THE VOICE OF THE EAST VALLEY SINCE 1891 AND WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR LOCAL REPORTING
Worsley bails on another State Senate term
THE SUNDAY
Tribune
PAGE 6 Northeast Mesa Edition
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS ............................. 6
‘Stupid motorist’ law won’t be enforced in monsoon storms.
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Acupuncture chain debuts at Dana Park PAGE 13 Sunday, June 24, 2018
Neighborhood concerns put Mesa’s attention on group homes BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer
P
atricia and Zane Black bought a bungalow built in 1923 near downtown Mesa, spurning cookie-cutter suburban housing while choosing to raise their small children in a historic district. Michael Harris looked at the same neighborhood as the perfect place to open a transition-
al-living house, to help drug offenders such as himself stay clean after their release from prison. He viewed access to light rail, Maricopa County Adult Probation and the Mesa Public Library as attributes. It also is near Community Bridges addiction treatment center, where he works. But the biggest attribute of all for Harris was that all he had to do was have fewer than six residents to avoid Mesa’s zoning requirements.
He considered another building in Phoenix but abandoned the idea after the city imposed a stringent licensing law on group homes. “We almost bought a four-plex in Phoenix for more money, but the city of Phoenix has adopted some pretty challenging regulations for something I am trying to start,’’ Harris said. See
HOME on page 8
COMMUNITY ......... 11 Mesa nonprofit teaches the disabled to be competitive in sports.
SPORTS ..................... 18 New coach makes himself at home at Marcos de Niza High. ,
(Kimberly Carrillo/Tribune Staff Photographer)
This house on Pomeroy Street in Mesa is at the center of a dispute between Michael Harris, who would be the manager of the halfway house for paroled cons living in it, and Patricia Black, who lives next door. Their disagreement has prompted the City Council to examine Mesa’s lack of controls over such group homes.
Ducey opposes Ed Board talk of punishing RedforEd DINING .................... 22 Try a salad on a stick for summer cooler.
COMMUNITY.......... 11 BUSINESS.....................13 OPINION.................... 16 SPORTS........................ 18 CLASSIFIEDS............. 26
BY PAUL MARYNIAK, WAYNE SCHUTSKY AND JIM WALSH Tribune News Staff
T
he state Board of Education scuttled its plan to discuss on Monday whether it can, and should, discipline teachers for walking out for better pay this spring and for other unspecified actions, apparently because it didn’t sit well with the man who
appointed all but one of its members. Some East Valley school superintendents and other educators also criticized the board. Asked about the board’s plan during a campaign stop in Gilbert on Thursday, Gov. Doug Ducey told the Tribune: “I don’t want to see punitive action against our teachers. I’m on the side of the teachers. Our teachers are the biggest difference makers in the state, in addition to the parents of these children.
“What I want to do is move forward. I want to get additional dollars into our teachers’ paychecks and return our teachers to what they do best – to the front of the classroom teaching our children,” the governor added. Mesa Public Schools’ new superintendent, Ember Conley, who heads the state’s largest school system, and Kyrene Superintendent See
TEACHERS on page 10