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Jovanna Calzadillas
This column is being written on Sunday night. Jovanna Martinez-Calzadillas is on life support from a bullet wound received from the Las Vegas mass killer. She is being supported in prayers and in a candlelight vigil on her behalf in Hayden. A supervisor with the Salt River Police Department, where Jovanna’s husband Francisco works as an officer, has organized a Go Fund Me campaign to assist with expenses for travel and care. Right now, 1,031 people have given $72,176 toward a goal of $100,000.
There is so much that I want to say, but I simply will express my prayers and hope for Jovanna and for this fine effort to help with the expenses. If you wish to play a part, please call up Go Fund Me on Google and seek out Calzadillas Medical and Travel. There are medical expenses to be met, travel between Phoenix and Las Vegas, the needs of the children, and all kinds of incidental expenses. All available funds will go to the Calzadillas family.
Maybe you got some mail today. Ballots have been mailed out for Pinal County’s vote on Propositions 416 and 417. Taken together, the vote is to decide if the residents of Pinal County support a plan of road construction over a period of 20 years and a half-cent sales tax increase to cover the costs. The bulk of construction will take place in the Valley and will develop a series of North-South and East-West corridors and connecting roads. All propositions must include benefits equally, so the Copper Corridor towns of Superior, Kearny, and Mammoth along with the South Pinal County Town of Eloy, will each receive $300,000 per year for street and transportation improvements. This amounts to $6 million for each town over the 20-year life of the tax.
I don’t know about you, but I plan to vote as soon as I receive the ballot. If I set it down for a while I might misplace it along the way, and I really want my vote to be counted! If you’re anything at all like me (prone to lose things), you might want to mark your ballot and send it back this week. This the first “all vote-by-mail” ballot conducted in Pinal County.
Kearny, Hayden, and Winkelman will be the beneficiaries this weekend of the second ASARCO day of responding to some of the needs of the towns. Two teams of ASARCO employees, led by Mike Kotraba of the Ray Mine and Joe Wilhelm of the smelter in Hayden, will arrive in force on Saturday, October 14, to provide the labor and supplies for several projects. They hope to paint the library and pool area in Hayden and, if time and supplies permit, work on the club house. In Kearny, the ASARCO folks will paint and refurbish the old teen center which is being re-purposed for library work with young people. The front of the municipal pool will be repainted with a distinctive color, and flowers and other living things will be planted along the front of the structure. A team will also work to refresh the Kearny entrances with living things and the front of the Kearny Police Department will be painted.
This is a wonderful gift from ASARCO and its employees to all three towns. We are, after all, inextricably bound together in our role as mine and mining towns.
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