West Valley View - February 3, 2016

Page 1

 MAN SHOT DURING HOME INVASION IN PHOENIX, PAGE 4

westvalleyview.com — the newspaper of Avondale, Buckeye, Goodyear, Litchfield Park & Tolleson, AZ 50¢ Wednesday, February 3, 2016 (623) 535-8439

Setting the curve

INSIDE Have a news tip? Send it to news1@westvalleyview.com

EMCC ranks among nation’s best community colleges by Glenn Gullickson staff writer

BUILDING UP New construction on the rise — Page 5. View photo by Jordan Christopher

GOODYEAR RESIDENTS MARK CLARK AND ANN FABER play pickleball Jan. 25 in their PebbleCreek community. The PebbleCreek Pickleball Club started with 20 members in 2007 and has grown to 1,100.

SKY’S THE LIMIT Air fair returning to Buckeye airport — Page 10.

Pickleball craze grows PebbleCreek club in Goodyear boasts 1,100 members by Kathleen Stinson staff writer

The sport of pickleball is growing in popularity in the West Valley. In 2007, the PebbleCreek community in Goodyear had 20 pickleball club members. Today, it has about 1,100 members. Pick any good weather day of the week and the courts are packed at PebbleCreek. Drop-in courts, where a single individual can get space to play first come, first in, are equally popular. The craze for the sport reflects a national trend. The USA Pickleball Association counts 200,000 pickleball players and 9,863 pickleball courts in North America, according to its website. “Currently, the sport of pickleball is exploding

BUCK UP Buckeye Days draws a crowd. See photos on Page 12.

DAILY UPDATES! News Updates and fresh Classified ads posted Monday - Friday at 4:30 p.m. online at www.westvalleyview.com Volume 30, No. 79 36 Pages 1 Section Circulation: 71,173 INDEX Classifieds .................... 30 Editorials & Letters .......... 6 Obituaries ...................... 25 Military ........................... 14 Sports ........................... 15 Briefcase ......................... 5 Pet of the Week ............. 14 9 Days a Week............... 23 Recycle this paper

in popularity,” as stated on the USAPA site. “The number of places to play has nearly doubled since 2010.” The relatively young sport was invented one afternoon in1965 by three men who were looking for something to do and had only a badminton court and not enough rackets, according to the site. The men “improvised” and instead started playing with ping-pong paddles and a plastic ball with holes, and the sport was born, according to the USAPA. The game was invented by the late Joel Pritchard, former congressman from Washington State, and his friends, the late Bill Bell and Barney McCallum. “The game was officially named after the (See Craze on Page 2)

State seeks to seal pleadings in freeway shooting case by Emily Toepfer assistant editor

Prosecutors in the freeway shooting case are asking a judge to seal all future documents filed with the court so the case against Leslie Merritt Jr. isn’t played out in the media, court records state. A motion filed Jan. 26 by Deputy County Attorney Vanessa Losicco states the prosecution is seeking to “maintain the integrity of the evidence and keep the jury pool untainted.” “As long as documents filed in this court are public, there is a high likelihood that the preservation of both evidence and the jury pool will be compromised,” the Leslie Merritt motion states. The state argues that every pleading filed by either party has been “dissected by the media, quoted by the media, commented on by the media, become part of the nightly news and countless websites.” At the beginning of the case, the judge ordered

that counsel on both sides refrain from commenting publicly about the case. The media is allowed to RELATED STORY record during each court appearance, which the state  Defense asks claims is a good alternative to judge to return releasing pleadings. case to grand Despite prosecutors’ stating jury/3 the motion is an attempt to get a fair trial for Merritt, the defense attorneys are against sealing records, according to a response filed Jan. 28. “It is noteworthy that the state is not seeking a protective order … but rather to decimate Arizona’s well-established Public Records Law … without legal support or authority,” defense attorneys Jason Lamm and Ulises Ferragut wrote. The defense claims the state has had no problem using written pleadings for its own benefit so far, including a recent document filed by the state that had complete transcripts of the interview conducted with Merritt by detectives after his September 2015 arrest. “Why did the state do so? Clearly, it was to inject this information into the public record, and, more importantly, to the salivating media, which awaited its release,” the defense states. (See Seal on Page 3)

The president of Estrella Mountain Community College is crediting the faculty and staff with creating a campus culture that led the West Valley school to make the list of the top 150 two-year colleges in the nation. EMCC was named to the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program’s list for the fourth time in January. “It’s a recognition of the work we’ve been doing to help our students be successful,” President Ernie Lara said. Lara said EMCC’s faculty and staff are responsible for creating an environment for student success. “They are the ones who make a difference,” he said. The award recognizes high achievement and performance after examining community colleges’ data on student outcomes. Among the factors considered are graduation rates, something EMCC has improved upon in recent years, according to Rene Willekens, the college’s dean of institutional research. In 2015, the college had 966 graduates, up from 565 in 2012, Willekens said. Lara said graduation is a goal that’s a focus of campus programs that connect students to the school’s resources, such as the Student Success Fair held during spring semester. Another program, Engage Estrella, pairs students with faculty and administrators who act as mentors. “We have a lot of TLC, which is teaching, learning and caring,” Lara said. The Aspen Institute, an education and policy studies group based in Washington, D.C., selected the prize-winning colleges from a pool of more than 1,000 public two-year colleges. EMCC is one of eight Maricopa Community Colleges that made the Aspen Institute’s list, but it’s the only one that’s been on the list each of the four times the award has been made since it was established in 2011. Other Maricopa Community Colleges on the list are Phoenix College, Chandler-Gilbert, Gateway, Mesa, Paradise Valley, Scottsdale and South Mountain community colleges. Among Arizona’s 11 other community colleges, Cochise College in Douglas made the list. Willekens noted that Arizona was well represented on the list, since the Aspen Institute will only recognize up to half of a state’s community colleges. The top 150 colleges will compete for the 2017 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence and $1 million in prize funds. Nearly half of America’s college students — 7 million youths and adults — attend community colleges, according to the Aspen Institute. Lara said the award can be used as a tool to recruit students. “We want to get the word out to our students and potential students that they can be successful if they come here,” he said. Estrella Mountain Community College opened in 1992 as the Maricopa system’s 10th college. The college’s Avondale campus and Buckeye Learning Center enrolled about 9,000 students last semester. About 70 percent of Estrella’s students attend college part time, Willekens said. In March, the college will open the Western Maricopa Education Center in Buckeye in a partnership with WESTMARC, the Western Maricopa Coalition.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
West Valley View - February 3, 2016 by Times Media Group - Issuu