Designer meals in Scottsdale homes / P. 39
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS .................................. 4 Scottsdale conference targets genocide.
NEIGHBORS ............... 26 School teaches dogs snake avoidance.
BUSINESS ..................... 29 Local businesswomen aren't stretched too thin.
NEIGHBORS ........................20 BUSINESS .............................29
OPINION .............................. 32
ARTS ....................................34 FOOD & DRINK...................39 CLASSIFIEDS .......................42
Valley Ho goes Hawaiian / P. 34
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF SCOTTSDALE) | scottsdale.org
Sunday, April 7, 2019
City punished streets of�icial for questionable conduct BY WAYNE SCHUTSKY Progress Managing Editor
A
previously unreleased report shows that the City of Scottsdale disciplined a high-ranking public works employee in late 2018 following an investigation into ethical violations and conflict of interest. The allegations against Streets Opera-
Females sought by Boy and Girl Scout troops
tions Director Randy Ghezzi included an assertion that he was working part-time at an area Lowe’s and used his position at the city to get his coworkers there hired by Scottsdale. He also was alleged to have given preferential treatment to city contractors with whom he had a friendly relationship and instituted cost-saving policies that put employee health at risk.
Ghezzi did not respond to a Scottsdale Progress request for comment. The city hired law firm Cronin Law Group to conduct an investigation. A report on that investigation – obtained by the Progress under the state open records law – shows that the firm found evidence to sustain two of the allegations.
see GHEZZI page 14
BY KRISTINE CANNON & CECILIA CHAN Progress Staff Writers
O
n a dark, rainy early evening, a group of nearly 20 young girls – all donning rain jackets and ponchos in nearly every color of the rainbow – gathered at the trailhead of Barrier Free Nature Trail in northern Scottsdale for a nature walk. Hair pulled back and her hood up, senior patrol leader of Troop 3030 Tori Shuman, 16, was heard telling her fellow scouts: “I can do my hair at home.” Scottsdale-based Troop 3030 is one of the first all-girl Scout Troops in Arizona. It is the largest troop in the Pinnacle Peak District of the Grand Canyon Council of Arizona. Tori and the rest of Troop 3030 are part of the nearly 6,000 girls who joined Scouts BSA in the first two weeks, according to Kate Jacobs, a spokeswoman at the Scouts' national headquarters in Texas. Boy Scouts of America opened its venerable
Andrew Bloom REALTOR®, Senior Partner Andrew@BVOLuxury.com VOTED #1 SCOTTSDALE REAL ESTATE TEAM FOR 2018
Scottsdale Troop 3030 includes, from left, Stella Lipson, Morgan Willis, Maisie Cook, Malia Santos and Scoutmaster Patty Heit. (Kimberly Carrillo/Progress Staff Photographer)
program to girls Feb. 1 and changed the name to a gender-neutral one, though troops can only be either all boys or all girls 11 to 17 years old. On Feb. 1, Troop 3030 Scoutmaster Patty Heit said she had 12 girls join the troop. “We are now up to 19 and have new girls come check us out every month,” she added. The open enrollment comes a year after BSA allowed girls to become Cub Scouts, another once all-male bastion for ages 5-11. Since
January 2018, 77,000 girls have joined Cub Scouts, Jacobs said. At Phoenix-based Grand Canyon Council BSA, which covers most of Arizona with 11 districts, so far 300 girls have signed up for Cub Scouts and 68 for Scouts BSA, according to COO Joseph Curtis. Grand Canyon’s current total registration was 35,000.
see SCOUTS page 8
(480) 999-2948 www.BVOLuxuryGroup.com