The woman chosen to be the next director of Arizona’s state parks once carved her name into a historic park’s property in southeastern Arizona.

She also helped recover thousands of acres of burned parks land in San Diego County and launched an innovative system to allow people to make campground reservations online.

The Arizona State Parks Board’s unanimous selection of Renée Bahl to take over the parks system next month has polarized state leaders.

Parks officials say she is a dynamic, experienced professional who will help lead the parks system out of a historic budget crisis.

Bahl, 40, is “a vigorous, intelligent, resourceful person who knows how to get through the most difficult of times,” said Bill Scalzo, who led the selection committee for the Arizona State Parks Board.

But at least one lawmaker says her selection as director is inappropriate given a vandalism incident that took place a decade ago.

Bahl, a former assistant state parks director, oversaw historic preservation at the San Rafael Ranch.

In 1999, another employee caught her etching her first name and the year into the wall of a historic adobe barn.

Bahl was disciplined but remained in her job until 2002, when she left to become director of parks and recreation for San Diego County in California.

State Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, criticized the selection.

“Bahl should be fully questioned about her vandalism of state historic properties, and rejected as a poor choice for this important job,” Patterson wrote on his blog. “Someone as clueless as Bahl on protecting state treasures is clearly not appropriate to head state parks.”

Through a spokeswoman, Bahl declined to comment. Officials said they were impressed with Bahl’s education, which includes a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on natural resource management.

Scalzo said Bahl brought up the vandalism incident during an interview and apologized for it, saying she had made a mistake.

“One thing I really appreciated is she brought that up,” Scalzo said. “She didn’t say, ‘I’ve had a perfect career I don’t make mistakes.’ ”

Bahl, who will make about $140,000 a year, will take over for Ken Travous, who is retiring after 23 years leading the parks system.

Lawmakers swept $36 million from parks coffers in the last year, prompting the closure of three parks and threatening several more with closure. The board is working to prevent further cuts proposed by the Legislature’s Republican leadership, which board members say would devastate the system.

Scalzo called criticism a distraction from the parks board’s most pressing problems.

“We need help; we don’t need criticism,” he said. “We need to have this new person come in here with everyone wishing her the best, because she’s going to need every bit of it.”

On Nov. 4 voters in Legislative District 10 on Phoenix’s Northwest Side elected Doug Quelland to the Arizona House of Representatives.

On May 15, an unelected state commission overruled them and ordered Quelland out of the House for violating rules governing publicly financed campaigns.

Quelland is appealing and can remain in the House until that’s resolved but judging from the evidence gathered by the commission, it’s likely he’ll be forced out.

It’s the second time in two years the state’s Clean Elections Commission has overturned voters’ wishes because a candidate agreed to take public money for his campaign then broke the incredibly complex rules governing that money’s use.

Clean Elections and its cousin, term limits, were supposed to put the citizen back in citizen government. Neither has happened.

The Democrats elected to the Legislature are more liberal and the Republicans more conservative than ever before. The gulf that lies between them has prevented compromise and progress on a whole host of issues.

Candidates who had to put their hand out to numerous constituencies to raise money pre-Clean Elections need now only put their hands out to their parties’ true believers. Because of another good idea gone bad – the state’s redistricting commission, which botched the gerrymandering of state legislative districts – there are few competitive districts in the state. Most candidates need only win their party’s primary to get elected and primary voters tend to be the most strident of party faithful.

Meanwhile, party operatives have figured out how to game the system, turning Clean Elections into more of an oxymoron than a supposed field leveler.

While public financing was supposed to take the corruption out of politics by making candidates beholden more to voters than donors, term limits was supposed to refresh the state house every few years with new candidates bringing fresh ideas to state government.

Instead, candidates have likewise made term limits an oxymoron. Candidates termed out of the House after eight years simply run for the Senate, or vice versa, and almost always get elected.

Quelland’s seatmate from District 10, Jim Weiers, has been in the Legislature for 15 years. He did his eight in the House, including a term as Speaker, got termed out, got elected to the Senate for one term, then jumped back to the House where he was Speaker for two terms. He’s in the middle of his eighth two-year term in the Legislature.

It was this kind of career politician that term limits was supposed to limit.

The great irony is that term limits was unnecessary, there already were term limits every two years.

Voters should be able to give money to whomever they want and elect whomever they want however many times they want.

