannabis is a permitted use.”
City Administrator Ray Compari said he is excited to see what happens at the site.
“What industry ultimately grow out of that location we’re certainly happy with, as long as it provides employment for local residents,” Compari said.
Having recreational marijuana businesses at the site was not written into the redevelopment plan in 2020 since the plan was approved before Gov. Phil Murphy signed legal cannabis products into law on Feb. 22, 2021, the ordinance says.
Now that it has been adopted, the ordinance will be directed to the city’s Planning Board, which will review the amendment and determine whether the change would be consistent with the city’s master plan, the ordinance says.
A hearing by the Planning Board for the amendment has not yet been scheduled.
MAYS LANDING — The public will have the chance to learn more about plans for the Lake Lenape…
Some license applicants have already shown interest in the site, Russell said.
The steps are the latest in a lengthy effort to have DeSantis, a New York developer and member of the DeSantis Group, redevelop the site.
DeSantis sought to acquire the factory’s lot after buying an adjacent warehouse run by Gerresheimer Glass Inc., which also operates a plant in Vineland, Russell said.
On April 4, 2017, the city passed an ordinance declaring the entire municipality an area in need of redevelopment, clearing a path for the demolition or rehabilitation of eyesore properties such as the glass factory.
The latest effort to redevelop the factory hasn’t gone without legal battles. The Glass Group International, or GGI, owned the lot where the factory sits when the property was foreclosed on for not paying taxes, causing an outstanding lien and sending the title to the city, Russell said.
Through bankruptcy court, GGI won back the title. A three-party deal was reached wherein DeSantis would pay GGI $125,000 for the title and GGI agreed to transfer the title back to the city, leaving the property in the clear for redevelopment, Russell said.
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In November 2020, the city then sued DeSantis in state Superior Court after he and his group failed to fulfill their end of the deal by submitting a formal redevelopment plan by a July 1, 2020, deadline, according to the lawsuit.
The city and DeSantis have resolved the matter so the plan can get off the ground, Russell said.
Demolition permits are being sought, and work to level the ailing factory should begin “soon,” once studies, including for asbestos, are completed, Russell said.
Louis Magazzu, DeSantis’ lawyer, directed questions through email. Answers to questions about the redevelopment plan have not been provided.
The factory was one of many in South Jersey’s well-known glass industry.
T.C. Wheaton, a pharmacist and doctor, rescued a struggling glass company in 1888.
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The company supplied glass for his pharmaceutical needs, said Gay Taylor, former director and curator of the Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Arts, a nonprofit started by Wheaton’s family as a way to preserve glass-making history for the public, Taylor said.
Wheaton started with a quaint building fit for about a dozen glassblowers.
“By 1888, he completely owned the glass factory,” Taylor said. “He took it over and put his medical business and pharmacy basically to bed and ran this glass factory.”
Wheaton grew his glass-making business, opening the factory currently in DeSantis’ plans in 1925.
Most of the factory’s buildings were constructed between that year and World War II, except for a furnace section built in 1937 and a production section in 1987, according to city documents.
The property also has a small pond that was once a sand mine for the factory.
Seven local nonprofits received COVID-19 grant assistance from the New Jersey Historical Com…
The Millville factory was sold in 1996 when Wheaton’s fourth-generation family handed the company over to a Swiss firm, investing its value for personal stock gain. The Swiss firm later sold it to a company in Canada, Taylor said.
Glass was being dispensed from the factory until it closed in the early 2000s. Wheaton’s family-owned company was the largest of its kind in the United States, Taylor said.
“They (Wheaton) owned 40 different factories around the world,” Taylor said. “They had a factory they owned in Argentina. They had a factory they co-owned in Italy. They had factories in states such as Maryland and Missouri.” | https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/cannabis-businesses-possible-at-site-of-run-down-millville-glass-factory/article_2208983c-0cf1-11ed-8783-c759ae8ab356.html | 2022-08-04T10:53:03 | 0 | https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/cannabis-businesses-possible-at-site-of-run-down-millville-glass-factory/article_2208983c-0cf1-11ed-8783-c759ae8ab356.html |
CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — A mother’s outrage continues to push for justice for her son.
Friday marks six years since law enforcement officers shot and killed a 26-year-old Black man, Jamarion Robinson, in East Point, striking him 59 times.
And after all these years, one of the white police officers who is still awaiting trial for murder in the case is still on the job with the Clayton County Police Department.
Clayton County Police Officer Kristopher Hutchens and a now-former law enforcement officer, Eric Heinze, were indicted by a Fulton County Grand Jury in Oct. 2021, charged with murdering Robinson on Aug. 5, 2016.
Hutchens has remained on the department’s payroll ever since, most recently as a training officer-- until now.
“If it was any other person that has felonies or even has been indicted on felonies, let alone multiple, would the police department hire them?" asked Mina Turabi on Wednesday.
Turabi works with Jamarion Robinson’s mother, Monteria Robinson, and the Jamarion Robinson Foundation, helping people with mental illnesses.
The family has said they asked police to help Jamarion because he was suffering from mental illness.
However, police said they saw him with a gun and opened fire, shooting him 59 times.
Turabi said that this week that on Tuesday, Jamarion’s mother was outraged all over again, when Dr. Rashad Richey reported on his online program “Indisputable” that Officer Hutchens was still on the job and training SWAT officers.
“It's such a slap in the face," Turabi said. "With the trial coming up, with the indictments, and for the fact that his anniversary is Friday, for him to be working at the police department in any capacity.”
In fact, Hutchens’ file with the state showed that as of Wednesday, his certification as an instructor was still active.
Then, at 4:45 p.m., Clayton County police emailed 11Alive to announce that the Chief had just reassigned Hutchens to non-training duty.
And at 4:46 p.m., the state sent 11Alive Hutchens’ updated file showing that his instructor certificate had been suspended.
Monteria Robinson along with her family will hold a press conference outside the Clayton County Department Thursday at 1 p.m. to call on the Chief to fire Hutchens.
“For her to be reliving this every single day," Turabi said, "I mean, she had a long fight just to get to that indictment. And now with all this stuff coming up with the anniversary... it really shines a light on the struggle that's continuing... it's one battle after the next.”
The news release from the Clayton County police reads:
"Recent concerns presented to the Clayton County Board of Commissioners about the administrative assignment of Sergeant K. Hutchens, to the in-service training unit have impacted the Board and the Clayton County Police Department. Chief Kevin Roberts has reconsidered the Sergeant’s assignment, and moved him to a non-training duty; effective immediately."
On Aug. 5, 2016, Jamarion Robinson was killed by a taskforce of 17 officers which included the US Marshalls, Atlanta Police, Clayton County police, East Point Police etc. Jamarion was shot over 110 times and sustained over 76 bullet holes including in his groin, chest, spleen and arms. At the time of the shooting Jamarion Robinson was unarmed. The shooting lasted over three minutes.
Since then, his mother, Monteria Robinson has been fighting for justice day in and day out.
In October of last year, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened a grand jury which charged two of the officers, Eric Heinz and Kristopher Hutchens, for multiple crimes including felony murder and aggravated assault. | https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/jamarion-robinson-case-kristopher-hutchens-clayton-county-officer/85-51ddfafc-aedf-4652-b329-f9f402a36c64 | 2022-08-04T10:54:55 | 1 | https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/jamarion-robinson-case-kristopher-hutchens-clayton-county-officer/85-51ddfafc-aedf-4652-b329-f9f402a36c64 |
Flames from a vehicle ignited a grass fire Wednesday night in Wise County, prompting evacuations, authorities say.
First responders were first called out for the vehicle fire at about 9 p.m. off U.S. 287 and Pioneer Road, along the northern edge of the city of Rhome, said Cody Powell, Wise County Emergency Management Coordinator.
A number of homes in the area were evacuated just after 10 p.m. but forward progression was stopped and people were allowed to return home according to the Wise County Office of Emergency Management post on Facebook.
“The fire will likely burn for several hours but has been contained as of now,” the post reads.
Multiple fire crews from Wise, Tarrant and Parker Counties responded to the scene, the Texas A&M Forest Service estimated the fire burned 100 acres.
There have been no reports of injuries as of this writing.
The Wise County Messenger reports that there were power outages in the area after an Oncor power line was damaged, but crews worked into the night to replace damaged poles and lines and restore power.
Check back and refresh this page for the latest updates. As developments unfold, elements of this story may change. | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/flames-spread-from-vehicle-ignited-grass-fire-in-wise-county-fire-crews-say/3039771/ | 2022-08-04T10:59:45 | 1 | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/flames-spread-from-vehicle-ignited-grass-fire-in-wise-county-fire-crews-say/3039771/ |
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is scheduled to launch Thursday from the West Texas desert, sending the capsule on a 10-minute flight with crew members on board.
The company's sixth human flight will include Dude Perfect co-founder Coby Cotton from Frisco, Portuguese entrepreneur Mario Ferreira, British-American mountaineer Vanessa O'Brien, technology leader Clint Kelly III, Egyptian engineer Sara Sabry, and telecommunications executive Steve Young.
The flight comes as Blue Origin competes with Elon Musk's SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic for space tourism dollars.
The crew of NS-22 will take postcards to space with them.
New Shepard is named after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
Texas News
News from around the state of Texas.
The company is working in Cape Canaveral on a larger orbital-class rocket, named New Glenn after the first American to orbit the world, John Glenn. | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/dude-perfect-co-founder-among-six-blasting-off-on-blue-origin-rocket-thursday/3039872/ | 2022-08-04T10:59:53 | 0 | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/dude-perfect-co-founder-among-six-blasting-off-on-blue-origin-rocket-thursday/3039872/ |
HOUSTON — Residents in one north Houston neighborhood are holding their breath, literally, after Houston city officials say a truck spilled cow intestines all over the road.
“I have not ever encountered anything like this before," said Tahj Scott. "This is a first, but definitely the worst smell I ever smelled.”
Scott says she had to pick up her little daughter Teigan from daycare. She drove right through the mess.
“It’s indescribable and I should have a mask on like you right now," Scot saidt. “Ended up pulling up to her daycare and got out of my car and couldn’t figure out what that bad scent was. Walked back out with her and stuff was hanging from the bottom of the car and flies were swarming.”
City officials say cow intestines littered the corner of Hardy Street and Cavalcade Street. Someone called in the stench around 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
“It’s horrible," said Jerry Benoit. "Most people are walking around gagging.”
Benoit says the city quickly cleaned up the mess, but the horrible smell is sticking around.
“Yeah it going to be here awhile," said Benoit. "It’s going to linger a little bit.”
KHOU 11 reached out to the city of Houston to see if they know whose truck the intestines fell from. We are still waiting to hear back. | https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/cow-intestines-spilled-houston-texas/285-5b2ba9a3-88ca-4a69-aa41-3eaf3ba8202a | 2022-08-04T11:08:06 | 1 | https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/cow-intestines-spilled-houston-texas/285-5b2ba9a3-88ca-4a69-aa41-3eaf3ba8202a |
SAN ANTONIO — A woman was shot multiple times inside her westside apartment overnight.
It happened around 3:14 a.m. on the 100 block of San Lino.
Police say a woman in her 30s was inside her first floor apartment when the shots rang out, coming from the rear of her apartment and hitting her in the hand and leg.
The victim was shot multiple times and taken to BAMC in critical condition. Police said there were no witnesses, but they have detained the woman's boyfriend for questioning.
Neighbors told police the gunfire sounded like it came from an automatic weapon, and they heard about eight to ten shots.
Officers found about ten shell casings on the ground, confirming what neighbors heard.
The investigator on the scene also confirmed it appears the casings came from an AK-47.
Police don't have a description of the shooter at this time.
No arrests have been made.
Learn more about KENS 5:
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KENS 5 has brought numerous firsts to South Texas television, including being the first local station with a helicopter, the first with its own Doppler radar and the first to air a local morning news program.
Over the years, KENS 5 has worked to transform local news. Our cameras have been the lens bringing history into local viewers' homes. We're proud of our legacy as we serve San Antonians today.
Today, KENS 5 continues to set the standard in local broadcasting and is recognized by its peers for excellence and innovation. The KENS 5 News team focuses on stories that really matter to our community.
You can find KENS 5 in more places than ever before, including KENS5.com, the KENS 5 app, the KENS 5 YouTube channel, KENS 5's Roku and Fire TV apps, and across social media on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more!
Want to get in touch with someone at KENS 5? You can send a message using our Contacts page or email one of our team members. | https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/woman-shot-multiple-times-inside-her-apartment-san-antonio-texas-shooting-gun-weapon/273-786d323b-258e-4aac-857c-9fa4576f795c | 2022-08-04T11:08:12 | 1 | https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/woman-shot-multiple-times-inside-her-apartment-san-antonio-texas-shooting-gun-weapon/273-786d323b-258e-4aac-857c-9fa4576f795c |
100 years ago
Aug. 4, 1922: The B.S. Green building at the corner of Monroe and East streets is to be the new home of the Bloomington Association of Commerce. This was announced by J.S. Hudson, secretary. All that remains is the signing of the contract by Mrs. B.S. Green, owner of the building. Her son, Ralph, left yesterday for New York to secure her signature on the document.
75 years ago
Aug. 4, 1947: July, a month traditionally dangerous for polio, ended in McLean County without a single case reported, said Dr. John W. Turner, director of the county health department. He said it is not likely that the county will have a serious polio outbreak this year. Earlier, Dr. Turner said the latter part of July was a "crucial period" for polio. Last year, the county had 34 cases.
50 years ago
Aug. 4, 1972: The Bloomington Board of Education and the Bloomington Education Association reached tentative agreement on a new two-year master contract for teachers. It contains essentially the same language as existed in the 1971-72 contract, but includes a clause to reopen for negotiation the salary and extra pay for extra duty schedules for the 1973-74 school year.
25 years ago
Aug. 4, 1997: Six Illinois teenagers recently spent three weeks in Chile using the arts to express their Baha'i faith. Katie Smith of Bloomington joined Julie Clark of Decatur, Suzanne Mitchell of Batavia, Alexis Krapf of Manhattan, Husayn Allmart of Wheaton and Nate House of Payson on the trip June 13 to July 6. They presented a program that combined dancing, singing and prayer.
Compiled by Pantagraph staff | https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/75-years-ago-crucial-period-passes-without-polio-case-in-mclean-county/article_d12d8a94-0bb0-11ed-a45d-63af52d9f140.html | 2022-08-04T11:21:52 | 0 | https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/75-years-ago-crucial-period-passes-without-polio-case-in-mclean-county/article_d12d8a94-0bb0-11ed-a45d-63af52d9f140.html |
At the end of 2016, two representatives of Antonian College Preparatory High School paid a visit to Christopher “Chris” Pettit at his San Antonio law office.
The pair — then-Principal Tim Petersen and alum Charles Montemayor — detailed a capital campaign to fund improvements at the Catholic school in hopes Pettit would contribute.
While they didn’t solicit Pettit to give money during the visit, he later committed to help fund the campaign’s first phase — the conversion of a building on the Castle Hills campus to a library, learning center and six classrooms.
The school subsequently named the building the Pettit Family Center for Academic Excellence. A plaque in the lobby reflects that the building was dedicated in honor of Pettit’s parents. Pettit and his three brothers graduated from Antonian.
Pettit’s pledge — $500,000, according to a person familiar with it but who did not want to be identified — is drawing scrutiny in the former San Antonio attorney’s bankruptcy case as he faces allegations that he stole millions of dollars from former clients. Pettit reported about $40.5 million in assets and $112.2 million in liabilities for himself and his now-defunct law firm in the massive Chapter 11 case, but so far has been unwilling or unable to explain where his clients’ money went.
An amended bankruptcy filing last month showed Pettit contributed $225,000 to Antonian from 2019 to 2021. The pledge was spread over multiple years, and it’s not clear how much, if any, remains unpaid.
Under bankruptcy law, a trustee can claw back assets on behalf of a bankruptcy estate if they were fraudulently transferred within two years before the filing of the case. State law expands that time to four years.
Mary Elizabeth Heard, a San Antonio lawyer who represents longtime Pettit clients who lost $2 million, said she hopes Chapter 11 trustee Eric Terry will void Pettit’s “fraudulent transfers so that the money will be available” to pay his creditors — including her clients.
