September, 2013

Last week your Board hired a new clerk, Diana Stirling. Diana lives in Mammoth and works part time for CAC. She brings a lot of talent to the District as she has experience in writing grants and is very tech savvy.

Our thanks go out to Vicki France our long-time clerk. She is wishing to spend more time in the White mountains where she has a home. Vicki has been diligent over the last several years in keeping me out of hot water with state recording requirements and making sure we follow the open-law requirements of a local government. She and Diana will both be at our next quarterly meeting.

Speaking of our quarterly meeting, it will be on October 9th in beautiful downtown Kelvin, Arizona at the Dunn’s place. We will be having a presentation from ASARCO about their Ripsey Wash and Copper Butte expansion projects. They will be a large expansion of their footprint in the district.

The joint Winkelman/Redington refuge committee has been meeting regularly and is making progress on hopefully finding innovative ways to create opportunities for our producers to stay on the land and keep the San Pedro valley open and productive. Last month we met with Steve Spangle, head of Environmental Services for Arizona, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. He is very supportive of what we are doing and said he will personally do all he can to help us make it a success. We are scheduled to meet with Stephen Williams, head of the Natural Resource Division of the Arizona State Land Department. The Land Department has a very large presence in the Valley and has been watching the Fish and Wildlife refuge proposal closely because it will affect them.

The Ed Center recently bought one of those cargo containers to keep our records in. Right now our records are scattered all over the district and in the basement of the Plant Material Center. The cargo container is located at the Hedrick Ranch outside of Mammoth so it will be much easier to get something when we need it.

We are still waiting for a Record of Decision (ROD) on the SunZia Project. Although the BLM admitted they are required to coordinate with us and did meet with us before the final EIS came out, they were woefully short on what is required by law for them to do to meet the requirements of coordination. Until the ROD comes out there has been no harm so we can’t make a decision on our next move.

Until next time.
Bill