It’s time for voters to jettison both these laws and re-take responsibility for whom they elect.

The death of a 13-year-old Tucson middle school student brings Arizona’s swine flu death toll to three, according to the Pima County Health Department.

Nationwide, it’s up to seven.

The most recent Arizona deaths were the Tucson teen who died Friday and a 57-year-old Pinal County woman who died earlier this week, according to the Health Department and the Associated Press.

Arizona’s confirmed cases have risen to 476, which adds to the more than 1,650 confirmed cases in the four states that border Mexico, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Texas leads the border states with 556; California clocks in second with 553; and New Mexico has 68.

A total of 5,100 cases are confirmed nationwide.

The state with the most?

Illinois with 696, followed by Wisconsin at 616, according to a report in BizJournals.com.

_____

How are your protecting against swine flu?

Does anyone you know have swine flu?

BISBEE — A wildfire burning a half-mile northwest of Bisbee is 40 percent contained after charring 122 acres since breaking out late Monday morning.

Officials said Tuesday that they were bracing for forecasted thunderstorms.

Thirty homes were evacuated as a precaution, but Arizona State Forestry Division spokeswoman Judy Wood says everyone was allowed to return home Monday evening.

Wood said no homes or other structures are threatened.

Crews expect the blaze to continue burning away from the town.

Wood said crews initially attacked the blaze with 10 air tankers and 10 to 15 fire engines, an unusually strong offensive because of the fire’s proximity to Bisbee.

But she said Tuesday that three hotshot crews had been released and aircraft had been pulled off, with about 160 firefighters still on the scene.

The cause of the fire began is under investigation.

PHOENIX — State officials say three environmentally contaminated mines in Arizona would get a $23 million cleanup as part of a settlement with the mining company that owns them.

The deal is subject to the approval of a Texas court overseeing the bankruptcy reorganization of Asarco LLC, the Tucson-based company that owns the mining sites.

State officials say $20 million would fund the cleanup and revegetation of the Sacaton Mine, a 3,000-acre open-pit copper mine near Casa Grande that was abandoned in the 1980s.

About $3 million would pay for cleaning and restoring the 600-acre Salero and 335-acre Trench mines outside Patagonia in southern Arizona. Both mines were abandoned about a century ago.

The deal is part of a $260 million, 11-state settlement with Asarco to resolve ongoing environmental disputes at 17 mines.

“Resolution of these environmental claims is part of our effort to meet our obligations to our creditors, reorient ourselves and emerge from bankruptcy,” said Doug McAlister, Asarco’s general counsel.

Environmental regulators worry that hazardous chemicals left in mine sites will leach into the soil and groundwater.

Crews will use fresh rock or soil to cover piles of waste from mine operations and allow vegetation to grow. Officials expect the move to direct the flow of rainwater around the waste.

Officials don’t think the groundwater has been contaminated at any of Arizona’s three sites, but the settlement includes money for groundwater cleanup if it is needed, said Patrick Cunningham, acting director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Cleanup could take up to 30 years if groundwater is found to be contaminated, Cunningham said.

Also as part of the settlement, Arizona would get about four miles of riparian habitat along the Lower San Pedro River south of Hayden and Winkelman in Gila County. The land, which has not been mined, is valued between $3 million and $4 million.

Officials say the property exchange would compensate for damage to Mineral Creek and the Gila River caused by releases from Ray Mine and the Hayden Facility, two active Asarco operations nearby.

The riparian habitat is home to many migratory birds, nesting raptors, waterfowl species and the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher. The settlement includes about $4 million for land management.

“The San Pedro River is one of the most important riparian areas in the state, and perhaps the most threatened,” said Mark Winkleman, commissioner of the State Land Department, which owns much of the land surrounding the river. “This settlement will help preserve it, and that is of the utmost importance to this state.”

PHOENIX — Republican legislative leaders have set the stage for Senate committee consideration Wednesday of a new budget proposal that includes privatizing several state prisons to help close a big revenue shortfall.

The Senate on Tuesday suspended rules in order to allow short-notice consideration of the proposal.

Leader said it’s a revised version of a plan endorsed recently by a House committee and is a joint proposal by House and Senate leaders hoping to intensify negotiations with Gov. Jan Brewer.

Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, previously had said he wouldn’t have the Appropriations Committee consider a budget proposal unless he had enough votes in the full chamber to assure passage.