“Although the bankruptcy code provides that some charitable contributions are exempt from being clawed back into the bankruptcy estate, I do not believe those conditions exist in Mr. Pettit’s case as it relates to the $225,000 contribution,” Heard said in an email.
“Here, we do not know if Chris Pettit has made any legitimate income in the years leading up to the bankruptcy filings,” she added. “It is certainly possible that he used his clients’ money to make charitable contributions in his name.”
San Antonio attorney Martin Seidler, also representing creditors in the case, agreed that the donation warrants review.
“If he gives something away and he’s insolvent, that’s a constructive fraud on the creditors,” Seidler said.
Terry, his lawyers and forensic accountants have been investigating various transactions made by Pettit. Terry didn’t respond to a request for comment, so it couldn’t be determined if the donation to Antonian is among them. His team has identified at least 149 bank accounts Pettit or his firm maintained and now wants the funds and account information for many of them turned over.
The archdiocese
Antonian Principal John Mein said he was not allowed to comment on the situation and directed questions to the Archdiocese of San Antonio. Antonian is an archdiocesan school.
“The archdiocese is obviously aware of what is occurring with Mr. Pettit,” spokesman Jordan McMorrough said. “As far as the name on the building … we’re looking at the situation on our end and we’re in the process of determining the next steps.”
McMorrough wouldn’t say whether that includes removing the Pettit name. The amount of Pettit’s pledge was confidential, he said.
It’s not clear if excising the name from the building would open the school or archdiocese to legal trouble. But leaving the name creates a public relations headache for them given Pettit has admitted he “misappropriated and dissipated” money from a trust account in at least one of about a dozen lawsuits filed against him and his firm.
“That is a quandary,” said Montemayor, a 1984 Antonian graduate who visited with Pettit about the capital campaign. “I thought the same thing as soon as the stories started coming out.”
The bankruptcy put on hold the litigation that was pending against Pettit and his firm. The allegations in those complaints have triggered an FBI investigation.
Henry “Hank” Valdespino, president of the Antonian School Council, said there have been no discussions about Pettit by the council.
“It’s not set up the way that the school could make those decisions on their own,” he said about decisions regarding the building name. “We have to run all that through the archdiocese.”
‘Happy to join in’
Pettit, 55, graduated from Antonian in 1985. He followed in the footsteps of his brothers Jonathan, who graduated in 1978, and Martin, a 1982 graduate. Their youngest brother, Charles, graduated in 1991.
With the recent death of Charles, who had worked at Petitt’s law firm until it was shuttered about two months ago, all three of Pettit’s brothers are deceased.
Work on the building named for Pettit’s parents started in 2016. The cost was estimated at $1.5 million, a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation shows.
In his speech at the 2017 ribbon-cutting and blessing for the building, Pettit recalled the visit from Petersen and Montemayor to discuss the capital campaign.
Principal Petersen “was mentioning the fact that you were looking for people to donate and help do a wonderful tribute to this school,” Pettit told the audience during the ceremony, which was recorded and posted on YouTube. “I was happy to join in and do that.”
He added how “tremendously fulfilling” it was for him to answer legal questions posed by former teachers who helped mold him as a student.
Montemayor, who has been an associate judge in Bexar County Children’s Court, recalled the visit with Pettit near the end of 2016.
“I believed he was, at the time, a person of much resource or potential,” Montemayor said. “And Mr. Petersen just asked me to go update him on Antonian — just to tell him what’s going on at the school. And that was it.”
Montemayor was a year ahead of Pettit at Antonian but both graduated from St. Mary’s University School of Law in 1991. Montemayor’s wife also attended Antonian and before that, like Pettit, St. Gregory the Great Catholic School, for grades kindergarten through eighth.
“He was always courteous and very nice,” Montemayor said of Pettit. I know what’s happened to him. It hit me out of left field, to be honest with you. I don’t know the details of everything. But I have to admit, I’m shocked by it all.”
Pettit’s bankruptcy lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
pdanner@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Chris-Pettit-bankruptcy-Antonian-17345750.php | 2022-08-04T11:46:35 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Chris-Pettit-bankruptcy-Antonian-17345750.php |
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Kroger has returned to San Antonio, a market long dominated by hometown grocer H-E-B and its rival Walmart.
Shoppers can’t walk the aisles of a Kroger store, though. There aren’t any.
Instead, the Cincinnati-based grocer has opened what it calls a “spoke facility” on the East Side and rolled out delivery service for groceries and other products from there.
The spoke, a 70,000-square-foot last-mile warehouse at 4325 Milling Road, can deliver items within a 90-minute radius, said Kroger spokesperson April Martin. It and a sister facility in Austin work with a just-opened 350,000-square-foot automated fulfillment center in Dallas — Kroger calls it a “hub” — where people and robots prepare orders and get them moving.
It’s not Kroger’s first foray in San Antonio: It operated 15 stores here until closing them in 1993 amid a labor dispute. It’s re-entering the market with a delivery-only model it says has worked in other markets.
Kroger said the San Antonio spoke facility will employ as many 161 people.
To order delivery from Kroger in San Antonio, customers visit its website or app, create an account, enter their location, select items, choose a time slot and wait for a driver to arrive.
Small orders don’t come for free. On one webpage, Kroger said its fee for delivery is $6.95; in a FAQ section, it said fees can reach $11.95 depending on location. But San Antonio customers have access to Kroger’s paid membership program, which includes unlimited free delivery on orders over $35, Martin said.
How does that compare with H-E-B’s delivery fees? It varies, depending on how fast the order is wanted.
On an order for groceries to be dropped off “express” the same day, H-E-B’s fees ranged from $5 to $11.95 depending on the desire delivery time. There was a $5 fee for delivery the following days. H-E-B also added a driver tip and a temporary fuel surcharge, which it said “helps offset higher fuel costs” for drivers and “may vary based on fuel prices.”
From Walmart, fees for delivery in two hours or less totaled $17.95. The cost was $7.95 or $9.95 for delivery later the same day or the following days depending on the time slot, and an order below $35 came with a $6.99 fee.
Walmart+ members receive free delivery for orders under $35, according to the company’s website.
Kroger,which announced plans in March to come back to San Antonio, will be competing for customers’ dollars in a market dominated by H-E-B.
The San Antonio-based grocer captured 52.4 percent of the local market share in 2021, with 57 stores and about $4.2 billion in sales, according to a report by industry publication Chain Store Guide.
Walmart and its Sam’s Club chain claimed 28 percent of the market, with 34 stores and about $2.3 billion in sales.
The retailers with the next-biggest slices of the San Antonio market were Target, with 5 percent across 13 stores, and Costco, with 4.8 percent across three stores.
Kroger is building out its delivery network in partnership with technology company Ocado Group using artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and automation.
That network includes fulfillment centers like the one in Dallas, where more than 1,000 robots move on 3D grids bringing products to stations to be sorted for delivery, Kroger said. Orders are then loaded into refrigerated vans and algorithms determine the most efficient delivery routes.
Kroger is also working with other companies such as Nuro and Shipt to deliver products to customers.
It’s been growing its delivery push rapidly. Tuesday, it announced that beyond Dallas, customer fulfillment centers are operating in Monroe, Ohio; Groveland, Fla.; Forest Park, Ga.; Pleasant Prairie, Wis.; and Romulus, Mich. More are planned.
Kroger has about 2,800 stores across the U.S. operating in 35 states under the Kroger and other brands. It has more than 200 in Texas, mostly in the Dallas and Houston metro areas.
H-E-B operates more than 420 stores in Texas and Mexico.
madison.iszler@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Kroger-grocery-delivery-in-San-Antonio-17348449.php | 2022-08-04T11:46:41 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Kroger-grocery-delivery-in-San-Antonio-17348449.php |
The City of San Antonio is throwing a $17 million lifeline to small businesses left reeling by the pandemic.
Applications are being accepted for the COVID Impact Grants program, which provides from $15,000 to $35,000 to small businesses that had major declines in sales in 2020 and 2021. Business owners have until Aug. 22 to apply.
“These past two years have been a challenge for many of our small businesses, which have suffered revenue losses, supply shortages, rising costs and the loss of staff, making it difficult to keep up with monthly bills and expenses,” said Mayor Ron Nirenberg, adding that the program will “support San Antonio’s small businesses as they work to recover from the pandemic.”
The first of two virtual information sessions is set for 2 p.m. Wednesday, with the second at 6 p.m. Aug. 25. Visit cityofsanantoniocovidgrants.com/ to register and for more information.
The program is funded with some of the $327 million the city received through the American Rescue Plan Act. Passed last year, the $1.9 trillion measure was designed in part to buttress state and local governments’ budgets hit by lower-than-usual tax revenues during the pandemic.
City Council in February directed $31 million from the act to small businesses. The remaining $14 million is to provide businesses with “access to flexible capital funds, programs to help businesses strengthen their web and business capabilities,” among other services.
West Side-based small business lender LiftFund will be doling out the grants, a role similar to one it played in the early days of the pandemic, when it doled out federal dollars to keep small businesses afloat.
It’s not clear how many grants will be made. That’s because there’s an additional $10,000 “construction impact” supplement available for businesses located in 19 areas with heavy construction, such as the Alamo or North St. Mary’s street.
To be eligible, small businesses must be located within San Antonio and show they experienced at least a 20 percent sales decline in both 2020 and 2021 compared with 2019. Business that saw a sales drop of 40 percent or more in both of the past two years are eligible for the maximum $35,000 grant.
The city and LiftFund will award grants between Sept. 7 and Dec. 5.
Business ineligible for the grant program may be able to receive a zero interest loan through the city and LiftFund. LiftFund also offers free business counseling.
“This grant program is a key component to helping businesses stay open, to stabilize and thrive,” Janie Barrera, president and CEO of LiftFund, said in a statement.
diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Small-business-COVID-aid-17346300.php | 2022-08-04T11:46:47 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Small-business-COVID-aid-17346300.php |
Toyota Motor Corp. sales fell 21 percent in July as would-be buyers faced high prices at the gas pump, rising interest rates and tight supply that pushed new car prices to record highs.
There was a local bright spot, though. The San Antonio-built Tundra full-size pickup had its second-best sales month since December 2020, with dealers moving 10,694 Tundras last month.
The Japanese automaker began producing the redesigned Tundra late last year after a $400 million expansion at its South Side plant.
Toyota is also planning to start building the redesigned full-size Sequoia SUV in San Antonio sometime this summer, but it’s not clear when. Just a dozen Sequoias were sold last month.
Toyota employs about 3,200 people at its plant on the South Side.
For the 12 months through July, Toyota’s sales were down 19 percent from the same period a year earlier, and it’s seen declines every month this year.
The biggest hurdle for Toyota and other automakers is the shortage of parts that’s persisted since the pandemic threw off supply chains. That’s cut production — and sales.
Just 1.12 million new vehicles were for sale in the U.S. at the end of June, virtually unchanged since the beginning of May. The lack of cars available for purchase has pushed the average sale price for new vehicles to just past $48,000 in June — an increase of 13 percent from a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive.
But as the Federal Reserve lifts interest rates and makes loans more expensive, there’s a chance auto prices could moderate in coming months as fewer would-be buyers are able to afford higher monthly payments.
On ExpressNews.com: CPS Energy bills jump more than 50 percent in June as temperatures and gas prices rise
Through mid-July, the average auto loan rate increased by 1.5 percent, according to Cox. That translated to a 5 percent increase in monthly auto payments this year. As a result, the average monthly payment for a car hit $730.
That could bring the market to a tipping point. As the Fed continues increasing rates to combat inflation, monthly payments will rise further and “demand could diminish just as production and product availability improves,” Cox analysts said. “In that scenario, we could see the return of some discounting and incentives.”
“Rising interest rates and low consumer sentiment are keeping many potential buyers out of the market,” Cox Senior Economist Charlie Chesbrough said. “Tight supply, however, continues to be the biggest obstacle over the near term, and there is little evidence of supply returning to normal.”
diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/car-sales-truck-Texas-17346719.php | 2022-08-04T11:46:53 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/car-sales-truck-Texas-17346719.php |
Boerne’s Planning and Zoning Commission, bolstered by outspoken residents, shot down the creation and annexation of a proposed multi-family residential district on the edge of city limits during its Monday meeting.
The proposed development at 6 Old Fredericksburg Road met with intense backlash from attending Boerne and Kendall County residents, who slammed what they view as uncontrolled development in the area and the risk that continued residential expansion poses to the city’s resources and water drainage.
Provident Realty Advisors, a Dallas-based development company, pitched their parcHAUS line of built-for-rent homes for the 23.81-acre lot as relatively “affordable” housing for the area, meant for teachers working at the Geneva School of Boerne across the street and for other professionals across Boerne. Rent at the proposed development ranged between $1,600 and $2,600 a month.
The developers presented their unofficially submitted plans July 16 during a Boerne Open Neighborhood Discussion meeting to gauge the feelings of the community. Over 60 individuals attended the meeting — a turnout that members of the Planning and Zoning Commission noted as unprecedented.
Many concerned residents expressed dismay at the density of the project and the amount of impervious ground cover — human-made surfaces that don’t allow rainwater to seep into the ground.
The proposed development contained 223 houses with a density of over 9.36 units per acre, a number some Boerne residents found too dense for the area. A petition against the development that had garnered 514 signatures as of Tuesday evening called the development “high-density.” Both the city and the developer referred to the project as “low density residential.”
At Monday’s meeting, Boerne resident Alex Rudd stressed the need to consider the cumulative effect that projects in the area have on the Cascade Caverns recharge area and the stress an influx of families puts on a community.
“Eventually, what’s going to happen is we’re going to have problems with flooding, we’re going to lose our recharge areas, and traffic will become a nightmare,” Rudd said.
The developers and Geneva employees backing the project attempted to alleviate residents’ concerns over traffic by stating more infrastructure would be in between the school and the complex to accommodate the increase in population.
Some residents expressed appreciation for the design of the development but disagreed with the project’s location.
The commission passed a motion to deny the project on a 6-0 vote.
Representatives for Provident Provident Realty Advisors stated they might revisit the project after the vote concluded.
ricardo.delgado@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Boerne-backed-by-outspoken-citizens-quashes-17346668.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:16 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Boerne-backed-by-outspoken-citizens-quashes-17346668.php |
A man who fired several shots at a Boerne area apartment then killed himself after police arrived had tried to force a neighbor into his apartment moments earlier, police said.
Robert Anthony Limauro, 36, was identified Tuesday as the man who barricaded himself inside his apartment, according to Boerne police.
The incident began at 1:46 p.m. Monday when callers to 911 said there were five to six shots fired and people running from the pool area at the Woodland Apartments, 150 Medical Drive.
Boerne police ID dead gunman after shots fired at apartments
The woman was able to pull away from Limauro and run to safety. She heard several gunshots behind her as she fled, police said.
The Boerne Emergency Response Team and negotiators attempted to call Limauro from the scene, but were unsuccessful.
At 3:45 p.m., members of the response team were evacuating residents when Limauro was found on the third-floor breezeway. He was unresponsive with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
First responders attempted lifesaving efforts, but he died at the scene, officials said. He was pronounced dead by Justice of the Peace Debbie Hudson and taken to the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Investigators ultimately determined that Limauro fired six rounds from a semi-automatic 9 mm handgun, police said.
The case remains under investigation by Boerne police.
jbeltran@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Boerne-police-name-dead-gunman-after-shots-fired-17346570.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:23 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Boerne-police-name-dead-gunman-after-shots-fired-17346570.php |
In a late-hour effort to appease the state, the city of San Antonio has tweaked its voter-approved plan to redevelop Broadway from the Pearl to the University of the Incarnate Word by further improving intersections along the corridor to ease traffic and reduce congestion.
Like the city’s original plan, the new blueprint would reduce the road from six to four traffic lanes and add wider sidewalks and protected bike lanes. Those details proved a sticking point in January for San Antonio banker J. Bruce Bugg, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, who cited fears of future congestion in leading a 3-1 vote to quash the 2017 bond project.
The vote abruptly scuttled years of coordination between the Texas Department of Transportation and city officials on the project.
