The Arizona Republic

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2011 | $1.00
9/11
“On 9/11, I remember sitting in art class at Kofa High School,
watching the attack on TV. I was going to graduate in a few months,
already planning on the military. But that solidified things.”
2 0 0 1 - 2 0 11
— G A B R I E L G A R C I A , who was severely wounded fighting in Afghanistan
State’s
parks
find an
advocate
Group hopes public
will demand funding
By Shaun McKinnon
The Arizona Republic
Army veteran Gabriel Garcia, with 6-month-old son Roman, lost an arm in 2009 in Afghanistan. DAVID WALLACE/THE REPUBLIC
A decade of duty,
a time of sacrifice
A WEEK OF
REMEMBRANCE
As the nation approaches
the 10th anniversary of the
9/11 attacks, The Arizona
Republic examines what
the years since then have
brought: losses, lessons,
emotional memories and
reasons for hope.
» Read more at
news.azcentral.com.
‘For me, fighting for your country
is the greatest honor,’ soldier says
By Gabriel Garcia
As told to Arizona Republic reporter Dennis Wagner
My platoon was finishing up
its second mission of the day,
STORYTELLERS
foot patrol in an Afghan village
next to our camp in Maiwand, northwest of Kandahar.
We were in this market a few hundred yards outside the gate. I
remember the force of the blast, like I got hit by a semitruck going
full speed. I saw this bright light, and then everything went black.
They listed it as a suicide bomber and a vehicle IED (improvised
A R I ZONA
See GARCIA, Page A11
Guardsman gets used to a life interrupted
By Rebekah L. Sanders
The Arizona Republic
Joe Rivera knows there is no pause
button.
Each time he deploys with the Arizona Air National Guard, life goes on at
home without him.
No way to stop the birthdays, the report cards, the daily lives of his wife,
two daughters, son-in-law and granddaughter while he’s away.
It’s a lot to miss, the 52-year-old master sergeant realizes, in exchange for
the education he got courtesy of the GI
Bill when he joined the Guard 24 years
ago.
But 10 years after 9/11, the Goodyear
resident still feels the military is his
duty.
Sharon, his wife of 30 years, has asked
why he doesn’t retire.
“That’s what I signed up for,” he told
her.
So the Riveras have learned to cope,
as many military families do, with a life
interrupted.
Each deployment — twice to the Mid-
See RIVERA, Page A11
Joe Rivera has served several deployments since 9/11. NICK OZA/THE REPUBLIC
Arizonans
overwhelmingly
support state parks and open
spaces and believe such areas
contribute to a region’s economic
health, but few people understand
how the state pays for its parks, a
new survey says.
That lack of knowledge could
imperil a parks system already
weakened by budget cuts if lawmakers don’t hear from enough
voters who want open spaces protected, according to Arizona Forward, a newly organized group
that commissioned the survey.
“Nothing is stronger than grass
roots, with people calling their
elected officials saying, ‘This is
important to me, I want my parks
to be open,’ ” said Diane Brossart,
acting director of the group. “But
I think we take these things for
granted, and until there’s a crisis,
people are not engaged with the
issues.”
As part of its first project, Arizona Forward wants voters to tell
state legislators to stop raiding
the parks-system budget and support a dedicated and secure funding source for parks and wildlife
protection. The group is also
backing changes to the state
trust-land system that would allow Arizona to preserve more
open spaces in the future.
Among the organizing members of the group are marquee
businesses such as FreeportMcMoRan Copper & Gold; Wells
See PARKS, Page A5
Rebels prep
for attack
on Gadhafi
stronghold
By Simon Denyer
Washington Post
WESHTATA, Libya — Libyan
rebel forces massed for an attack
on one of ousted leader Moammar
Gadhafi’s last bastions Sunday
night, as their effort to negotiate
the surrender of the desert town
of Bani Walid broke down.
“From my side, negotiations
are finished,” the rebels’ chief negotiator, Abdullah Kanshil, told
reporters at the site of earlier
roadside talks with tribal elders
from the town. “They said they
don’t want to talk, they are threatening everyone who moves. They
are putting snipers on high-rise
buildings and inside olive groves.
They have a big fire force.”