He indicated that’s not the case now.

“I changed my mind based on the fact that time is slipping away from us. I think we have to make some changes in our plans of actions,” Burns said.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce said the privatization proposal calls for transferring operations of several prisons to a private company in exchange for an upfront payment of $100 million to $200 million.

The Mesa Republican said the state would continue oversight of the prisons and save money on operations. State employees working at the prisons could transfer to other state prisons or find work with the new operators, Pearce said.

Pearce said other elements of the plan include cuts in funding for K-12 schools and having the state grab some vehicle license tax revenues now going to local governments. The local governments then would be authorized to use some of their impact-fee money to backfill for the lost money from the vehicle license tax, Pearce said.

Arizona’s tax collections have been hammered by the recession and the collapse of the housing industry, and the state faces a projected $3 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Depending on what spending cuts are made, the budget could total approximately $10 billion.

Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, said the impact-fee proposal is fraught with legal and practical problems. Cities and towns are now preparing their budgets and need to know what money they will have, said Tibshraeny, a former mayor of Chandler.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, left, accompanied by new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Craig Fugate, gestures during a news conference at FEMA headquarters in Washington, Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — A long-delayed requirement for Americans traveling to Mexico or Canada to have a passport will take effect June 1 as promised with no further postponements, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday.

The Department of Homeland Security has handed out more than 6 million information sheets to people crossing the borders and has run TV ads reminding Americans that it will no longer be possible to cross the borders and re-enter the U.S. without a U.S. passport or special U.S. passport card.

Americans have become accustomed to crossing the borders by car or on foot without having to show anything more than a driver’s license.

“These are real borders, the law is the law, and this is not going to be postponed any more,” Napolitano said at a breakfast meeting with reporters.

The passport requirement, part of an anti-terrorism measure known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, had originally been scheduled to take effect last summer during the Bush administration. It was delayed largely by northern border lawmakers in Congress, who feared it would disrupt commerce and tourism between the U.S. and Canada.

Napolitano said federal border officials are ready to implement the new requirements, and she said she is confident the program will go well, without big backups at the borders.

“If you’d have asked me four months ago if we were ready, I’d have said I don’t know,” the former Arizona governor said. “But the department has done everything humanly possible to give this thing a smooth landing.”

Napolitano said she knows some Americans will be caught by surprise on June 1st, and some have procrastinated too long getting their passports.

“We’ll work with them at the border,” she said.

Under the new requirements, Americans must have a traditional U.S. passport book or a less-expensive passport card to re-enter the country by land or sea after traveling to Mexico, Canada, Bermuda or the Caribbean region.

Americans traveling by plane to and from those countries must have a passport book. A passport card will not be accepted.

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was created after Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, requiring all travelers to the U.S. to carry a passport as proof of citizenship.

———

On the Web

www.dhs.gov, Department of Homeland Security, search for “Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative”

A Phoenix school has been ordered closed for a week by Maricopa County health officials due to an apparent flu outbreak.

County public health director Dr. Bob England says Lowell Elementary School has been “experiencing a much higher than normal rate of absenteeism due to illness that looks like flu.”

England ordered the school closed as a precaution until May 26.

He says with swine flu and seasonal flu behaving much the same way, it’s not recommended that students already home with mild illness be tested for swine flu. So, England says it’s likely that the strain of flu will remain unknown.

Lowell Elementary School spokeswoman Sara Bresnahan said officials saw a spike of absences on Monday among the school’s 700-student population. About 20 percent of the student body called in sick.

England ordered three schools closed April 29 after students contracted swine flu. A few days later, he announced he wouldn’t order new closures unless a particular school had a widespread outbreak.

PHOENIX — From the bustling streets of Scottsdale to the red rocks of Sedona more than an hour away, a NASA research balloon had some Arizonans wondering whether they had spotted an alien spacecraft.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said he got calls about the object all afternoon on Monday.

He said the object did not show up on FAA radar and was likely a balloon.

Later, Bill Stepp of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas identified the object as a 4,000-pound research balloon released from a NASA organization used to measure gamma ray emissions in high altitudes.

The balloon was launched at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning from Fort Sumner, N.M., and was grounded at about 9 p.m. Monday just south of Kingman in western Arizona.

Stepp said the balloon, which usually floats at an altitude of 130,000 feet, can be seen for about 170 miles on a clear day and has raised concern from Albuquerque to Phoenix.