In June, City Manager Erik Walsh and Mayor Ron Nirenberg briefed Bugg and Marc Williams, executive director of TxDOT, on the city’s new plans. Unlike its previous blueprint, the city’s updated plan does not rely on its own traffic data — which TxDOT rejected — or assume that anyone will park their vehicles and start walking or cycling after the road is redeveloped.
Instead, the city is now using the state’s own traffic data, Walsh said.
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“That was part of the strategy,” Walsh said. “We’re just going to take all of their assumptions. We’ll make some intersection improvements but not get into this debate about, well, ‘Thirty percent bicycle traffic and 5 percent pedestrian.’ No. We’re just going to take your traffic counts and do it.”
On Tuesday, TxDOT still had not given the city a green light to move forward.
“The implementation of a reduced capacity design is counter to TxDOT’s focus on addressing congestion not only in San Antonio but throughout the State of Texas and, therefore, inconsistent with the operational objectives for this busy state-owned roadway,” Bugg said Tuesday in a written statement.
But he didn’t rule out the possibility of reaching an agreement with the city.
“TxDOT has received the City’s proposal, and while we do not agree with the findings to reduce the lanes from six lanes to four lanes, we believe this creates an opportunity for continued conversations,” Bugg said.
The impasse came after years of planning by the city to beautify the corridor and make it safer.
Gridlocked over policy
In 2014, TxDOT, short on funds, sought to push maintenance of certain roads onto cities. San Antonio agreed to take control of a 2.2-mile stretch of the Broadway corridor. That year, the commission transferred the road — previously known as State Loop 368 — to the city.
However, the commission passed another order about two months later, saying the transfer would occur when the state issued a project acceptance letter. That never happened.
In 2017, San Antonio voters overwhelmingly approved a $42 million bond project to redevelop Broadway. The 3.1-mile project also would tap more than $100 million from other sources, including the Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization — and TxDOT itself.
Last year, Razi Hosseini, director of the city’s Public Works Department, received an unsigned document from TxDOT agreeing to contribute nearly $5 million to a “complete streets roadway rehabilitation including a lane reduction from 6 to 4 lanes and adding bicycle and pedestrian facilities.”
The redevelopment would double the width of the sidewalks on Broadway from 4 to 8 feet and create a separate 5-foot bike lane. Other improvements — a reduction in driveways, the construction of a median that restricts left turns — would further streamline the flow of traffic.
Less than a month later, TxDOT told Hosseini that the state would not allow the project to move forward.
Explaining the decision, Bugg cited a request by Gov. Greg Abbott to “execute congestion relief for the people throughout the state of Texas.” Reducing traffic lanes on Broadway “would be in direct conflict with our clear stated policy to provide congestion relief,” Bugg said at the commission’s meeting in January.
By then, the city already had spent about $4 million designing the first phase of the project’s upper segment.
The city’s new design, while it doesn’t budge on the reduction of traffic lanes, accepts the state’s projection that traffic on Broadway will grow by about 3 percent annually over the next two decades.
The city’s plan would nonetheless ease traffic even more than its initial forecast, Walsh said — by eliminating more left turns and synchronizing traffic signals, among other adjustments.
“We want to make sure we don’t give them any reason to say, ‘Your design is different than ours,’” Hosseini said Tuesday.
Construction has begun on a city-owned stretch of Broadway downtown from Houston Street to Interstate 35. But the city is waiting for a resolution with TxDOT before it can begin construction on the state-owned section from I-35 to Mulberry.
Meanwhile, the city is still holding onto nearly $7 million in bond money for the project. But city officials could eventually reallocate the funds.
“There isn’t a deadline, but we don’t want to be issuing debt and not spending the money,” Walsh said. “We’ve been waiting. And council’s starting back up in August, and I owe everybody an update.”
Assistant City Manager Rod Sanchez acknowledged that TxDOT controls the fate of Broadway.
“We had a project that we took to the voters and they overwhelmingly supported,” Sanchez said. “If there comes a point where TxDOT gives us a hard no on this, then we have no choice but to pull back and reassign those dollars to other projects. That would be unfortunate.”
bchasnoff@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Broadway-redevelopment-17345705.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:29 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Broadway-redevelopment-17345705.php |
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Claudia Mobley was a few years retired from her career as a computer teacher at Rhodes Elementary.
The facilitator of young minds was looking forward to spending more time focusing on her own family who lived with her at her Medical Center-area home, including her daughter, Christina “Chrissy” Powell, and her grandson, Ryan.
Powell herself was a paralegal. The 39-year-old was a week into a permanent position with the law firm Sanchez and Wilson. Her older son, Ryan, 12, was attending band camp, honing his skills with the euphonium, a brass instrument.
But on July 5, Powell would disappear on her way to work. After more than two weeks of searching and wild guesses as to what happened to her, Powell was found dead in her SUV in the Huebner Oaks Shopping Center.
The shopping center itself is about four miles away from Powell’s home, a 10 minute drive down Huebner Road.
On the day she vanished, Powell had overslept. About 10 a.m., work called asking where she was. She said she would be late.
Mobley remembers seeing her daughter dash out the door, foregoing her usual routine of preparing for the day. She even forgot her iPhone, but her Apple watch stayed on contrary to other reports, Mobley said.
Powell was slightly pale from oversleeping and hurried.
“She just kind of threw herself together and said she was late, zoomed out the door,” Mobley recalled.
Powell left the front door open as she headed straight for her 2020 Nissan Rogue parked out front.
“Be careful,” her mother remembers telling her. The doorbell camera captured footage of what might have been Powell’s last steps at 10:34 a.m. — video that would circulate online following her disappearance.
Mobley thought her daughter had made it to work until later that day when a coworker showed up at her front door with two officers. They spoke with her son, Ryan, asking him to check to make sure she wasn’t in her room.
“That’s when I knew she hadn’t showed up to work,” Mobley said.
She began calling people she hoped might know of her daughter’s whereabouts: the father of Powell’s 3-year-old son, Elijah; her best friend; her ex-husband. Perhaps Powell went to visit her father, or maybe she flew to visit her sister in Utah.
Mobley searched along her daughter’s route to work. With the help of a close friend, she drove off the route and checked hotel parking lots, Walmart parking lots.
She emphasized Powell’s struggle with anxiety and depression when reporting her disappearance to police, who put out a missing persons bulletin after three days. Powell had two medicines she took before bed.
Police would “take notes, but they wouldn’t put her on the missing persons list,” Powell said. “But they finally did. It seemed like it was after I emphasized the depression and anxiety.”
Now, Mobley, 70, is left to grapple with the questions that surround her daughter’s death, particularly how Powell could be left there for so long in a parking lot that is often busy with people eating at restaurants and shopping at big box retail stores.
Agony of waiting
The Monday morning atmosphere is still and quiet at Mobley’s house. She sits calm and collected on a soft green sofa chair in the living room.
Light flows into the room from a large window, offering a view of a variety of plants and two dogs — eager to come back inside — in the back yard.
The mutts, named Chevy and Oliver, bark impatiently as Mobley glances outside from her chair.
Her daughter and grandson recently went to the Animal Care Services shelter and adopted the dogs. Ryan wanted one dog, and Powell wanted the other.
“I’m not a dog person, so it’s been kind of a learning experience,” Mobley said.
Powell also had a passion for gardening she shared with her mother. The back yard is filled with the succulents and orchids she grew. In her room, Powell was stocking up on household items in the hopes that one day she would move into her own home.
Mobley and her daughter loved Ryan so much that they joked they would maintain “joint custody” of him if she ever did find a place of her own.
The news of Powell’s disappearance resonated with people both locally and nationally. Mobley received and continues to get calls from so many news outlets that she stopped answering her phone.
About a week before Powell’s body was found, a security guard noticed a black SUV was parked at the shopping center. That same guard was on duty July 23, when he noticed the SUV was still there. He approached and smelled a foul odor, looking inside to see a body in the front passenger seat. He called police about 6:45 p.m.
As police examined the scene, Mobley received pictures of the black SUV surrounded by police vehicles and of the SUV’s license plate sent by supporters who went to the scene. One person who sent her an image said that it took three days for police to notify a relative in a similar situation, so they didn’t want her to experience the agony of a wait.
She called the missing persons unit, and a detective confirmed that they found a vehicle. They informed her the next morning in person that it was Powell, having tentatively identified her at the scene with an ID she had in her purse.
Police have told Mobley they found security camera footage that shows the SUV driving into a parking space shortly after 11 a.m. July 5, the day she went missing. No one is seen getting out of the vehicle.
The car was near an ATM. A discount department store with large blue letters could be seen in the distance in an image Mobley recalled. Police told Mobley her daughter was found sitting in the passenger side. She was slumped over below the bottom of the window line.
“If you just walked by the car, you probably wouldn’t see her sitting there,” Mobley said.
The shopping center is the opposite direction along Interstate 10 West of the law firm where Powell works. Mobley doesn’t know of any special connection her daughter has to the center, or what business she would’ve had there that day.
As of Wednesday, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to identify Powell’s cause or manner of death. The findings could take three months or more.
Investigators have told Mobley there was no sign of foul play and no sign that her daughter killed herself.
Instead, it appears so far that Powell died of hyperthermia, succumbing to the heat.
‘Not sure what’s next’
As a paralegal, her first job was with the big city Thomas J. Henry law firm. She had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She completed UTSA’s paralegal certificate program about two years ago.
“When she was little, we used to say she was going to be a lawyer because she could argue about anything,” Mobley said. “And make it appear as though she was right.”
Mobley still remembers how excited Powell was when she started her career.
For Powell, one of three siblings including a brother and a sister, home was near the Medical Center. She attended Pat Neff Middle School and graduated from Marshall High School.
Mobley said her family moved to San Antonio from Nashville more than 30 years ago when her then husband found a job at the University of Texas Health Science Center.
Powell was described by a family friend as having a bubbly personality. She was charming, classy but also private, her mother said.
“Several men have told me that she was the love of his life,” Mobley said.
Now, Mobley is waiting for her daughter’s ashes and will memorialize her in a small gathering at some point.
Her thoughts turned to Ryan and what’s next for him.
“This is all new territory for me. I’m not sure what’s next,” she said. “We’re just trying to get through every day as it comes.”
jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Chrissy-Powell-death-found-17349940.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:30 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Chrissy-Powell-death-found-17349940.php |
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The San Antonio Express-News is inviting high school students from across the San Antonio region to apply for its Teen Team program, which gives students a close-up view of what it’s like to work in journalism.
The program, which for the first time will be offered over the course of a full school year, gives students the opportunity to shadow reporters, photographers and other staffers at the Express-News. Students also will be paired with Express-News journalists for one-on-one guidance on reporting skills, writing and career planning.
During twice-monthly group meetings, journalists will host workshops on news writing, journalism ethics, reporting techniques, social-media engagement and more. The meetings will be held during the evenings on the second and fourth Thursday of each month.
Students also will have the opportunity to produce paid stories for the newspaper.
Do you have questions about the program? Email teenteam@express-news.net.
Students can apply online by filling out the form at bit.ly/ENTeenTeam by Aug. 26.
To be eligible, applicants must be current juniors and seniors in and around the San Antonio region.
The newspaper offered a similar program in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and several participants went on to careers in the journalism and communications fields. Former Teen Team members include Madalyn Mendoza, journalist at MySA; Francisco Vara-Orta, director of Diversity and Inclusion at Investigative Reporters & Editors; and Bonnie Kavoussi, a former Huffington Post journalist.
Luz Moreno-Lozano, a journalist at the Austin American-Statesman, was part of the 2008 Teen Team and said the program was her “first foot in the door in launching my career as a journalist.”
“Today, the skills I have learned have carried through to my daily reporting — from a community news reporter in Atascosa and Medina counties to covering the social injustices of Austin and its surrounding communities,” Moreno-Lozano said last year, after the program was relaunched. “And it all started with the Teen Team.”
In 2021, the newspaper brought the program back under the direction of the Express-News Diversity & Inclusion Committee.
To apply, students must complete an online application and submit up to two samples of their work. Work samples may include published or unpublished stories, essays, photos, cartoons, videos, podcasts, blogs, social media posts or other creative work.
Students are also encouraged — but not required — to submit a letter of reference from a non-family member, such as a teacher or employer.
Students don’t need to have any journalism experience, and students from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
eeaton@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Express-News-high-school-journalism-17346621.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:36 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Express-News-high-school-journalism-17346621.php |
Black toddlers and infants in Texas are being vaccinated against COVID-19 much more slowly than their white, Hispanic and Asian counterparts, according to state health data.
On the other end of the spectrum, 43 percent of the doses that have been administered to babies and kids who became eligible last month have gone to Hispanic children, state numbers show. And young Asian kids have received a share of the total doses that is nearly triple their share of Texans in that age group.
In the first five weeks that COVID-19 vaccines have been available to Texans ages 6 months to 4 years, more than 64,000 of the state’s 1.8 million newly eligible children have had at least one shot in the Pfizer or Moderna regimen. While this represents only 3.5 percent of the state’s youngest eligible age group, that’s roughly the same as the national rate for babies and children in that age group.
Disparities are surfacing along racial lines that are similar to those seen in previous age groups, particularly in the early stages of the vaccine rollout — highlighting an ongoing and multilayered challenge to health officials as they try to vaccinate a significant portion of young Texans, more than half of whom are children of color.
In all age groups now eligible for the vaccine, some 77 percent of Asian Texans have been vaccinated, compared with 68 percent of Hispanics, 55 percent of whites and 49 percent of Blacks.
In whiter, more rural areas, where the rate of fully vaccinated people has consistently lagged behind the statewide rate, vaccine hesitancy is often connected to mistrust in the government — and health care access is limited for the 1 in 10 Texans who live in those regions.
Hispanic and Black Texans report more issues with access than do white families, particularly when it comes to taking time off work to get a vaccine. Those communities also experience hesitancy commonly stemming from a mistrust in the health care system.
Sharon Cohan, founder and executive director of VaxTogetherAustin, said an additional challenge comes from the federal guidelines that anyone under the age of 3 receive the vaccine only after getting a doctor’s prescription. Also, only doctors and public health officials are allowed to give the shot to children ages 2 or younger.
That’s a barrier for people who have limited access to doctors or who feel uncomfortable in traditional health care settings, she said.
And it ties the hands of organizations like hers, which usually partners with Walgreens to run clinics and vaccination events at places like schools that most easily can reach lower-income communities and children of color.
“We can’t just come in with our usual team and vaccinate the kids who are 6 months and up,” she said. “In an ideal world, every parent and every child has a primary care pediatrician. But that’s just not the reality.”
According to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services, of the 64,314 doses administered to the youngest age group:
- Asian children have received about 11 percent of them, although they make up only an estimated 4 percent of the population in their age group. So far, almost 6 percent of the Asian population in this age group has received at least one dose.
- Hispanic children have gotten the biggest share of doses, receiving 43 percent of those administered so far. About half of Texas children in this age group are Hispanic, according to demographic data. About 1.9 percent of Hispanic kids in this age group have received at least one dose.
- White children have gotten about 32 percent of the doses, while comprising about one-third of the children in Texas ages 6 months to 4 years. About 2.2 percent of kids in this age group have received at least one dose.
- Black children have gotten the smallest share of all doses administered in their age group, with just over 5 percent, while they comprise an estimated 12 percent of kids at this age, according to state population data. Less than 1 percent of Black Texans in the age group have received at least one dose.
- Children of races and ethnicities outside of those four major groups and those who identify multiple races, all listed as “other” on published state records, have gotten just over 6 percent of the doses. About 3 percent of total doses went to children whose race is listed as “unknown.”
Texas health officials said the state will “continue to focus on populations with lower vaccine uptake, including communities of color and rural communities” in its outreach efforts, said Douglas Loveday, spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Lower numbers
Texas is slightly ahead of the U.S. in terms of percentage of its youngest children vaccinated, although state and local health officials say the number of children vaccinated is lower than they had hoped.
But vaccine uptake, no matter what age and for most races, has always been a battle in parts of Texas for reasons ranging from politics to poverty, geography to governmental mistrust.
“We’ve been dealing with that this entire pandemic,” Cohan said.
