By Mayor Sam Hosler, Town of Kearny
I was on my computer reading Facebook when I saw that someone had asked about the piles of dirt on the lawn of Hubbard Park. Some wag suggested that it was the result of giant gophers. If so, the giant gophers struck a rich vein of manure.
The “gophers” were Bill and Becky Dunn, who unload loads of manure from their ranch to help green up the park. It will really look great by the 4th of July, when Kearny hosts the fireworks. Thanks, Dunn family.
This Thursday, April 28, several of us from Kearny will journey to Arizona State University for the final review of the four projects done by the students at the Design School of the Herberger Institute under the oversight of Assistant Professor Chingwen Cheng. They gave an initial presentation to the people of Kearny last month, then came back to sharpen up their presentations for judging.
The presentations start at 10 a.m. and won’t be over until 4 p.m. The public (especially people from the Copper Basin) are invited to attend. Contact me and I will give you a map and a schedule. Arizona State University has invested thousands of dollars and the time of its students to make all this possible. I am grateful to them, and I hope that good things will come out of this tremendous work. Thanks also go to Gerry Kaufhold, who got the idea and pressed hard for its coming into being.
It’s fire season already, so I remind all of us to keep our yards uncluttered and our weeds under control. The last couple of months I have noticed quite a number of people out working on their yards, even to the extent of completely landscaping them. Way to go, Kearny! A clean town is also safer and more beautiful.
The town employees are working hard on the budget for the next fiscal year. It’s a tougher job this year because the Arizona State Legislature hasn’t passed a budget yet, and we don’t know what our shared revenues from taxes will be. They could be up. They could be down. We just don’t know now, but what the legislature does has a major impact on our town revenue.
The town is also applying for a special Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) which is federal monies given on a competitive process. My hopes are high that the grant, which would be used for paving of some of our side streets, will be given.