Editorials

Looking back over the years, there probably wasn’t a single hat that Lew Currier, Al Palmieri or Jane Moore has not worn in their service to the town. We’ve lost count of the times we saw former Mayor Jay Kinsella swinging a pick ax while working on town crews repairing leaking water lines.

Summer doldrums are quickly forgotten in the Verde Valley when you turn the calendar page to September.

What’s scary about this massive drug busts is not what was prevented from entering the Verde Valley, but what actually gets through at other times.

The ideal outcome with any gun-on-school-campus situation is 100% student safety.

When the governor and Arizona Legislature go back to the drawing board on short-term rental properties, let’s hope their guiding principle is neighborhood preservation.

More importantly, it was a clear indictment against the dirty politics that were front and center during the 2018 Sedona municipal election.

Social media pundits are ablaze this week with comments about the resulting smoke that has inundated the Verde Valley from the Saber Fire north of Sedona and Sheridan Fire in the Chino Valley area.

The Beaver Creek communities of Lake Montezuma, Rimrock and McGuireville have become the epicenter for the Verde Valley’s latest growth and development challenges.

There are many economic reasons to hate on APS. But its proposal to take steps to possibly reduce blackouts in Clarkdale is not one of them.

Let’s hope Tuesday’s presentation about Cottonwood’s noise abatement program at the municipal airport will end the months-long debate about excessive aviation noise.

The myriad strategies outlined this week to make the Cottonwood Recreation Center more profitable missed one key point.

The haggling over Verde Connect represents an opportunity for the Verde Valley’s collective leadership to re-examine its process for determining transportation priorities.

Giving someone a gift and later asking it be returned is simply bad form.

What began as a request to delay the school district consolidation election for another year has ended up in a war of words over an alleged violation of Arizona’s Open Meeting Law by the Mingus Union School Board.

What began as a seemingly simple plan to re-birth some of Jerome’s nefarious history has turned into a real boondoggle for the mountainside community.

Here’s the truth about “Truth in Taxation” public hearings: They are going to tax us.

The good news is that participatory government is alive and well in Cottonwood. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but we are getting there.

Do voter voices matter? Both Yavapai County and Town of Clarkdale voters have said no to taxes they're getting stuck with anyway.

We live in a nation of knee-jerk reactions. Case in point: Shoe manufacturer Nike has pulled a flag-themed tennis shoe after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick complained to the shoemaker.

The community needs to step up, or else our recycling will become a bigger trash problem.

In two separate actions Wednesday night, Camp Verde took a big step toward solving one of the long-standing shortcomings in the Verde Valley.

Mingus Union High School took some unconventional steps -- by Mingus standards -- in hiring Mike Westcott as its new superintendent.

Step 1 was implementing a two-year ban on camping along the State Route 260 corridor between Cottonwood and Camp Verde.

Key to personal integrity is doing what you say you are going to do.

A familiar refrain in any government decision-making process is the admonition to “let us vote on it.”