Statewide, some 61 percent of Texans have been fully vaccinated since the shot was first available in December 2020, compared with 79 percent nationally.
In the Rio Grande Valley, early interest in and access to the vaccine by adult recipients was higher than expected — in fact, the entire border region consistently led the state in its vaccination rates. In Hidalgo County, for example, 83 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.
That’s why Dr. Ivan Melendez, Hidalgo County health authority, is surprised and saddened by a significant drop-off in vaccine uptake by those same residents when it comes to their young children.
Of the 1,000 doses his agency has received that are earmarked for those children, only about 200 have been administered because interest has been so low, he said.
Melendez doesn’t find the proportionately higher rates among Hispanic children to be particularly encouraging, given the low overall number of takers for a vaccine that’s in plenty of supply.
“Our community partners are kind of reporting something similar, that we’re just disappointed in the amount of people that are taking it up in this age group,” he said. “The physicians and the health department are trying to be really proactive in educating people, but I don’t think it’s a resource issue. I don’t think it’s because we don’t have enough air time. It’s not that we don’t have enough vaccines, because we certainly do.”
Melendez, who is also a family practitioner, said he’s not seeing the same level of vaccine uptake for the kids as he did for the adults in the early days mainly due to misinformation about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and apathy about the pandemic.
“Probably the underlying thing is, ‘I’ll risk it, but I’m not going to let my kids risk it,’” Melendez said.
Eric Lau contributed to this story.
Texas Children’s Hospital has been a financial supporter of the Texas Tribune. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Familiar-racial-disparities-emerge-in-first-month-17348596.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:43 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Familiar-racial-disparities-emerge-in-first-month-17348596.php |
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on Monday posted a video to Instagram of a possible rare species of coyote known as the "ghost wolf."
The photo shows a young coyote playing in the dunes of Galveston Island, possibly looking for a snack, TPWD said in the post.
The Texas agency said it does not know for sure if it was a ghost wolf, a coyote with the rare DNA of endangered red wolves.
Red wolves are an endangered species once found on the coast and in the thickets of East Texas, but have not been seen in the state since the 1980s, according to a Houston Chronicle story earlier this year. Red wolves were not as big as the more common gray wolf and not as small as coyotes, and they survived by scavenging on rabbits, opossums and carrion.
The original range of the Texas red wolf is largely unknown due to its secretive nature.
On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio neighborhoods with the most animal bites
There has since been a genetic study aimed at determining the prevalence of the rare red wolf DNA, or "ghost alleles," that researchers thought had gone extinct, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The "ghost wolf" could be a reservoir for previously lost red wolf ancestry, per TPWD, offering a chance to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.
According to TPWD, other examples of red wolf ancestry have appeared, including a wild-caught, captive-raised coyote in the Panhandle that showed as much as 35 percent red wolf genetics when tested in 2019.
shepard.price@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Ghost-wolf-Galveston-17345350.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:49 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Ghost-wolf-Galveston-17345350.php |
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Kenneth Platt, one of three Pearl Harbor veterans in San Antonio, died Wednesday evening at 101.
A retired Air Force tech sergeant, he had been in declining health after celebrating his most recent birthday May 15 with a party at his house on the Northwest Side.
“I’m planning on being 102 in a year from now,” an upbeat Platt said at the time. But he was hospitalized in mid-July with pneumonia and suffered from other ailments.
Platt died peacefully with his wife, Lorena, and son in the room at home about 7:30 p.m., hours short of his 77th wedding anniversary, a friend, Russell Minor, said.
Platt, who grew up near Lufkin, was known for his gravelly voice and genial manner at veterans’ gatherings around San Antonio, including the anniversary lunch for the city’s dwindling band of survivors of the attack that propelled the United States into World War II.
Bullets barely missed him early on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, at Schofield Barracks, with machine gun fire from a strafing Japanese plane shattering a window only four feet from where Platt was fast asleep.
In his telling of the story, he described crawling under his bunk in response, but that detail was always accompanied by laughter.
Platt was only able to talk about his experience after meeting other Pearl Harbor veterans during the 1980s. At the last Dec. 7 gathering, he held forth surrounded by family and friends, the only survivor of the battle on hand.
“When I was a kid, he wouldn’t tell me nothing,” Pratt’s son, Wayne, said late last year. “Of course, he’ll talk about it now.”
San Antonio’s other Pearl Harbor survivors — Heinz Bachman, a 100-year-old former Army staff sergeant, and Gilbert Meyer, 98, a retired Navy chief petty officer who has been in failing health — have scaled back public appearances in recent years. Neither made it to the luncheon.
Meyer is due to turn 99 this month. Bachman, a native of Germany who emigrated to the United States before the war, will hit 101 on Oct. 22.
Minor, 68, a pharmacist and local veterans booster, described Platt as a quiet hero.
“He enlisted in ’37 and there wasn’t anything going on, there were rumors but nothing going on,” Minor said.
Congress declared war the day after the attack, in which a Japanese strike force of 353 aircraft launched from six aircraft carriers mauled the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet and destroyed most of the Army’s Hawaii-based aircraft on the ground. The casualty count reached 2,403 Americans dead, 68 of them civilians.
The enemy planes came in two waves, sinking or damaging 21 ships. The USS Arizona, now a memorial in Honolulu, lost 1,177 sailors and Marines.
“Three Japanese airplanes I saw flew over Schofield. They bombed Wheeler Field … right across the road from Schofield,” Platt said in an interview on the eve of the most recent anniversary. “I can remember that just like it happened yesterday.”
Schofield was 18 miles from Battleship Row. The weapons at the barracks were locked up, the keyholder missing in action.
“I think they broke the case open,” said Wayne Platt, who has heard all his father’s stories and became a Pearl Harbor historian of sorts. “They pried them out.”
If Platt was new to combat he was an Army veteran, joining years before the war. He grew up on a farm run by his sharecropper dad, Chester, and mother, Ida, in Shawnee Prairie, outside Lufkin in Angelina County.
They grew corn and cotton, had a large garden with potatoes and green beans, and kept hogs, cows, mules and horses.
Platt, one of seven kids, didn’t like the sunup-to-sundown work.
“I guess that’s why I went and joined the Army and moved out, and never went back,” he said. “I didn’t fit in too good with the rest of my family. I don’t know, my mama said I was the meanest kid. … She had more trouble with me than with any of the other kids.”
Two months shy of 16 when he enlisted, Platt claimed to be 18. “I guess you know how old you are,” he recalled the dubious recruiting sergeant’s reply.
Pratt’s life in the Army started at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where one of his brothers, Elton Hall Platt, already was posted. The marching, drill and training wasn’t much easier than the farm.
“I put up with it,” Platt said.
Hawaii was more pleasant duty, until the attack. After Pearl Harbor, he fought in the Pacific Theater, including in New Guinea. He came home in 1943 and reentered civilian life, marrying Lorena and settling in San Antonio.
“He was a good old-fashioned hard worker. He owned and operated, I want to say, three coffee shops in town, right after he got out of the service,” Minor said.
Platt returned to uniform, this time in the Air Force as a mechanic, working on everything from prop planes to the B-47, a turbojet-powered strategic bomber.
Long after living several lives — World War II soldier, civilian businessman, father, Air Force NCO doing his bit during the Cold War, retiree — Platt entered what was to be his final phase, a centenarian getting around with a walker.
His memories of the Day of Infamy were intact but under siege.
“I’m getting to where I’m kind of forgetful about things. My mind doesn’t work the way it used to,” Platt said. “I feel different. I feel old now.”
At restaurants around town, though, it didn’t seem to matter. Minor, who organizes regular breakfasts for groups of veterans, said curious diners would introduce themselves and greet Platt once they realized he was a human link to a nearly mythical event.
“Every time somebody would call me over to their booth … I’d say, ‘You’re looking at the last Pearl Harbor survivor you’ll ever see in San Antonio.’” Minor said.
sigc@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Kenneth-Platt-who-became-the-face-of-Pearl-17350186.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:50 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Kenneth-Platt-who-became-the-face-of-Pearl-17350186.php |
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Roughly 83 percent of residential SAWS customers would see their water bills reduced — and all would see their wastewater service bills decline — as soon as next year under a newly proposed rate structure presented to the city-owned utility’s board of trustees.
The San Antonio Water System’s rate advisory committee recently finalized its recommended new water and wastewater rate structure for customers, including residential, businesses, lower-income and multifamily units. A consultant hired to perform a cost-of-service analysis determined that SAWS is overcharging residential customers for wastewater service.
Under the proposed change, residential water customers on average would see an 8.4 percent decrease for essential water use — calculated by how much water a customer uses indoors during winter months — and a 20 percent decline in the fixed service charge, which is independent of water use.
For the most part, the new rate structure is tied to water use and rewards water conservation, said Mary Bailey, vice president of customer experience and strategic initiatives at SAWS.
“Basically anyone using less than 9,000 gallons of water a month, they will see a decrease in how much they pay. For customers who use between 9,000 and 11,000 gallons of water, they’ll see about a 2 percent increase,” Bailey said. “And for those who use above 12,000 gallons, it’ll be a 7 to 8 percent increase.”
Overall, the new rate plan would be revenue-neutral, said Bailey, who presented the rate advisory committee’s findings and recommendations to SAWS’ board of trustees this week.
The rate advisory committee began evaluating SAWS’ rate structure in 2019, but it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February, the board appointed a new rate advisory committee, which has met seven times since then. The committee’s priorities were affordability, customer impact and conservation.
After presenting to the board this week, the advisory committee will seek customer input and feedback on the proposal for the next four months. In November, the board and the City Council will vote on the changes. If approved, the proposal would take effect in January 2023.
Along with water bills, the proposal is expected to decrease residential wastewater bills. Customers will see an average decrease of 4 or 5 percent on their wastewater bills, while some could see as much as a 30 percent decrease depending on their wastewater system use.
Bailey said the consultant’s cost-of-service analysis on wastewater found that “we were overcharging” residential customers — essentially charging more than the costs allocated to them for that service. Conversely, SAWS should be charging commercial customers more, she said.
Also, the rate advisory committee’s proposal provides reduced rates for lower-income customers, a change from the discount program that exists under the current rate structure, Bailey said.
“The (rate advisory committee) decided we’ll charge them different rates instead,” Bailey said.
Only general class customers, such as businesses or multifamily units who use a lot of water, will see a 3 to 5 percent increase in their bills. Meanwhile, smaller businesses that use less water will see a 2 percent decrease.
“The (rate advisory committee) really focused on affordability,” Bailey said. “Not just for lower-income customers, but for everyone. We think this will be really good news for residential customers. It’s important to ensure that the water we need to live day to day is affordable, and I think by and large folks are going to be pretty supportive of that.”
Elena Bruess writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. elena.bruess@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Most-residential-SAWS-customers-could-see-17349510.php | 2022-08-04T11:48:57 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Most-residential-SAWS-customers-could-see-17349510.php |
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The testimony of two little girls who found their mother lying in a pool of blood almost two years ago marked the start of their father’s murder trial Tuesday.
The oldest, now 10, said she texted their grandmother to say, “I think mom is dead.”
The girls are witnesses for the state in the trial of Jorge Izquierdo, accused of fatally shooting his on-and-off girlfriend, Cora Ann Nickel, 27, on Aug. 20, 2020.
Izquierdo, 31, cried and wiped tears from his eyes at the defense table as his daughters walked by, each holding a stuffed animal. Neither looked in his direction.
They are not being identified because they are minors. The youngest is now 7.
Prosecutor Kristen Mulliner said in her opening statement that Izquierdo and Nickel had an argument as they left a party for Izquierdo’s mother and when they got home, it spilled over into the house.
Mulliner said Nickel asked Izquierdo to leave, but he did not.
“Jorge bent her (Cora Nickel) over the sink, put a gun to her head and shot,” Mulliner said.
She said Izquierdo fled, leaving his car in the driveway on Maverick Draw on the Northwest Side, and a neighbor’s surveillance camera caught someone running between houses around that time, Mulliner said.
Authorities would later arrest Izquierdo in California.
Defense attorney Jennifer Zarka implied that the death was a suicide, saying Izquierdo was upset and left the state because “a beautiful, young mother” had died “of a single gunshot wound to the head.”
She said the evidence against her client was circumstantial, that there were no witnesses to the shooting and no weapon was found at the scene.
The older daughter said Izquierdo had picked up her, her sister and mother to go to Izquierdo’s mother’s birthday party.
“We had a good time,” but when they got back in the car to leave, “mom and dad started arguing,” the 10-year-old said. “My mom told my dad to leave.”
The girl testified that Nickel put both sisters to bed in her master bedroom upstairs. Before she and her sister fell asleep, she said, she heard a door open, then close, then heard someone walk in.
The girl said she woke up at 4 a.m.
“I went downstairs because mom wasn’t in bed with us,” she said. “I saw her lying there, with liquid around her. I thought it was a nightmare, and I went back to bed.”
The girl said her little sister woke her up at 7 a.m.
“I told her, ‘I think mom is dead,’ and we both went down to look,” the girl said. “We then said, ‘Mom is dead.’”
Scared, the girls went back upstairs, and the older one began texting and calling Izquierdo on her mother’s phone, she said. The phone went to voicemail, she said.
“I freaked out,” the older sibling said. “I called my grandma and she came immediately.”
The child’s 7-year-old sister gave similar testimony, adding that her father was drinking in the car when they were on the way home from the party.
On cross-examination, Zarka asked each girl if they ever saw their mother with a gun. Each said no, but stated that they knew their father had a gun he kept in his home, and one in his car.
Their grandmother, Lynette Robinson, told the jury she considered the relationship between her daughter and Izquierdo to be “toxic,” with the couple repeatedly splitting up and getting back together. They shared a home for a while, but mostly lived apart.
Robinson said she missed her granddaughter’s phone call, and when she called back, the girl said, “‘Something’s happened, there’s red stuff all over the floor. I think mom is dead.’ They sounded distraught.”
Once Robinson got to the house , she went upstairs and immediately took the girls outside. Then, she checked on her daughter.
“As soon as I walked in, I knew,” Robinson said. “I had to physically touch her. She was ice cold.”
When a prosecutor showed Robinson a photograph of her daughter with her girls for a positive identification, Robinson cried.
“I saw my daughter lying on the floor with blood surrounding her,” she told the jury. “Her eyes were wide open.”
The case is being heard in the 175th District Court, Judge Catherine Torres-Stahl presiding. If convicted, Izquierdo faces up to life in prison.
ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Nickel-Izquierdo-murder-trial-17346004.php | 2022-08-04T11:49:03 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Nickel-Izquierdo-murder-trial-17346004.php |
The River Walk is not only one of San Antonio's top attractions, but it's also one of the world's most beautiful, according to a recent survey.
Kuoni, an international tourism company, analyzed over 452,000 TripAdvisor reviews to find out how many times people used the word "beautiful" to describe a tourist destination. Kuoni released its findings last month, and the River Walk came in at No. 16 in the world.
The San Antonio riverfront includes 15-miles of sightseeing, shopping and dining options and is one of Texas's top travel destinations.
On ExpressNews.com: River Walk brawl stemmed from customer complaint over hair in food
New York City's Central Park took the top spot. The following four, respectively, are the Trevi Fountain in Rome, the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Paris.
The River Walk ranked behind the Golden Gate Bridge at No. 15 and ahead of the Duomo di Milano in Milan. More than 6,000 reviews of the River Walk mentioned its beauty, the survey found.
The U.S. had the most sights in the top 20 with five.
shepard.price@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/River-Walk-most-beautiful-sights-17345483.php | 2022-08-04T11:49:09 | 1 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/River-Walk-most-beautiful-sights-17345483.php |
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A jazz singer from Mexico, a folk music group from New York City and a duo of pianists — one Israeli, the other Palestinian — came in March. In April, it was a soprano from Ukraine. In May, a French-Korean pianist.
Next up, in October, an Argentinian musician will play the bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument, in San Fernando Cathedral, accompanied by a singer and a tango band.
All of this is thanks to the performing arts nonprofit Musical Bridges Around the World, led by its founder, artistic director and CEO, Anya Grokhovski.