“It’s something unusual,” he said. “People just don’t know what it is.”

Marshall Valentine, who works in a Scottsdale office, said he and about five other co-workers who spotted the object high in the sky around 2 p.m. Monday had no idea what it was.

“It looks like someone blew a bubble in the sky and it stayed there,” Valentine said. “A plane flew under it and it looked like it was a mountain higher than a plane flies.”

Similar descriptions of an unidentified flying, clear orb were also reported out of Sedona.

Jennifer McCoy, who runs the UFO Store in Sedona with her husband, said a local resident told her about the object around 2 p.m.

She said she went into the parking lot and saw the object in the cloud line.

It “looked like the gigantic bubble from the Wizard of Oz,” she said.

Is the state Legislature working backward trying to craft a budget?

The more logical approach to budget making would seem to be determining the size and cost of government, then setting a rate of taxation to pay for it.

Instead, because of the bad economy causing tax income shortfalls, the Legislature is determining the amount of taxation then figuring out the size of government. By a majority of members making a “no tax” pledge, they’ve painted themselves into a corner, unwilling to raise revenue but also unwilling to eviscerate essential government services.

The problem I have with “no tax” pledges is that they border on anarchy. Certainly those who abhor taxes and government don’t argue for anarchy. If they do, we can dismiss them as extreme radicals with no constituency and therefore no real place in a democracy.

But anarchy is not the argument, it’s limited government. Many conservatives who make no tax pledges are really limited government advocates, not antitax boosters. The problem is that the limited government argument has been a political loser for decades (don’t point to the past eight years of Republican control of Congress and the White House, or the nearly 20 years of Republican control of Arizona’s Legislature as a counter to that last sentence, there’s been nothing “limited” about either).

To get elected, candidates for public office tell their constituents all the things they can have, not what they can’t.

But once elected, they try to backdoor the size of government policy by starving the beast, as Grover Norquist said, by cutting off government’s lifeblood, taxes.

Liberals, on the other hand, are big government advocates. But they go about promising world changing programs without rational debates on the cost and the effect the taxation will have on economic activity.

According to the Laffer curve, 0 percent taxation equals zero government and therefore anarchy and no real economic activity. Conversely, 100 percent taxation stifles all economic activity, which leads to no tax collection and therefore anarchy.

The goal of government is to then strike the balance between the optimal amount of government to promote the optimal amount of economic activity to create the optimal amount of taxation so that all the goals of a society can be met, private and public.

I’d rather the Legislature was spending its time determining the size of government and then how much tax to pay for it rather than the tax determines the government. That’s backward.

What do you think? Keep the argument rational, please. Keep your adhominem attacks to yourselves. As my former philosophy professor used to say a the end of every class: “Live a cogent life.”

A giant bubble floating merrily in the sky earlier this week had folks wondering if aliens were coming.

All the alien theories were popped, however, when scientific types chimed in to explain the clear, gigantic orb was really just a NASA balloon, according to an Associated Press report.

Dang.

According to a Bill Stepp from the Columbia Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, the gargantuan, 2-ton balloon is used to check for gamma rays high in the sky.

This explanation is of the same type used more than 50 years ago to burst the reports of the notorious UFO that crashed in Roswell, N.M.

While the balloon explanation is fine and dandy, some folks, especially the type who see the Virgin Mary’s face in their breakfast foods, may still insist we’re being invaded.

“There’s no such things as aliens,” said Tucson Newspaper Inc. employee Tom Martinez. “We’re the aliens,” he added, likening the human race to creatures from outer space.

Read story: www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/breakingnews/116719.php

Three jails in Arizona’s largest county are on an indefinite lockdown after some inmates threatened other inmates for refusing to participate in a hunger strike, sheriff’s officials said.

The Arizona Republic reported on its Web site that the lockdown took effect at 3 p.m. Monday at Maricopa County’s Towers Jail, the Fourth Avenue Jail and Lower Buckeye Jail.

“Lockdown will continue until they start eating again,” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

The lockdown will prohibit visits, phone calls and television in the jails, and is expected to affect about 4,200 medium- and maximum-security inmates, according to a sheriff’s news release.

Inmates participating in hunger strikes since early May have repeatedly threatened inmates who continue to take their meals.