The town of 60,000 people, 104
miles southeast of Tripoli, has no
electricity, water or fresh food
and is desperately short of medical supplies, officials said. Rebels
had offered to bring in ambulances, doctors and supplies, but
they insisted their fighters had to
enter the town at the same time, a
condition tribal elders did not accept.
Col. Ahmed Bani, spokesman
See LIBYA , Page A6
VALLEY & STATE
SPORTS
Phoenix’s new voting-center system,
which allows residents to cast a ballot
at any location, was met with mixed reviews. Some praised the convenience
while others were annoyed by technical bugs and long lines at some sites
during last week’s city elections. B1
The Diamondbacks come from behind
late in the game to beat the San Francisco Giants 4-1 and extend their NL
West lead to seven games. The D-Backs
get all of their runs, including a gametying homer by Ryan Roberts (left), in
the eighth inning. C1
Varied reaction to
new voting system
Rally by D-Backs
frustrates Giants
ARIZONA LIVING
BUSINESS
Lee drenches South: Tropical Storm
Lee dumps more than a foot of rain in
New Orleans and spins off tornadoes
elsewhere as its center comes ashore.
Flooding remains a threat. A3
Phoenix family filmed for possible
show: Camera crews film the daily life
of two gay dads raising their 12 kids
for a possible reality show on the
Oprah Winfrey Network. D1
Dentist’s green efforts recognized:
An Avondale dental office’s environmentally friendly practices have led to
a gold certification, the highest recognition, from an industry group. B4
Dear Abby. . . . D6
Lottery . . . . . . . B2
Obituaries . . . . B5
122nd year,
No. 110.
High 106
Low 88
Afternoon
thunderstorms. B8
Astrology . . . D6
Business . . B4, 5
Comics . . . D4, 5
Opinions . . . B6, 7
Television . . . . D3
Valley 101 . . . . B8
» Find great deals in Republic Classified, inside Sports.
Copyright 2011,
The Arizona
Republic
DAILY
NATION & WORLD

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Parks
Continued from A1
Fargo; the law firm Fennemore Craig, Gammage and
Burnham; Arizona Public
Service Co. and Salt River
Project, as well as Arizona
State University, the Arizona Heritage Alliance and
the Nature Conservancy.
Organizers say they will
focus initially on bringing
together various interests
but will advocate on statewide issues when there is
enough agreement among
its members.
Reflecting its membership, the group is trying to
draw a stronger connection
between parks and economic growth, enlisting businesses to help spread that
message. The chairman of
the advisory board is from
the business sector.
“By forming a coalition,
we can collectively make
our voice heard,” Brossart
said. “We don’t represent
any single stakeholder interest or special interest.
We can help educate, work
together and bring people
from around the state.”
Arizona Forward was
modeled after Valley Forward, a group Brossart has
directed since 1991. Valley
Forward has brought together businesses and cities in metro Phoenix to address sustainability issues,
with an emphasis on providing information rather than
lobbying elected officials.
The new group chose
parks and open space for its
first issue initiative. Budget cuts have battered the
state parks system in recent years as lawmakers
slashed the budget and
raided
other
funding
sources, including revenue
from admission fees.
The parks system has
been funded with a combination of user fees, generalfund appropriations and
money from grants and
sources such as the Heritage Fund, money set aside
by voters from the lottery.
The Legislature cut the
entire general-fund appropriation this year and swept
the last remaining money
from the funds it could
reach, including the Heri-
‘‘
State parks
provide tax
revenue, retail sales,
jobs.”
PATRICK GRAHAM
Executive director of the
Nature Conservancy in Arizona
tage Fund, which will no
longer provide money for
parks. That leaves user
fees, a few smaller grants
and money from individual
park partnerships.
Two of the state’s 30
parks — Oracle and Picacho
Peak — remain closed, five
others are closed one or two
days a week and 14 are open
only because the state received support from other
sources, such as cities or
non-profit groups.
The state parks department has kept its most popular locations open with direct funding, including
Kartchner Caverns, Alamo
Lake, Lake Havasu and
Slide Rock, the park outside
Sedona that posts some of
the highest attendance figures in the system.
Operating without state
support are parks such as
Boyce Thompson Arboretum and five state historical sites.