A classical pianist who has performed in Carnegie Hall, Grokhovski found a new home in the U.S. after leaving her native Russia at the end of the Cold War. She quickly developed a love for her new country and its “diversity of people,” she said. Her passion for music helped her form relationships and connect with a new culture. Today, through her nonprofit, she uses music to bring together people of different cultures.
“The makeup of this country I found amazing. You know, the Soviet Union was a pretty homogeneous country,” she said. “That’s what makes this country unique - its melting pot. I think that with music and art, it’s an expressive medium, a connector.”
With the demise of the San Antonio Symphony 83 years after its founding, 2022 has been a dismal year for the performing arts in San Antonio. Yet Musical Bridges continues to expand by experimenting with new ways of spreading awareness of musical cultures. The nonprofit is finishing its first documentary, which celebrates African American genres such as blues, jazz, soul and hip hop. It will be released next year.
Musical Bridges will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. It has a staff of eight and a budget of about $1.2 million.
Along with other nonprofits such as Ballet San Antonio, OPERA San Antonio, the Olmos Ensemble and the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Musical Bridges is providing crucial support to the performing arts community in the symphony’s absence. Through its Kids to Concerts program, it has brought performers from around the world - Japan, Mexico, China, India and Romania, among other countries - to perform in schools.
“It’s a testament to Anya and her leadership skills and vision to be able to grow a performing arts company in a city that over the past few years has lost several,” said Suhail Arastu, the nonprofit’s director of advancement.
Grokhovski’s reputation as a pianist, and the connections she’s made with other musicians, have helped draw performers here from across the globe, he said.
“She’s very straightforward. She says whatever’s on her mind,” Arastu said, adding. “She really wants input, because we’re sort of like a family that she’s created.”
Cultural exchange is all the more important as San Antonio absorbs new immigrants, including refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Grokhovski said. She pointed out that some schools in the area have students speaking dozens of languages.
“The makeup of San Antonio is changing. It’s still primarily Hispanic, but there’s so many different cultures moving in,” she said. “Our mission is celebrating common humanity through making global arts accessible to all. All the artists we bring, they’re representatives of different cultures. We believe that music not only has to be accessible to all financially, it also needs to be relevant to all.”
From the USSR to the Alamo City
Grokhovski is from a family of musicians. Both her parents were violinists, and her father performed with the Moscow Philharmonic. She began playing the piano at age five and later studied at the Russian Academy of Music in Moscow.
“In Eastern Europe, it is a tradition: Kids normally do what the parents do,” she said. “Every country, in every structure, there are some pluses and some minuses. There were a lot of minuses, but the plus was there was a free education, a very well-developed classical education.”
She came to the U.S. with her then-husband and their six-year-old son in 1989 as part of an exchange program. At the time, she knew hardly two words of English, she said. They settled in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, where her husband was a visiting professor at Illinois State University.
In 1991, the family moved to San Antonio after he got a full-time job at the University of Texas at San Antonio. On the drive south from Illinois, she recalls listening to radio news reports about a failed coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, an event that hastened the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
A couple months after the family’s arrival in San Antonio, she was hired as a staff accompanist at UTSA. She also began giving private piano lessons.
Grokhovski didn’t set out to become the CEO of a nonprofit. She says that she learned how to do the job by “making a lot of different mistakes… Little by little, you try not to repeat the same mistakes.”
Musical Bridges has its roots in a misunderstanding between Grokhovski and a former professor of hers from the Russian Academy, himself a pianist. In 1998, while she was at UTSA, she invited him for a visit so that she could show him around and he could play a few concerts.
“I also was hoping he would inspire me; there was a time when I kind of felt I needed some inspiration to perform more, do some exciting stuff in life,” she said.
She didn’t hear from him for several months, until he called unexpectedly to tell her that he’d bought a plane ticket and would arrive the following week. In a panic, she followed the suggestion of one of her students to organize a concert in someone’s house, where the attendees could make donations to help pay the pianist’s way.
The concert was so popular that she decided to bring another former professor to San Antonio to perform. She went on to turn the effort into a nonprofit.
“This is literally how it all started - out of the free will of just a group of women who felt that there’s something special, and let’s keep it alive,” she said.
On the recommendation of Father David Garcia, then of San Fernando Cathedral, she began recruiting performers to play in the nearly 300-year-old basilica. Garcia had just returned from a sabbatical in Europe where he took in concerts in the continent’s great houses of worship.
Thus began the Musical Evenings at San Fernando Cathedral series, which celebrated its 24th season this year.
Trying new things
Over the years, Musical Bridges has grown to offer a wide variety of events and services, including the Gurwitz San Antonio International Piano Competition and the International Music Festival. Its Kids to Concerts and Musical Sprouts programs bring music and dance performances to students, while the Golden Age program brings them to seniors.
“I think it’s important for children to see the world through positive eyes, which is a challenge these days,” Grokhovski said. “When we hear something about the world, it’s bad news.”
The nonprofit’s cultural offerings go beyond music: It displays artwork and holds exhibitions in its offices along Interstate 10 on the far Northeast Side.
Bob Leckie, a retired lawyer and business executive who is a Musical Bridges board member, said he has spent some time considering the “rare” combination of traits that has made Grokhovski a success. She is good with details, yet “she has vision and dreams.”
“I’ve worked with several really good visionaries, and I’ve spent all my time cleaning up after them, you know?” said Leckie, who spent part of his career running a manufacturing company. “I’ve worked with lots of really good people who could execute but need guidance going to the next level. Anya has both.”
When the pandemic hit and the nonprofit could no longer bring musicians to San Antonio to perform, Grokhovski led an effort to hire video crews to film the musicians performing and giving lessons in their home countries. The videos were shown as part of the Musical Sprouts program. The nonprofit continues to produce videos and online-learning ebooks for schools.
Grokhovski is excited about a new venture launched during the national conversation about race after the murder of George Floyd: a children’s documentary about African American music called “The Quilt.” Set to premiere early next year, it was produced with local talent in collaboration with the San Antonio African American Community Archive & Museum and the Carver Community Cultural Center.
The film’s trailer declares that it will show how genres of African American music - blues, ragtime, jazz, soul, R&B and hip hop - are connected “just like a quilt.”
Musical Bridges couldn’t find any other documentary about African American music geared to children, Grokhovski said. The nonprofit is creating a curriculum to accompany the film.
“Our mission is celebrating common humanity by making global art accessible to all. American art form is part of the global community of arts,” she said. “We wanted to show the creative culture that the African American community contributed to the general arts scene of this country, and celebrate it.” | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Russian-piano-player-Texas-SA-17349662.php | 2022-08-04T11:49:10 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Russian-piano-player-Texas-SA-17349662.php |
The South San Antonio Independent School District’s board has promoted the district’s interim superintendent to the lone finalist for the top job.
Henry Yzaguirre became the interim chief superintendent in December, when Superintendent Marc Puig was suspended pending an investigation into a cryptic conversation he had with the board president that was accidentally recorded. His relationship with trustees had deteriorated since September and by June, he reached an agreement with the board and resigned.
A unanimous vote Monday to promote Yzaguirre included two new board members whose appointments last week were clouded by questions over whether the quorum for the meeting was broken by a departing trustee.
“During the past few months, we have seen so much go on in this district. A lot of stuff we wish didn’t happen,” one of the new trustees, Cynthia Ramirez, said before the vote. “The one thing I can say is that we had an interim superintendent who has gone through more than any superintendent that has been there for years has had to go through. He has held his head up high.”
The board has to wait three weeks before taking a final vote. As the interim leader, Yzaguirre already is the district’s ninth top executive since 2010.
Ernesto Arrellano, the board president, said Yzaguirre has brought on an excellent staff that has worked hard to get South San prepared for the school year.
“I think South San ISD is welcoming one of their own sons,” trustee Homer Flores added. “He took the job as permanent. He started to own it from day one.”
Classes begin Monday at the district, one of the earliest start dates in the area.
The board also voted to make Stacey Alderete its vice president, replacing Shirley Ibarra, and Flores the board secretary, replacing Gina Villagomez. Ibarra and Villagomez were absent and have missed multiple meetings this summer, making it hard for the board to create a quorum.
“Despite all the things that are going on with the board over the last few weeks, the number one thing is the students come back next Monday. Whether we did it last week or we did it weeks before, the point is the district is ready to move on,” Arrellano said.
Abe Saavedra, the Texas Education Agency-appointed monitor, agreed that the board appeared to have turned a page.
“It seems that the board has a new beginning. A new opportunity to reboot, restart, and it coincides with the opening of school next week,” he said. “I would encourage the board to stay focused on the schools, stay focused on the students.”
Trustees should not “get derailed into the political stuff,” Saavedra said.
claire.bryan@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/SA-ISD-Texas-school-17348774.php | 2022-08-04T11:49:17 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/SA-ISD-Texas-school-17348774.php |
American housing authorities have worked alongside a stigma attached to their names for decades. The phrases “housing authority” and “public housing” often have negative connotations.
Officials with the San Antonio Housing Authority decided it’s time to rebrand and change the organization’s name to Opportunity Home San Antonio.
“Housing has evolved,” said Ana Margarita Guzman, board chair for the agency. “The word ‘authority’ no longer reflects the vision of a 21st-century San Antonio.”
The new name — with a focus on the word “home” instead of “house” — is a result of listening to the community, according to a news release announcing the shift. Feedback showed people associate home with comfort, safety and family.
Organizations across the country have made similar changes, including Home Forward in Portland, Ore.; People First in Utica, N.Y.; and Housing Solutions in Fort Worth.
The federal agency that founded the San Antonio organization also changed its name: from the U.S. Housing Authority to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Opportunity Home manages public housing and the Housing Choice Voucher Program known as Section 8. It serves more than 57,000 people and encompasses 100 affordable housing properties across San Antonio.
The name isn’t the only part of the agency undergoing an adjustment. Opportunity Home is also reforming its policies to be more equitable. That includes working to become a Trauma Informed Care certified organization this year and attempting to remove implicit biases.
“With 1 out of 15 San Antonians on a waitlist for affordable housing, we are committed to structural changes, including expanding income-based housing amid an incessant global pandemic and economic challenges,” said Ed Hinojosa Jr., president of the newly named Opportunity Home San Antonio.
The name change is meant to reflect the shifting needs for affordable housing locally — and it signals a changing tide in how the agency approaches its reputation.
The housing authority came under fire in recent years for its plans to demolish Alazán Courts, San Antonio’s oldest and largest public housing complex with 501 apartments on the near West Side. Officials planned to replace it with mixed-income apartments.
For decades, residents had watched the city’s public housing stock slowly slip away with the demolitions of Victoria Courts, Mirasol Homes, San Juan Homes and Wheatley Courts.
Housing advocates and community organizers had enough. They worried the plan would displace longtime residents at Alazán Courts.
Soon after Hinojosa took over as acting president in January 2021, the housing authority reversed course, saying it would rebuild Alazán Courts itself — bucking a 30-year trend toward privatization.
Details have yet to be determined. The affordable housing agency has spent the year holding public meetings and knocking on doors, taking a slow and engaged approach to its new plan for Alazán Courts.
The former housing authority worked to integrate itself into the larger, cooperative landscape for funding affordable housing in San Antonio. The agency helped draft the city’s new Strategic Housing Implementation Plan that City Council adopted late last year.
Opportunity Home may also benefit from the city’s new voter-approved $150 million housing bond. Although the organization did not directly receive funds, as it had sought, guidelines show the bond money should prioritize public housing in the two categories focused on rental units.
A new name for the housing authority, new displays of integration and new plans for Alazán Courts all represent a shift in how public housing can be perceived in San Antonio.
“It is time to disrupt the existing affordable housing system,” Hinojosa said.
Marina Starleaf Riker and Madison Iszler contributed to this report.
megan.stringer@express-news.net | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/SAHA-name-change-home-17348756.php | 2022-08-04T11:49:23 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/SAHA-name-change-home-17348756.php |
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A wildfire crept up on a picturesque hilltop home north of Fredericksburg on Wednesday afternoon.
Within a few hundred yards of the house, the Big Sky Fire turned the yellow grass covering the hillside charcoal black.
A fluorescent yellow helicopter dumped water on the blaze. Fire trucks were positioned near the house, and firefighters rested in the shade nearby.
The wildfire broke out about noon Tuesday. It spread across 200 acres over the next three and a half hours, feeding on dry grass and brush and driven by sustained winds of 15 mph, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group.
By Wednesday afternoon, the blaze — about eight miles north of Fredericksburg — had destroyed 1,400 acres of land and forced the closure of nearby Enchanted Rock State Natural Area and Pedernales Falls State Park.
‘As bad as I’ve ever seen it’: Wilson County fire marshal, on the job 25 years, says wildfire threat is off the chart
About 40 residents were evacuated from the area Tuesday afternoon but were allowed to return home Wednesday.
City of Fredericksburg spokeswoman Lea Feuge said the fire posed no imminent danger to the city. No homes had been destroyed and no life lost.
Still, the fire had damaged three “barn-like structures,” Feuge said.
The cause of the Big Sky Fire, which broke out off Eckert Road near Big Sky Drive and Foster Ranch Road in Gillespie County, is under investigation.
The region’s ongoing drought and dead, dried trees remaining from the winter freeze of February 2021 factored into the fire’s size, Feuge said. Outdoor burn bans and the lack of rain did not allow for controlled burns to clear the area of dead trees, resulting in plenty of fuel for the blaze.
Authorities asked people to avoid the area around Eckert and Lower Crabapple roads.
A Texas A&M Forest Service spokesperson said Wednesday evening that about 100 ground personnel from Gillespie County and the Forest Service were working to contain the blaze.
With the unrelenting summer heat hitting record highs around the state and turning grasses and brush into fire fuel, 224 Texas counties have imposed outdoor burn bans, including Gillespie County, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
The Big Sky fire was among 26 wildfires that sparked across the state Tuesday, burning more than 3,500 acres. Officials with the forest service said the upper-level ridge of high pressure that is responsible for the hot and dry conditions fueling the fires is here to stay through next week. Wednesday, crews were battling several blazes in Central Texas, including in Hays, Travis, Caldwell and DeWitt counties, though those fires were nearing full containment.
In Blanco County, multiple agencies responded to a wildfire that had burned 800 acres and was 60 percent contained as of Wednesday evening.
The Smoke Rider Fire started Tuesday afternoon, and the Texas Department of Transportation had to close FM 165 between FM 2325 and U.S. 290. Multiple evacuations were issued for the areas around the fire as it continued to move north and northwest, and a shelter was opened at the Blanco Methodist Church at 61 Pecan St.
At least four agencies, plus additional air assets, were assisting with the brush fire. Blanco County Emergency Management said crews were able to stop the forward progression of the Smoke Rider Fire overnight into Wednesday and reported that the containment line was doing well.
The cause of the Smoke Rider Fire is under investigation. All mandatory evacuations have been lifted and homeowners allowed back to their residences, but the shelter at Blanco Methodist Church remained open Wednesday for people who needed it.
All roads have reopened, though drivers are warned to expect frequent emergency vehicle traffic and to travel with extreme caution. A temporary flight restriction remains in place over the fire area.
The National Weather Service said that “elevated to near critical fire weather conditions” would continue through the week.
Staff writer Jacob Beltran contributed to this report. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Texas-wildfire-San-Antonio-area-17349926.php | 2022-08-04T11:49:29 | 0 | https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Texas-wildfire-San-Antonio-area-17349926.php |
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Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood. | https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/man-shot-in-face-after-knock-at-the-door/3325482/ | 2022-08-04T11:56:15 | 1 | https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/man-shot-in-face-after-knock-at-the-door/3325482/ |
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – With the nation watching, Kansans rejected the “Value Them Both” Amendment Tuesday by roughly 17 points.
The big question now: what’s next for each side of the abortion rights debate?
For Wichita’s sole clinic for procedural abortions, Tuesday’s “no” vote provides a heightened sense of security.
“We’re enthralled and enthusiastic with the results,” Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, communications director for Trust Women, said.
Gingrich-Gaylord says before the vote, he was concerned Trust Women would not be able to provide abortion services within the year. Now, he says the clinic’s next steps are to reinstate abortion rights in surrounding states.