The news release says six inmates have asked to be placed in protective custody “so they can eat without fear of reprisal.”

Authorities said the hunger strikes were triggered by an anti-illegal immigration enforcement march on May 2. The event drew thousands of demonstrators and about 200 inmates went on strike.

Since then, more than a thousand inmates have repeatedly refused their meals.

Inmates and their representatives have said they’re protesting the quality of the jails’ food. Complaints about the quality of food comes as a dietitian has worked to make sure the jail menus meet USDA guidelines, as U.S. District Judge Neil Wake ordered in a ruling against Maricopa County last fall.

Sheriff’s authorities argue that new healthier menu items fall within 2005 USDA guidelines, but taste worse.

Jail intelligence officers say inmates were displeased with the evening meals, and that most inmates were still eating the morning meal.

From the political notebook:

• The always gloomy report of the Social Security and Medicare trustees was released last week. The news focus was that the date for the Social Security trust fund to go broke had been moved up to 2037.

That, however, isn’t the relevant economic date. The relevant date is when annual income begins to fall short of annual expenses.

It is true that both Social Security and Medicare have IOUs from the federal treasury for the surpluses that have been being used for other purposes. But the government will have to raise the money to make good on the IOUs. That means higher taxes, more borrowing, or cuts in other programs.

The Medicare hospitalization fund is already running an annual deficit. For Social Security, annual expenses are expected to exceed annual income in 2016, just seven years from now.

Very shortly, the Social Security surpluses the government is currently using for other purposes will start to decline, beginning the pressure on the general fisc.

After they have come to an end in 2016, the amount the government will have to pump into Social Security and Medicare from sources other than payroll taxes will be small at first.

But it grows pretty quickly. By 2025, it is expected to reach over $500 billion a year.

The day of reckoning for Social Security and Medicare reform is fast approaching.

• Given the circumstances, the fix Legislative Republicans adopted as, they hope, the final tourniquet for this fiscal year, which ends in June, is excusable.

Primarily, they pushed bills due this year into next. Ordinarily, that would be outrageous. But the fall in state revenues has been so deep that it’s hard to work up a lather over any temporizing measures.

Democrats voted almost unanimously against the fix, even though they have recommended postponing payments as a strategy as well.

They objected to a provision requiring school districts to first use excess cash balances to cover their costs in lieu of actually getting their deferred payment next year. But the Democratic argument makes no sense.

School districts have been banking reserves beyond what they can legally spend. These excesses are supposed to be used to reduce property taxes the following year.

So, Democrats complained that using them to reduce what the state actually ends up forking out for its deferred payment to the schools amounted to a property tax increase.

However, the evidence is overwhelming that the districts have not been using excess cash balances to reduce property taxes.

According to the Arizona Tax Research Association, districts have more than doubled their cash balances over the last five years, from $219 million to $443 million.

Moreover, Democrats support reimposing a property tax at the state level. Why cavil at an increase at the local level?

• The lone exception to Democratic opposition came from Sen. Minority Leader Jorge Luis Garcia. He pointed out that using the excess cash balances now reserved more federal stimulus money to offset potential education cuts later. And he’s exactly right.

Independent thinking and actions are rare in politics. Garcia is to be commended for his.

• I attended President Obama’s commencement address at Arizona State University, not as a journalist but as a parent of a graduating student.

A few years ago, I also attended a graduation ceremony at Wells Fargo Arena. The latter was significantly less of a pain in the patoot, but I was struck by the same conclusion: This was a ceremony for the university, not the students.

Yes, my son will remember that Obama spoke at his graduation. And Obama gave a fine commencement address.

But my son petitioned us to get out of there even before his degree was officially conferred by having his college stand up and have a few words of incantation recited by ASU’s president.

There is only one moment that really matters to students and family at these things. That’s when the student’s name is called and he gets to tread across the stage while his clan hoots and hollers. At ASU, there are simply too many graduates to provide the main moment.

This big mega-ritual should be done away with at ASU. Have graduation ceremonies at the school level. Eliminate all the academic folderol and get right to the name-calling, treading and hooting and hollering.

Done right, the thing shouldn’t take more than an hour. And it would be much easier on aging patoots.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Francisco Peña contemplates a math problem at an AIMS workshop at Pueblo High Magnet School.

After many years as a political observer and erstwhile practitioner, I usually understand why what I think is sensible policy doesn’t get enacted.