As part of the campaign,
the group hired WestGroup
Research to survey Arizonans about parks and open
spaces. The survey of 429
people found that:
» 92 percent believe that
parks and open spaces are
essential to the state’s tourism economy.
» 86 percent visit parks
at least once or twice a year,
and 41 percent visit weekly
or monthly.
» 74 percent say parks
and open spaces are important to them personally, and
71 percent say parks are
important to the overall
economy.
Yet only about 18 percent
of those surveyed say they
fully understood how state
and local parks are funded,
even with the high-profile
budget cuts and park closures.
“A depressed economy
has impacted parks negatively at every jurisdictional level,” said Kurt Wa-
FROM THE FRONT PAGE
dlington, the Tucson building group leader for Sundt
Construction and chairman
of the Arizona Forward advisory board. “Multiple
land ownerships and funding mechanisms add to the
complexity of parks issues,
which can be confusing and
sometimes controversial.”
Arizona Forward has
produced an issue paper
that provides details about
the various levels of parks
and open spaces, from state
and local parks to federally
managed lands.
The group distributed
the first batch of the papers
at a parks and recreation
conference in Tucson last
week. The paper highlights
the economic value of
parks, citing a 2007 study
by Northern Arizona University that concluded visitors to state parks produced more than $266 million in economic benefits
and supported 3,347 jobs.
A separate study by the
U.S. Interior Department
found that federal lands in
Arizona, including national
parks and recreation areas,
supported 21,364 jobs and
contributed about $2 billion
to the economy.
“That’s not normally
what people think about
when they think about state
parks,”
said
Patrick
Graham, executive director of the Nature Conservancy in Arizona, the only
conservation group to sign
on as a charter member of
Arizona Forward. “A lot of
times the issues related to
nature or the environment
are portrayed as amenities,
but the reality is they are integrally tied to our economy. That’s particularly true
in rural Arizona, which is
the area suffering more
than others. State parks
provide tax revenue, retail
sales, jobs.”
Graham said parks need
more vocal supporters
when elected officials start
looking at budgets and revenue. “Regardless of what
the polls say, it was the
voices they heard at the
Legislature that determined what got saved and
what didn’t,” he said. “I
think we have to step forward and make the case for
a strong state park system.”
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Star creates the best
supernova in decades
By Brian Vastag
Washington Post
Twenty-one
million
years ago in the Pinwheel
Galaxy — an elegant, spiral-armed neighbor of our
own Milky Way — an old,
dim star had a very bad day.
It exploded and began to
blaze like a billion suns.
On Aug. 24, Peter Nugent
had a very good day. The
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory astrophysicist was about to grab
lunch when he checked to
see if a robotic telescope
had spied anything of interest the night before. Bingo.
Boom. Supernova.
And not just any supernova. Every night, astronomers spot several exploding stars across the universe. But this one was so
close — in cosmic terms —
and seen so soon after its
light reached Earth that astronomers are calling it the
supernova of a generation.
An automated sky survey that searches for new
nighttime objects with a telescope at California’s storied Palomar Observatory
first flagged the supernova.
Soon, telescopes around
the world — and beyond, including the Hubble Space
Telescope — swiveled to
take a peek.
“This is a special event,”
said Ken Sembach of the
Space Telescope Science
Institute in Baltimore. “Everyone wants a piece of it.”
Nugent said the blaze
will continue to brighten
until Wednesday or Thursday, visible just above the
handle of the Big Dipper to
backyard
astronomers
wielding binoculars.
The last supernova to
generate such buzz flared
into view in 1972. Before
that, a 1937 explosion
caught everyone’s attention.
“This is not an everyyear event,” said Robert
Kirshner, a veteran Harvard University supernova
hunter. “This is an everydecade-or-four event.”
Three hours after Nugent’s discovery, the Grand
Canary Telescope off the
coast of Africa — where the
sun had just set — took a
look. The jackpot grew bigger when that scope’s data
poured in.
The Pinwheel supernova
— technically known as
SN2011FE — was a Type 1a,
of special interest to astronomers.
Type 1a’s all blaze with
nearly the same brightness.
That makes them the perfect yardsticks for measuring cosmic distances.
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