“One of the messages that we heard loud and clear from the results of last night’s election is that Kansans do want local, meaningfully accessible abortion care for their communities,” Gingrich-Gaylord said.
Political analyst Dr. Jeff Jarman says compared to the 2018 Primary Election, 63,000 more Republicans and 100,000 more Democrats participated. This as nearly 200,000 independents who normally wouldn’t be able to vote came out en masse due to the amendment.
“Going forward, if they [anti-abortion activists] are unwilling to, to change what they want as an outcome, they face a very tough road ahead of them,” Dr. Jarman said.
Dr. Jarman says any legal challenges to existing abortion are unlikely in the near future.
“Anybody who was incentivized to want to strike down an existing law because of the court ruling ’19 would have filed a suit in ’19, or in ’20, or in ’21,” Dr. Jarman said.
A statement from the “Value Them Both” coalition reads in part: “While the outcome is not what we hoped, our movement and campaign have proven our resolve and commitment…This outcome is a temporary setback, and our dedicated fight to value women and babies is far from over…We will be back.”
KSN News reached out to the coalition to hear directly from the group what its next steps could be. The coalition declined to comment. | https://www.ksn.com/news/local/what-comes-next-for-value-them-both/ | 2022-08-04T12:01:44 | 1 | https://www.ksn.com/news/local/what-comes-next-for-value-them-both/ |
Hoping to dip in the ocean this weekend? What to know before visiting the Delaware beaches
With another hot weekend on the horizon, it may be time to hop in the car and head to the ever-so-slightly cooler stretches of the Delaware beaches.
Whether it's been a while since you've made the trip or you're a regular beach bum, you may have some questions before you go. No worries: We've got you covered.
Delaware Online/The News Journal has been following the latest news at the Delaware beaches all summer, and we've rounded up a few things to know, ranging from the latest COVID-19 guidance to tips on getting around the intense summer traffic.
For anyone looking to visit the Delaware beaches during the weekend of Aug. 5, check out this guide for the latest information.
100TH ANNIVERSARY:Once you become a Rehoboth Beach lifeguard, it changes your life. These former guards tell why
Keep cool: Another hot weekend forecast
The Delaware beaches are in the heat of summer − quite literally. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for the entire state, with heat indexes reaching the mid-90s even at the beaches starting Thursday through Friday evening.
HEAT WAVE, AGAIN:Buckle up, Delaware – it's getting hot again. What you need to know about this heat wave
If planning to find some reprieve at the beach and cool off in the ocean, then make sure to bring the beach umbrellas for shade, wear light and loose-fitting clothing, reapply that sunscreen and drink lots of water.
While the weather is always changing quickly at the Delaware beaches, and it's wise to check the weather channel or an app before making your way onto the sand, here's a breakdown of what you can expect.
A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms starts in the late afternoon on Friday and continues throughout the evening. But the daytime forecast should still be mostly sunny, and it may be wise to really anchor in those umbrellas due to a southwest wind likely reaching 10 to 15 mph.
The high temperature on Friday is expected to be near 86 with a low around 76 in the evening.
COOL OFF:Don't melt in the heat wave. Indulge in one of these frozen treats to keep you cool.
On Saturday, the weather service is predicting about a 40% chance of showers from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the potential for thunderstorms after 3 p.m. Don't dash those beach dreams quite yet, though. The skies should be mostly sunny during the day with a high near 85.
Saturday evening will bring some more clouds and a low near 76. A chance of thunderstorms and showers persists until about 9 p.m.
As of midweek, the threat of rain and storms seems to disappear by Sunday. Get to the beach early and enjoy the sunny skies, and stay safe in the ongoing heat as the high once again reaches 86. The evening should be partly cloudy with a low around 77.
Staying safe at the beach during COVID-19 spike
With rising hospitalizations and positive COVID-19 cases throughout the state, all three counties in Delaware have reached a high level of community spread, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Delaware Division of Public Health announced this change at the end of July and encouraged people to wear masks in "indoor public settings" to help prevent further spread.
The average of tests coming back positive as of Aug. 3 was 19.9%, according to DPH data, which does not include at-home testing that is not reported to the state. The state reported that 158 people were hospitalized with COVID at that point.
In the latest report on July 29, public health officials said the hospitalized patients included at least 16 children under the age of five, representing an increase in the number of kids hospitalized with COVID. They remind Delawareans that vaccines are now available for all persons starting at 6 months old, and vaccination is highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalizations and death.
MASK UP INSIDE:Delaware masking guidance changes as all three counties have 'high' spread of COVID
Beyond staying up to date on vaccines, outside activities and get-togethers are still safer than cramming into indoor spaces unmasked, according to DPH.
However, if you do have plans to be indoors or around a lot of people, DPH is suggesting people wear masks, distance as much as possible and keep up a good hand-washing regimen. And if anyone starts to feel sick or knows they were exposed to someone with COVID-19, they should get tested and stay away from others in the meantime.
Here is a roundup of advice to stay vigilant and avoid COVID this summer:
- Get vaccinated and boosted when you’re eligible. And don't wait until the fall when the updated vaccines are expected to be available. You will likely still be eligible for those boosters then.
- Stay home if sick and get tested if you have symptoms or were exposed to someone with COVID-19.
- Wear a mask indoors in public and if you are at higher risk for illness.
- Stay informed and turn to reliable sources for data, information, and treatment options.
Visit de.gov/coronavirus to schedule free vaccines and/or boosters.
SUMMER SPREAD: Summer isn’t over yet and neither is COVID-19. What to know about spike in cases, boosters
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Fine Art Fridays and Elton John tribute in Rehoboth Beach this weekend
Before you head to the Rehoboth Beach Bandstand on Saturday night to catch the popular Elton John tribute show Yellow Brick Road, there are a few other arts-themed events happening around the Nation's Summer Capital that you may want to know about.
On Friday, the Developing Artist Collaboration is hosting Fine Art Fridays at the Creative Market in West Rehoboth, 19826 Central Street near Revelation Craft Brewing, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Local artists showcase a themed exhibit, and people can browse the artwork while enjoying live music from Bethlehem & Sad Patrick and savory treats from the Grandpa Mac food truck. The free event also includes cocktails for purchase and a DIY craft bar.
The Rehoboth Art League is also kicking off its signature summer event this weekend. The Outdoor Fine Art and Fine Craft Show lasts for two weekends, starting this Saturday and ending next Sunday, Aug. 14.
Beyond a fine art show, this popular celebration includes food, live music, artist demonstrations, gallery exhibits, beautiful gardens, the historic Peter Marsh Homestead and a Dogfish Head Beer Garden.
There is a weekend ticket price of $5 per adults and no charge for children under the age of 12.
MORE FUN ACTIVITIES:Riding on fumes? 15 free events you can enjoy this summer with your family
PULL UP A CHAIR:A local's look at everything you need to know about the Delaware beaches
Beach parking and transportation
All resort towns from Lewes to Fenwick Island have their seasonal parking rules in place this summer.
PARKING 2022:How much will it cost to park at the Delaware beaches? Parking changes coming this summer
Rehoboth Beach now has a universal $3 per hour rate throughout the city, and Lewes is charging $1.50 downtown and $2.50 at the beaches.
Lewes has several free non-metered parking lots listed on its website, as well as metered lots and spaces on side streets.
When visiting Delaware State Parks like Cape Henlopen, parking is included in the entrance fee. However, it's wise to check the parks' Facebook pages where staff will post whether the park is closed due to full parking.
In Dewey Beach, parking is free in all permit-only and metered spaces Monday through Wednesday from 5 to 11 p.m. only. All other days and times, you must pay to park on public streets.
REHOBOTH SPOTLIGHT:How a member of Philadelphia's cheesesteak royalty ended up calling Rehoboth Beach home
(These free parking times coincide with family-friendly movie nights and bonfires in Dewey, events that continue throughout the summer).
Fenwick Island and South Bethany mostly require permits to park, but Fenwick offers free parking on its side streets after 4 p.m.
In Bethany Beach, all spaces are either metered or require a permit through Sept. 15.
Many of these towns and cities offer payment through the ParkMobile app.
For more about parking (or State Park fees), visit each beach town's website:
Consider taking the Beach Bus
Want to forget about parking or paying for gas? Take a bus to the beach. Parking is free at the park and rides in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach.
The Beach Bus has already started its routes and will continue seven days a week until Sept. 11. The stops include Rehoboth Beach and the Boardwalk, Lewes, Long Neck, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, South Bethany Beach, Fenwick Island, Ocean City in Maryland, Millsboro and Georgetown.
The cost to ride the bus is $2 per trip, $4 for a daily pass, $16 for a seven-day pass or $60 for a 30-day pass.
Traveling from northern Delaware or Kent County? The 305 Beach Connection from Wilmington to Rehoboth Beach started last weekend. It runs Saturdays, Sundays and holidays through Sept. 5.
WEST REHOBOTH:Hidden no more: How the West Rehoboth community is telling their stories through art
Riders taking this bus will pay $6 for one-way trips from Wilmington, Christiana Mall and Odessa and $4 from Dover and South Frederica. A daily pass is $10 from New Castle County and $8 from Kent County.
If traveling around Bethany Beach, the town also offers a trolley with a single route that runs from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and costs 25 cents per trip.
In Lewes, the new seasonal transit option Lewes Line cost $1 per ride. Stops include the two municipal beaches, downtown locations, the library and more. To learn more, visit www.ci.lewes.de.us/363/Lewes-Line.
What to expect at restaurants, beach businesses
After a record-breaking summer in 2021, business owners were bracing for what this season would bring. So far, business owners and chamber of commerce leaders say this summer has been busy: People are booking hotels, buying ice cream and eating out.
Early signs show that travel trends seem to be returning to expected pre-pandemic levels, and multiple hotel managers said d more visitors are spontaneously planning trips to the beach this year, rather than planning a long way out.
With these crowds comes the same but ever-important advice: Have patience, folks.
Some restaurants, bars, and others in the service industry are still facing staffing shortages and limiting their hours to preserve the staff they do have. While some iconic businesses, like Funland in Rehoboth Beach, are getting more help from international students than in the past two years, several other factors are impacting the seasonal labor shortage this year – especially a lack of affordable housing.
HOUSING:Work near the beach but can't afford to live here? How the county, others plan to fix that
It may be wise to make early reservations, follow your favorite spots on social media or call ahead to stay updated on any changes.
As far as outdoor dining, many beach towns found ways to continue that in the 2022 season, but that popularity may mean you have to wait longer for those coveted patio seats, too.
FATAL BEACH CRASH:Lyft drive from Dewey Beach turns deadly after disagreement ends with rider fatally hit
Emily Lytle covers Sussex County from the inland towns to the beaches. Got a story she should tell? Contact her at elytle@delmarvanow.com or 302-332-0370. Follow her on Twitter at @emily3lytle. | https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2022/08/04/delaware-beaches-guide-weather-heat-coronavirus-rehoboth-bethany/65386815007/ | 2022-08-04T12:09:43 | 1 | https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2022/08/04/delaware-beaches-guide-weather-heat-coronavirus-rehoboth-bethany/65386815007/ |
GENESEE COUNTY, Mich. (WJRT) – It was a long night for voters and candidates last night as they waited into the early morning to get results from yesterday's elections.
But job one for clerks is making sure they get the count done correctly not necessarily quickly.
“The local clerks do their due diligence, as they should. So, while it did take a little while I don't think that it was that unusual,” Genesee County Deputy Clerk Leslie Raleigh said.
While voters wrapped up their election day by eight o’clock, Michigan counties worked till sunrise taking their time to get election results confirmed.
“Why it takes a little longer on election night is because they are doing what they're supposed to be doing,” Raleigh explained. “At the polls, making sure that the books are balanced, making sure that the machines are reporting correctly and balanced to the poll books.”
Raleigh says using modern technology typically provides results a little quicker but currently it's not an option because their wireless carrier Verizon no longer supports the modems used by the county to send the data.
“We and many other counties in the state have made the decision not to transmit on election night because they have to come to us anyway to bring the poll books as a cost effective measure,” she said. “We're not going to spend a bunch of money to upgrade hundreds of modems if there is a change coming in the future.”
Those other changes include election software which their provider, Hart InterCivic says they are in the process of updating and that could lead to an even bigger cost for the taxpayers.
Raleigh says getting the vote count correct is more important than getting results out fast.
“It's a very, very detailed audit, one precinct, one poll book, one precinct, one poll book, at a time, line by line by line,” Raleigh said.
With a full staff and even help offered by the secretary of state Raleigh tells ABC 12 that their process was successful.
Canvassers gathered Wednesday at 1:00pm to begin certifying those results. | https://www.abc12.com/news/local/michigan-counties-work-to-get-election-results-right/article_83c02070-1374-11ed-915f-27601caeb464.html | 2022-08-04T12:26:19 | 1 | https://www.abc12.com/news/local/michigan-counties-work-to-get-election-results-right/article_83c02070-1374-11ed-915f-27601caeb464.html |
HUDSON — The Hudson Community School District will host a series of upcoming meetings ahead of the Sept. 13 bond issue referendum.
Community members will be able to hear about the district’s facility needs, the process the district used to find a proposed solution and the bond question on the ballot. Attendees will also learn about how the projects would address building safety and security, space needs, aging building systems and the district’s enrollment growth.
The events will take place on:
- Aug. 10, 7-8 p.m. at St. Timothy Lutheran Church.
- Aug. 16, noon-1 p.m. at Hudson High School library.
- Aug. 22, 7-8 p.m. at Hudson High School library.
“Throughout this process, we have engaged our community in a number of ways to help us examine our most pressing high school facility needs and develop potential solutions. This led to the bond question voters will consider on September 13,” Superintendent Tony Voss, said in a news release. “Now, we look to continue this engagement through our upcoming community meetings. We encourage all district residents to take part in these important conversations about the future of our schools and the students we serve.”
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In addition to the bond issue, residents will also vote on a proposed renewal of the physical plant and equipment levy and a revenue purpose statement on Sept. 13.
If approved, the bond issue would allow the district to move forward on a series of projects at the high school, such as updating building systems and aging infrastructure, converting underused space into classrooms, creating a secure main entrance, rebuilding career and technical education labs and adding gym space.
An approved bond would have a property tax impact of $2.70 on every $1,000 of assessed property value. The owner of a home with an assessed value of $100,000 would see a tax impact of $133.06 per year, or $11.09 per month. The impact on 100 acres of agricultural land would be $358.93 per year, or $29.91 per month.
There will be a satellite voting opportunity 4-9 p.m. Sept. 2 in the Hudson School competition gym. All registered voters may cast their ballots early during this time. | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/education/hudson-schools-to-host-community-meetings-on-bond-vote/article_f39992e6-2bc3-5d33-aa8f-fc1de8c99dfe.html | 2022-08-04T12:30:57 | 1 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/education/hudson-schools-to-host-community-meetings-on-bond-vote/article_f39992e6-2bc3-5d33-aa8f-fc1de8c99dfe.html |
CEDAR FALLS — Monday marked the third time in the last four months that one of the city of Cedar Falls’ massive infrastructure projects greatly exceeded its engineer’s estimate for construction.
Reinbeck-based Peterson Contractors, Inc. was awarded a $2,699,537 construction contract for the removal of the bridge on Olive Street and expansion of the adjacent Pettersen Plaza on College Street by extending the box culvert to Olive Street.
It was the only bidder for what the engineer had estimated would cost $2,205,932 – or nearly $500,000 less. The contract amount is 22% higher than the estimate.
With seasonal employees departing for school activities and already limited staff, The Falls will not be able to remain open until the previously stated date of Aug. 21.
The City Council’s latest contract approval comes in light of material costs being 25-40% higher than they were toward the beginning of this calendar year due to inflation, said Public Works Director Chase Schrage.
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City officials in a memo also pointed to material availability shortages and contractor work demand leading to increased cost.
Schrage told The Courier that it may need to look at pushing projects scheduled later in the city’s capital improvements plan, like in fiscal year 2026, further down the road.
As of now, he said the city wasn’t thinking about postponing any notable projects in the near term.
