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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS www.ahwatukee.com
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Wednesday, October 11, 2017
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City slates Oct. 26 town hall on water meter complaints
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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he Phoenix Water Services Department and city Councilman Sal DiCiccio have set a town hall meeting on Ahwatukee customers’ complaints about bills showing unusual spikes in consumption. The meeting is at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, at Pecos Communty Center. Little hope so far as emerged for an explanation of the spikes, as evidenced last week when a top Water Services official visited with the homeowners association that trig-
gered a flood of complaints about mysterious one-month increases. “I don’t think we have an explanation,” Jim Swanson, deputy Water Services director, last week told Foothills Gateway HOA board members after he and a team of workers examined the meter that showed a July consumption of 1 million gallons – 20,000 times the normal monthly reading. A technician tested the meter and found it accurate, but Swanson had it replaced on the spot after HOA board members conceded they might as well have a new one. He had more unsettling news for irate con-
sumers. He said the department also has looked at a three-year history of water consumption in Ahwatukee in an effort to find any surges in water use and has found nothing unusual. “When we plot the last three years of data, all the consumption month after month is very, very consistent.” Swanson said. “Across Ahwatukee, there is no spike in July. Preliminarily, there is no spike we can see in the community. Month over month, year over year, the consumption is the same.”
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS AHWA-TOAD-EE
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BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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FOR WOMEN ONLY
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NEW TO ZOO
(Cheryl Haselhorst/AFN Contributor)
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Mountain Pointe High School senior Delano Salgado wasn’t just king at homecoming with queen Amari Collins. The Pride running back also was king on the gridiron as he helped his team to a victory in a nailbiter against Highland High School. For details on this game and Desert Vista Thunder’s win, please see page 50.
KEYSTONE
MONTESSORI A Foundation for a Lifetime of Learning
WATER on page 17
School grades likely to be revised, state tells districts
Pride royalty
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s it released letter grades for Arizona schools, the state Board of Education on Friday gave some written advice to school districts that boiled down to one reality: For now, they may not mean as much as parents and educators think. Stressing that the grades were “preliminary,” the board announced it had created a committee “to conduct independent analyses of data, based on public input, for potential revisions to the A-F Accountability Plan.” That “technical advisory committee” is staffed by people who were not part of the panel that devised the grading formula – which Kyrene School District officials had warned penalized high-performing schools and gave an unfair picture of student
performance overall. Moreover, the board immediately set 10 public hearings between Oct. 10 and Nov. 5 to “gather public input for potential revisions to final letter grades for school year 2016-2017 and in upcoming school years.” The formula also came under withering criticism from Jay P. Greene, distinguished professor and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, whose work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court four times in a decision related to school vouchers. Writing about his “growing sense of dread as I trudged through page after page of extreme complexity regarding the state’s plan to grade schools A-F,” Greene declared: “If Jurassic Park scientists See
GRADES on page 9
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