The city’s Center Street project from Clair Street to West Lone Tree Road came in at a cost that outpaced the estimate even more. A contract for the streetscape improvements totaling $1,540,597 was awarded to Cedar Falls-based Owen Contracting, the lone bidder. That was more than $400,000 above the $1,130,649 estimate, or about 36% higher.
New curb and gutters, as well as sidewalks, Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant pedestrian ramps, bioswales, and landscaping will be part of the package. The gravel shoulders also will be removed.
The cost can range from a few hundred dollars to more than a thousand dollars, and sometimes closer to $2,000.
Reinbeck-based Peterson Contractors, Inc. was the winner in May of another contract for reconstruction of West 27th Street from Hudson Road to the western property line of the new high school currently under construction. It was also above the estimate, but by a much smaller margin.
That project had an estimated cost of $7,291,651. Peterson Contractors was one of two bidders, with its $7,584,450 pitch coming in lowest. That is almost $300,000 above the estimate, or about 4% higher.
Three roundabouts, with two serving as entrances to the new high school, and a new traffic signal with additional turn lanes at the intersection of Hudson Road and West 27th Street are being constructed.
Before that, the council approved another major construction contract in March that was even closer to the engineer estimate, but still exceeded it.
That was for its annual street program, involving six streets this year. The contract awarded was for $3,266,189 versus the engineer’s estimate of $3,180,122, a difference of $86,000 or less than a 3%. | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/cedar-falls-vulnerable-to-high-costs-on-construction-projects/article_e757739f-faba-5186-bf9a-e22e3a689e75.html | 2022-08-04T12:31:03 | 1 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/cedar-falls-vulnerable-to-high-costs-on-construction-projects/article_e757739f-faba-5186-bf9a-e22e3a689e75.html |
CLIVE — A Hudson man claimed his winnings from the Big Lucky for Life drawing, in which he won $25,000 per year for life.
Joe Kapaun, age 67, is the latest person to win the Iowa Lottery game. Kapaun decided to take the lump sum of $390,000. He owns an engineering consulting firm.
He said he will spend his winnings on paying off debts, investing and maybe buying a hot tub.
He bought his ticket at the Git N Go at 124 Wood St. in Hudson for the July 24 drawing. The store will also receive a $500 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
Kapaun’s daughter and son-in-law reached out to him before he announced he was the big winner, seeing news articles about the winning ticket being sold in Hudson.
“He says, ‘Does this mean you won?’” Kapaun recalled in a news release. “I told (my wife) to text back, ‘Hmmm.???’ They figured it out!”
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Kapaun is Iowa’s 15th winner since the game started in January 2016. He’s the second person to win this summer. Doug Schlickman of Davenport won on June 27.
The game is $2 with drawings each night. The game’s top two prizes are described as “lasting as long as you do.” The minimum guaranteed payout is 20 years, with a lump sum option.
The ticket matched all five numbers but did not match the Lucky Ball number. Matching all six numbers gives you $1,000 a day for life. The winning numbers were 11-27-37-38-48 and Lucky Ball 16.
Kapaun gave a tongue-in-cheek answer when asked why he plays the lottery: “The chances of winning something increase in your favor when you buy a ticket,” he said. | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/hudson-man-wins-25-000-a-year-for-life/article_857bb8c3-3d7b-5483-9fbf-4f1be49f6b9f.html | 2022-08-04T12:31:10 | 0 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/hudson-man-wins-25-000-a-year-for-life/article_857bb8c3-3d7b-5483-9fbf-4f1be49f6b9f.html |
WATERLOO — As Lost Island’s first season is in its final month, the theme park’s general manager is working to address public feedback.
Eric Bertch was the speaker Wednesday for this month’s Windows on Waterloo, an educational series about what’s happening in the city organized by the Waterloo Community Foundation.
Lost Island Themepark’s opening date was June 18 – a week later than expected due to supply chain issues and a shortage of labor. The park’s season ends Aug. 28, according to its website.
Bertch said most feedback he’s heard has been positive, but criticism on social media sites like Facebook have made the rounds across the community.
One frequent comment is that many rides weren’t operating when people visited the park. Bertch said all but two rides have been operational since the beginning of July: the launch coaster and the flume ride.
The launch coaster’s delay is due to supply chain issues. The flume ride’s opening has been delayed by a March fire. The launch coaster could open by the last week of the season. The flume ride will open next year.
“We are all bombarded with information so much … and people are going to hear what they want,” Bertch said. “There will always be people you can’t change their mind. … We continue to push out the message that (the rides) are running and hope the misconceptions die out before next season.”
Bertch admitted he and his team made some mistakes on how they marketed the park’s opening. He didn’t want to advertise the park as fully ready and then have people show up and be disappointed.
“We were very careful to temper that, and we probably went overboard the wrong way,” Bertch said. “This year is a year for learning.”
Both the public and Bertch’s team recognize that the number of visitors is not what was expected. Bertch said he thought attendance would be similar to Lost Island Waterpark’s numbers in 2001 – making a profit in its opening year.
Bertch said the world is very different than it was 20 years ago with a pandemic, high construction costs and a bottle-necked supply chain. He said the park has broke even one day so far this season. However, it is able to survive a season of losses and he hopes to double attendance next year.
Other comments making the rounds criticized the lack of shade and the cost of parking.
Lost Island Waterpark doesn’t charge for parking. The theme park charges $10. Bertch said the reason is the water park’s lot is small, and the cost of parking at the theme park could incentivize people to carpool to take up less space.
This triggered discussion of a shuttle. The parks offer a park-hopper pass between the theme and water parks, but they are about a half-mile apart. The challenge is that the water park doesn’t charge for parking while the theme park does. In order to provide a shuttle, the water park would have to charge for parking, too.
As for lack of shade, Bertch said trees have been planted at the theme park and are still growing, but a lack of rain and high temperatures have delayed progress. He asked people to be patient.
Photos: RAGBRAI rolls through Mason City on Wednesday
Fester’s Pub, owned by Daniel Corbett – one of the owners of Hungry Charlie’s food truck and restaurant – is taking over what was formerly known as Anton’s Volks Haus.
A couple of hundred people attended an hour-long celebration of life ceremony for Tyler and Sarah Schmidt and their six-year-old daughter, Lula. The Cedar Falls family members were found shot to death July 22 in their tent at Maquoketa Caves State Park. | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/lost-island-theme-park-general-manager-talks-about-its-first-months-of-operations/article_3555ee63-fa3d-5020-bdce-3d23230e8d46.html | 2022-08-04T12:31:16 | 1 | https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/lost-island-theme-park-general-manager-talks-about-its-first-months-of-operations/article_3555ee63-fa3d-5020-bdce-3d23230e8d46.html |
As the brutal summer heat continues, some alarming new data is showing an increase in children being left in hot cars.
Already this summer, MedStar has responded to nine incidents of kids who were left in hot cars since May 1, within their Tarrant County service area. They say even just one incident is too many.
"In weather like this, the inside of a car can get to be 150 degrees in 10 minutes, and people cannot survive, especially kids cannot survive that kind of temperature,” said Matt Zavadsky with MedStar.
None of the incidents were fatal but there were some close calls.
"We had one case where a child had an externally read body temperature that we use with an infrared thermometer of 105 degrees. And the child was unconscious, unresponsive, barely breathing,” said Zavadsky. “But thankfully due to rapid cooling and some IV fluids that were also cooled, we were able to cool that patient's body temperature down pretty rapidly. But you know, another five or six minutes without us being called, it could have had a totally different outcome."
According to MedStar’s data, those nine kids were all under 6 years old. This is a significantly higher frequency of these types of responses than they’ve experienced over the past four years.
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"Even in 2011, when we had that real hot spell, we didn't see this frequency of heat-related responses,” said Zavadsky.
These numbers are added on to the more than 650 heat-related illness calls they've responded to overall since May 1.
The same situation is being seen in Dallas.
According to Dallas Fire Rescue, crews have responded to a total of 159 calls for "person locked in a vehicle." DFR said it does not make a distinction in the dispatching data for the age of the person. However, a spokesperson said the vast majority are children.
For comparison, DFR responded to 117 calls in 2021 and 105 in 2020 – which confirms a significant increase in 2022’s data.
MedStar believes the increases are coming from the huge population growth in Texas and a quicker intensity in heat that started even before the summer season officially began.
“We have a bunch of new residents that have moved here from other parts of the country. Our population has grown pretty dramatically. And this is our first really hot summer for a lot of those folks that may have moved here from places that don't have this kind of heat. It probably is taking them by surprise,” said Zavadsky.
He also believes economic and health issues have led to so many more distractions lately.
“There are so many things going on in the world. People are concerned about economic issues, they're concerned about inflation, they're concerned about family issues and health issues. Our regular 911 response volume has skyrocketed because people just have a lot more health and medical issues,” Zavadsky said. "This is a big deal. And you really need to pay attention to making sure that you've not left your kid in the car, even if there's 1,000 things running through your mind.”
MedStar has some tips for everyone to keep kids safe:
- Put something like your cellphone, purse or employee id in the backseat so you have to go back there every time you park.
- Keep a large stuffed animal in the child's car seat. When the child is in their seat, put the stuffed animal in the front with you so you have a visual reminder.
- Keep car keys and remotes out of reach so kids don't sneak inside.
- Navigation apps like Waze also have a feature that reminds you to check the backseat when you arrive at your destination.
"Keep your head on a swivel both for the kid that you're taking care of,” said Zavadsky. “And when you're walking through a parking lot at work, at the store, at a mall – just look at every car that you walk past just to make sure that there's not something in there that shouldn't be in there." | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/data-shows-increase-in-kids-left-in-hot-cars-this-summer-in-north-texas/3039892/ | 2022-08-04T12:31:17 | 0 | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/data-shows-increase-in-kids-left-in-hot-cars-this-summer-in-north-texas/3039892/ |
TAMPA, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis will be in the Tampa Bay area on Thursday, the governor's office said.
DeSantis is scheduled to speak around 10 a.m. at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. 10 Tampa Bay will stream his news conference on our site and Facebook page.
Attorney General Ashley Moody is also slated to join the governor.
No details on what DeSantis will be discussing have been announced.
However, DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw tweeted Wednesday night he would have a "major announcement" to give Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, DeSantis announced a "massive expansion" of a first-of-its-kind model of care for substance use disorder in Florida.
The expansion called Coordinated Opioid Recovery (CORE) is a network of addiction care and a coordinated effort between different departments in the Sunshine State, he said during a news conference in Brevard County.
The model originally started in Palm Beach County and is now being stretched across the state to 12 different counties after seeing success over the past two years.
Working together with the Florida Department of Health and the Department of Children and Families, the expansion will not only continue in Brevard County but will also extend to Clay, Duval, Escambia, Gulf, Manatee, Marion, Pasco and Volusia counties, as well.
DeSantis says the state also has its eyes on Citrus, Flagler and Pinellas counties as possible areas to expand to in the future.
"This network will be able to streamline resources and break down barriers for those battling addiction..." the governor said. | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/desantis-tampa-hillsborough-county-sheriffs-office-ashley-moody/67-0e663642-c9ee-436d-9893-bbf40a2c5efc | 2022-08-04T12:35:36 | 1 | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/desantis-tampa-hillsborough-county-sheriffs-office-ashley-moody/67-0e663642-c9ee-436d-9893-bbf40a2c5efc |
ASK THE CANDIDATES: Back faces two challengers for District 4 council seat
Incumbent Kent Back faces two challengers in his bid for another term as District 4 member on the Gadsden City Council.
Back, president of Bowman and Back, a company that helps clients lower operational expenses, is joined by local attorney Luther Dickie Abel, who sought the seat in 2014, and Carrie Machen, founder of GadRock microgym and an active local volunteer.
The municipal election is Aug. 23; if no candidate reaches 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held Sept. 20.
The Times asked the candidates to give their short-term goals and long-term objectives should they be elected, although the responses are published as submitted, subject to minor editing.
Luther Dickie Abel
I am a lifelong resident of the City of Gadsden. I have lived in District 4 most of my life from Paden Drive and Donehoo School to the several houses I have purchased and renovated on South Fourth Street and in Country Club.
I have an accounting degree from Jacksonville State and worked as a CPA many years, and was an auditor for the city, the Water Board and the city and county schools. I have been a practicing attorney for over 30 years now, and I am aware of the strengths and problems of the city. I have the education and common sense and honesty to lead the city in a new and better direction.
I think the current mayor-council form of government is as good as the people elected to serve the citizens. The problem recently is that the officials thought they knew better than what the citizens wanted. Looks like they were wrong.
When I ran in 2014 for City Council, I stressed the importance of appointments to the various boards in the city. That importance is very evident and even important now.
I think the pay for fire and police needs to be raised to recruit and retain qualified people, and retain those people after we invest in training them and they are trained and gain experience.
I don't understand why nobody has mentioned the Goodyear plant and tried to recruit someone to come utilize that building. I understand the city has an ownership interest and should be working with Goodyear to fill that property.
I think both our junior college and city high school have become aware of how important vocational training is both to fill jobs and attract industry. Our airport needs to establish and expand pilot training and aircraft maintenance programs with Gadsden State like other airport towns with colleges have done.
I think our education system is improving, and those opportunities for an education and jobs are the best way to combat drugs and crime in our community.
Vocational training and educational opportunities help our kids to become productive citizens and help recruit more and better jobs and industry.
Our city government needs to work with the other area cities instead of fighting and name calling. We will have more opportunities united with combined efforts and resources than divided and fighting among ourselves.
Gadsden has always bent over for out-of-town people and projects, while ignoring our people and businesses. Let's help the locals for a change.
Our city services need improvement. Trash needs to be picked up all over town. South 11th Street needs paving as well as streets all over town. Let's get the city back in the business of being a city first.
Kent Back
Short-Term Goals:
My short-term plan is to work cohesively with the new administration and council. To continue to grow the relationship at Gadsden State with the sports complex and the partnership in health care and technology with the new co-working space for innovation and entrepreneurship at The Venue. To continue to address workforce development and diversify into areas such as health care and technology to take advantage of our local health care facilities as well as our proximity to UAB and Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, and the technology opportunities overflowing from Huntsville.
We must address city employee compensation and adapt to the ever-changing marketplace by becoming wage and benefit attractive in every sector of our employees. We need to continue funding our school system and meet annually with the school board and superintendent to review how city dollars can best assist the school system.
Long-Term Objectives:
My long-term objective is for Gadsden to become the city other cities desire to become. We must set a course of reimagining Gadsden to be the 21st century city that leads the way in adapting to the ever-changing future.
We must utilize federal funds and grants for broadband to become a gig city, which will attract the type of industry and careers we all desire. We must become a Smart City that will enable us to work more efficiently and provide city services as economically as possible.
We must create a full-time office for grant writing; create a public-private investment on the river to bring restaurants, hotels and entertainment which will blend with improvements at Noccalula Falls. We must review every city department and expenditure and be willing to make decisions that places Gadsden in the best position possible to grow and sustain our city. We must be open to work with our neighbors at every opportunity to strengthen our communities.
Carrie Machen
Short-Term Goals:
My short-term goal is for the newly elected council to convene and review the annual budget adopted by the prior council and produce a set of procedures for the creation of a strategic master plan focused on economic and community development for the City of Gadsden.
Long Term Objectives:
Long-term objectives are the actual development of the strategic master plan, driven by community input, with inclusion of metrics for periodic review by this council and future councils. | https://www.gadsdentimes.com/story/news/politics/elections/local/2022/08/04/gadsden-district-4-city-council-2022-meet-candidates-goals-objectives/10219876002/ | 2022-08-04T12:40:19 | 1 | https://www.gadsdentimes.com/story/news/politics/elections/local/2022/08/04/gadsden-district-4-city-council-2022-meet-candidates-goals-objectives/10219876002/ |
What to Know
- More polio has been detected in Hudson Valley wastewater samples, this time Orange County, according to NYS health officials, which it says further indicates potential community spread of the virus declared eradicated in 1979
- The CDC detected polio in samples taken from June and July in two geographically different locations in Orange County -- and has linked those to samples from Jerusalem, in Israel, and recent samples from London, England
- The Rockland County case was an unvaccinated patient who had a vaccine-derived strain of the virus that indicates it would have been contracted by someone who got a live dose used by a country outside the US; in rare instances, people given the live virus can spread it to other people who haven’t been vaccinated.
The CDC has detected more polio virus in more Hudson Valley wastewater samples -- and New York health officials are now warning the latest environmental evidence indicates "potential community spread" of a childhood disease that the United States declared eradicated more than four decades ago.
The state health department launched wastewater surveillance earlier this month after officials announced the first confirmed polio case in a U.S. resident in nearly a decade an unvaccinated patient in Rockland County in the Hudson Valley -- on July 21. Such surveillance is a critical detection tool that can assess potential community spread of polio, New York health officials say, and they're testing samples throughout the state to be thorough in their investigation. Those get sent to the CDC.
And the CDC has found more polio, according to New York state. The health agency detected the virus in wastewater samples taken from June and July in two geographically different locations in Orange County, it said.
"These environmental findings—which further indicate potential community spread—in addition to the paralytic polio case identified among a Rockland County resident, underscore the urgency of every New York adult and child getting immunized against polio, especially those in the greater New York metropolitan area," the statement continued.
Health officials say the samples from the confirmed Rockland County case appear genetically linked to two collected from the early June samples from Rockland County and samples from greater Jerusalem, Israel, as well as to the recently-detected environmental samples in London. The Rockland County resident has no known travel to Israel, officials said.
Learn more about polio from NYSDOH here.
Health officials have said the patient had acquired a “vaccine-derived” strain of the virus, meaning it probably originated in someone who had been inoculated with a live vaccine — available in other countries, but not the U.S. In rare instances, people given the live virus can spread it to other people who haven’t been vaccinated.
As to the wider implications, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative said last week that genetic and epidemiological investigations are attempting “to determine possible spread of the virus and potential risk associated with these various isolates detected from different locations around the world.”
Polio, once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, was declared eliminated in the United States in 1979, more than two decades after vaccines became available. Its discovery in Rockland County prompted a local vaccine drive.
“Given how quickly polio can spread, now is the time for every adult, parent, and guardian to get themselves and their children vaccinated as soon as possible,” said New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/ny-latest-cdc-findings-indicate-potential-community-spread-of-polio-in-hudson-valley/3809605/ | 2022-08-04T12:51:05 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/ny-latest-cdc-findings-indicate-potential-community-spread-of-polio-in-hudson-valley/3809605/ |
RADFORD, Va. – Students at Radford City Public Schools may be starting later than initially planned this school year due to unforeseen facility project delays.
School officials told 10 News that many of the projects were set to be finished by the start of the 2022-23 school year, but due to some delays in getting the equipment needed to complete the projects, now that might not be the case.
Authorities said as a result of the pandemic, staff shortages and other unexpected mishaps, they may need to extend some projects.
Additionally, they are also waiting for the certificate of occupancy for several of their projects but are uncertain as to when they might get them.
The decision to delay the school year isn’t set in stone though, and officials say they hope to get students into the classroom on time.
But in the case that the setbacks continue, the start of school may be pushed back one to two weeks.
School leaders say if needed, the delayed opening would allow them to finish projects, make sure the certificate of occupancies are approved and ensure that all school campuses are safe for staff and students.
Regardless though, all RCPS employees will be paid during the delay as they work in schools, work at home or attend professional development opportunities. School leaders are also collaborating with child care providers to see how they can help them in the case of a delay.
Officials will announce whether or not there will be a delayed start to the school year before Monday, Aug. 8.
Below you will find the regular school year opening schedule and two scenarios in case the 2022-23 school needs to start later than originally planned:
Delayed Opening 2022-2023 (1) (1) by Jazmine Otey on Scribd | https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2022/08/04/start-of-school-for-radford-city-public-schools-could-be-delayed-due-to-facility-project-delays/ | 2022-08-04T12:54:58 | 0 | https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2022/08/04/start-of-school-for-radford-city-public-schools-could-be-delayed-due-to-facility-project-delays/ |
TOWSON, Md. — An 8-year-old girl found shot in the basement of a Maryland home on Wednesday night has died, police said.
Medics took the girl to a hospital, where police said she was pronounced dead. The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation, police said. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/police-girl-8-found-fatally-shot-at-maryland-home/2022/08/04/b440f060-13f3-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | 2022-08-04T12:57:38 | 0 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/police-girl-8-found-fatally-shot-at-maryland-home/2022/08/04/b440f060-13f3-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
PLEASANTVILLE – The city is continuing to chart out a plan to finance much-need renovations to its sewer system and streets, while it looks ahead to future redevelopment projects.
City Council authorized officials to issue general-obligation bonds to raise around $1.66 million for road improvements with an $87,500 down payment Monday.
This action comes after City Council voted to authorize up to $4 million in bonds to make renovations to the city sewer system in May. Of that amount, $2.5 million has already been borrowed at an interest rate of 2.67%.
The council also awarded a $3 million contract to make road and sewer improvements on Decatur Avenue.
City Chief Financial Officer Barry Ludy said that the $1.66 million general-obligation bond and about $1.2 million of the money raised from the sewer bond will be used to finance that project.
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City Council President Rick Cistrunk suggested that the resolution approving the $3 million in spending be pulled in light of conversations that the council would be having in executive session. City Solicitor Yolanda Melville said the executive sessions featured discussions about sewer repairs and possible litigation surrounding a rejected concession agreement that would have leased the city sewer system to a private equity company.
City Administrator Linda Peyton warned that if the council did not make the appropriation by Aug. 11, it risked losing a grant from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
Mayor Judy Ward said that it would not make sense to delay the appropriation. She said that the repairs would be needed regardless of any complications that could arise from circumstances involving the sewer.
The $3 million contract was ultimately approved by a 6-0 with Cistrunk abstaining.
City Council voted in June to rescind its approval of a concession agreement that would lease the Pleasantville sewer system to Bernhard Capital Partners for 39 years.
Under the concession agreement, Bernhard Capital would have assumed control of the operation of the Pleasantville sewer system and collect rates from city homeowners for 39 years. In exchange, it would spend a nominal sum of about $78 million over the life of the agreement, both in direct payments to the city and in capital expenditures to make much-needed repairs to the city sewer system.
The deal ran into zealous opposition from residents and area activists. They argued that the deal was exploitative and would leave Pleasantville homeowners vulnerable to volatile rate hikes.
An attorney for Bernhard Capital and its concessionaire subsidiary said at an earlier June council meeting he would take any “appropriate action” on behalf of his clients to recoup what they have already spent in pursuing the deal.
While dealing with immediate needs, officials were also looking ahead to future development in Pleasantville. City Council adopted a resolution designating Keshav Real Estate Development LLC as the conditional redeveloper for a portion of Center City that runs along Main Street just off from its intersection at Washington Avenue. Officials from the related firm, Ideal Institute of Technology, said at the Monday council meeting that they were considering several different projects for the area, including a microbrewery and a cloud kitchen. There were also plans for small hotel and a hospitality-training facility that could help prepare people to help grow the workforce for Atlantic County’s important hospitality industry. The company has five properties under contract for purchase in the redevelopment area and officials said it planned to close those deals in September.
City officials and council members discussed finding a way to find the developers additional parking spaces so they could build a parking-intensive project such as a banquet hall. Peyton said that the city had “some creative ideas in mind” about the parking.
Dhiren Parikh of Keshav Developer LLC purchased the former Press of Atlantic City building at 1000 W Washington Ave. on Jan. 31. The city entered into a redevelopment agreement with the Ideal Institute of Technology to create a “career, employment and entrepreneurship hub” at the site.
Ward praised the company, saying that she had confidence in their redevelopment projects.
“That’s going to light up that Washington Avenue-Main Street (area) that we’ve been trying to redevelop for some time,” Ward said.
In other business, City Council adopted an ordinance to create licensing and fee requirements specific to marijuana microbusinesses, as defined by state law. Among other changes, it lowered the marijuana-microbusiness application fee to $500 from its standard fee of $10,000. The text of the ordinance said that City Council is trying to reduce the financial burden that approved microbusinesses might encounter. If a business expands so that it no longer qualifies as a microbusiness under the state definition, it will again be subject to the city’s regular marijuana regulations. | https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/pleasantville-bonds-to-address-sewer-street-needs-as-it-looks-to-future-main-street-project/article_e0805fbc-1371-11ed-bff4-ab59fed05033.html | 2022-08-04T13:03:20 | 0 | https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/pleasantville-bonds-to-address-sewer-street-needs-as-it-looks-to-future-main-street-project/article_e0805fbc-1371-11ed-bff4-ab59fed05033.html |
SCRANTON, Pa. — The saying goes, "the customer is always right," but that probably doesn't apply if the employee has a machete.
An auto shop customer in Scranton is learning that very specific lesson.
Officers say 35-year-old Charles Amonte-Arias got into an argument Tuesday with a customer at Cedar Auto Repair.
Things escalated, and eventually, officers say Amonte-Arias chased the customer down the street with a machete.
Nobody got hurt.
Amonte-Arias faces assault charges in Scranton.
See news happening? Text our Newstip Hotline. | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/police-worker-chased-customer-machete-cedar-auto-repair-scranton-lackawanna-county/523-65e63f2a-8566-4edf-8df4-9547e30fde29 | 2022-08-04T13:10:15 | 0 | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/police-worker-chased-customer-machete-cedar-auto-repair-scranton-lackawanna-county/523-65e63f2a-8566-4edf-8df4-9547e30fde29 |
COGAN STATION, Pa. — UPDATE: According to troopers, the two-year-old girl has been found safe.
State police in central Pennsylvania are searching for a missing girl.
Troopers in Lycoming County say for two-year-old Jaylynn Shaylor was last seen in her bed Wednesday night at her home in Cogan Station, Lewis Township.
Anyone with information should call 9-1-1.
See news happening? Text our Newstip Hotline. | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lycoming-county/search-missing-two-year-old-girl-lycoming-county-cogan-station-lewis-township-pa-state-police/523-105bcff4-2ceb-4d5f-9cf3-94db86c21b68 | 2022-08-04T13:10:21 | 1 | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lycoming-county/search-missing-two-year-old-girl-lycoming-county-cogan-station-lewis-township-pa-state-police/523-105bcff4-2ceb-4d5f-9cf3-94db86c21b68 |
STROUDSBURG, Pa. — A Mega Millions ticket worth $3 million was sold in Monroe County.
Some lucky lottery winner matched all five white balls drawn, 10-14-25-37-63, but not the yellow Mega Ball 14 in Tuesday night's drawing.
The ticket was sold at Tobacco Outlet along Main Street in Stroudsburg.
The shop will receive a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
Watch live drawings from the Pennsylvania Lottery every day on WNEP-TV.
Check out WNEP’s YouTube channel. | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/monroe-county/3-million-mega-millions-ticket-sold-stroudsburg-tobacco-outlet-pennsylvania-lottery/523-86a46016-25f3-4582-8f30-40d74416fdb5 | 2022-08-04T13:10:27 | 1 | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/monroe-county/3-million-mega-millions-ticket-sold-stroudsburg-tobacco-outlet-pennsylvania-lottery/523-86a46016-25f3-4582-8f30-40d74416fdb5 |
EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. — Investigators are looking into the cause of a deadly crash in Monroe County.
Authorities say the wreck happened at the intersection of South Courtland and Henry streets in East Stroudsburg.
Calls came in for the crash just after 11:30 Wednesday night.
Right now, we don't know the victim's name or the details behind the deadly wreck in East Stroudsburg.
See news happening? Text our Newstip Hotline. | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/monroe-county/deadly-crash-monroe-county-south-courtland-henry-street-east-stroudsburg/523-dac55781-7057-4c9b-9fdc-9cd435817874 | 2022-08-04T13:10:34 | 1 | https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/monroe-county/deadly-crash-monroe-county-south-courtland-henry-street-east-stroudsburg/523-dac55781-7057-4c9b-9fdc-9cd435817874 |
St. Clair River oil spill from Canadian refinery contained, officials said
An oil spill on the St. Clair River from a Canadian refinery has been contained, Algonac city officials said Thursday.
"Canadian officials have mitigated the situation and have given an all-clear for water plants to open intakes and resume normal operations," Algonac fire department officials said in a post on the department's official Facebook page.
The spill came from Suncor Energy's refinery in Sarnia, according to SarniaNewsToday.ca.
It reports a sheen on the St. Clair River was discovered Wednesday. The emergency notification and response system for the Aamjiwnaang First Nation detected the spill on the river west of Indian Road and north of Lasalle Line, according to the news report.
Company officials attributed the sheen to an overflow of the refinery’s internal sewer system caused by heavy rainfall, according to the website.
It also said Suncor reports the overflow is no longer active and all water from the site is being safely managed. The company also contacted water users and asked them to take necessary precautions until the sheen passed. In addition, the refinery’s spill response team has deployed booms into the river.
Cleanup efforts continue, the website said Wednesday. | https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/08/04/st-clair-river-oil-spill-canadian-refinery-contained-officials-said/10233366002/ | 2022-08-04T13:27:42 | 0 | https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/08/04/st-clair-river-oil-spill-canadian-refinery-contained-officials-said/10233366002/ |
Whitmer to Supreme Court: Monday abortion rights 'fire drill' requires immediate action
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday asked the Michigan Supreme Court a third time to consider her case challenging Michigan's ban on abortion, arguing this week's confusion over the ability of county prosecutors to enforce the law is evidence of the need for high court intervention.
Whitmer's request comes after the Court of Appeals on Monday ruled a May preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of the ban did not apply to county prosecutors. State officials scrambled to address the decision Monday and ended the day with a temporary restraining order from Oakland County Circuit Court — an order that was extended Wednesday to mid-August.
“Monday’s fire drill is yet another example of why the Michigan Supreme Court must act," Whitmer said in a statement Thursday. "A legal patchwork that changes day to day, county to county is untenable. We need certainty that access to abortion is constitutionally protected in Michigan."
Whitmer's notice to the Michigan Supreme Court of intervening developments argued the status of the state's law is "changing by the day and even by the county."
Monday's order left health providers unsure of the way forward, so much so that Northland Family Planning Centers in Macomb County said they would stop providing abortions because the clinic believed Macomb County Prosecutor Pete Lucido would prosecute its providers, the filing said.
"This court is the only one that can fully address these concerns and conclusively settle the important constitutional questions underlying them," Whitmer wrote in Thursday's filing.
Whitmer filed her case in April arguing Michigan's constitution included a right to abortion in Oakland County Circuit Court against 13 county prosecutors with abortion providers within their counties. At the same time, the governor submitted an executive message to the Michigan Supreme Court asking the justices to consider the case immediately rather than allowing it to proceed through lower courts first.
The high court asked Whitmer for more information and has allowed several groups to file amicus briefs, but has not yet said whether it would take up the case.
Whitmer's Thursday filing marks her second "notice of intervening developments," which included a renewed plea for immediate consideration.
Separate from Whitmer's suit, Planned Parenthood of Michigan in April filed a similar case in the Court of Claims against Attorney General Dana Nessel in April, also seeking a ruling that there is a right to abortion in the state constitution that supersedes Michigan's abortion ban.
Both Whitmer and Planned Parenthood filed the suits in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 24 Dobbs decision that found there was no right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution and sent the issue back to the states.
Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher ordered the Michigan law enjoined from enforcement in the Planned Parenthood case in May, and ordered Nessel to convey the decision to county prosecutors.
On Monday, the Court of Appeals ruled county prosecutors could not be blocked from enforcing the law through the Court of Claims since that court dealt with state actors only.
The decision resulted in an emergency request for a temporary restraining order from Whitmer's team to Oakland County Circuit Judge Jacob Cunningham. Cunningham on Monday responded almost immediately to Whitmer's request and ordered the 13 county prosecutors listed as defendants in the case to refrain from enforcing the state's abortion ban.
Cunningham on Wednesday extended the order through mid-August, when he'll hear arguments on issuing a preliminary injunction.
eleblanc@detroitnews.com | https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/08/04/whitmer-asks-michigan-supreme-court-again-consider-abortion-rights-case/10233195002/ | 2022-08-04T13:27:44 | 0 | https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/08/04/whitmer-asks-michigan-supreme-court-again-consider-abortion-rights-case/10233195002/ |
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