Often, there is some interest group opposed. In our political system, intensity matters. An organized group that cares a lot can usually carry the day against policies whose benefits are diffuse.

Our political system also is set up to make big reforms difficult. Incremental change at the margins is more the norm. And usually, that’s a good thing.

And not at all infrequently, my views are in the minority, and not infrequently a very small minority at that.

Nevertheless, the failure of policy to move in the direction I think sensible about a high school graduation test in Arizona perplexes me. It doesn’t disadvantage any organized interest group. It’s not that big of a reform. And I think most people would agree with me, although I might be wrong about that.

Nevertheless, Arizona’s high school graduation test remains stuck in a place that makes no sense, and reform efforts, to the extent they are gaining traction, move in the wrong direction.

Arizona has a high school graduation test, AIMS, that all students must pass to receive their diploma (ignoring the temporizing fudging mechanisms the Legislature has adopted and extended).

However, the test doesn’t really determine whether a student knows what a high school graduate is expected to know. Instead, it is set at a 10th grade level.

So, Arizona can be relatively confident that its high school graduates know what a sophomore in high school should know. Wouldn’t it make more sense to determine if they know what a high school graduate should know?

I think Arizona should have a high school exit exam that actually tests what high school graduates should know. If passage were made a graduation requirement, however, the failure rate would be, at least at first, politically unacceptably high.

So, I’ve proposed a two-tier diploma: a certificate of achievement, representing passage of the test; and a certificate of completion, representing passage of all other graduation requirements but failure to pass the exit exam.

No one would be denied graduation because of the test. But employers and universities could place appropriately differential value on the two diplomas.

An AIMS Task Force formed by the Legislature recently released its recommendations. It said, much to my surprise, that AIMS should remain a 10th grade test and should remain a graduation requirement. However, it should be supplemented by two “college and career readiness” tests in the freshman and junior years.

Now, that would mean that there would still be no way of knowing whether an Arizona high school graduate actually knows what a high school graduate should know.

The desire for new “college and career readiness” tests issues from two growing fallacies.

First, that all students should graduate high school ready for college. Second, that what is necessary to prepare for college is the same thing as is necessary for jobs that don’t require a college degree.

If college is to be what it should be, and not just the new high school, then it should require cognitive abilities and a keen interest in hard academic work that just isn’t universal. And the math skills that an aspiring plumber or carpenter needs just aren’t the same as for an aspiring physicist or economist.

This is an overreaction to the commendable desire not to prematurely track kids, and particularly to avoid lower expectations for low-income and minority students.

But there are plenty of college readiness tests that already exist, and the entry requirements for Arizona universities are not opaque. Avoiding low-expectations is a matter of exhortation, not new tests.

Arizona does, however, need a high school graduation test that actually tests high school graduate knowledge.

Getting one shouldn’t be this difficult.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard shortly before 5 p.m. Friday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Tucson to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen.

A motion for a temporary restraining order is in the process of being filed, said Anne Hilby, spokeswoman for Goddard’s office.

The case has been assigned to Raner Collins, Hilby said, “but we do not yet know if he will rule on it before tomorrow morning.”

“The process has been initiated,” Hilby said. “We will be notified by the court as how Judge Collins will rule.”

Collins could not be reached for comment.

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett Co. Inc., visited the Citizen newsroom Friday morning to say the paper would print its final issue Saturday, continuing with a “modified” Web site focused on opinion and commentary.

When asked about Goddard’s action, Marymont said she could not comment without seeing the actual filing.

“I have little to say, I’d need to see what was filed and speak with our lawyers,” Marymont said.

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale announced by Gannett in January, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“I am requesting the Arizona Attorney General’s office file a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the Gannett Corporation from closing the Citizen and require Gannett to continue printing the newspaper pending a sale to a qualified buyer,” Hadland wrote. “The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community.”

Hadland has contended from his first bid that Gannett was not serious about selling the paper because it was only offering the name of the paper, its Web site, archives and a subscriber list, but not the 50 percent interest in the joint operating agreement it has with Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star.

The JOA has been in effect since 1940 and allows Lee and Gannett to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers.

Hadland,who said his bid for the Citizen “assests” was $400,000, considers his media company a qualified and viable buyer, something Marymont denied in speaking with employees Friday morning.

“In the end, there was no buyer,” she said.

Hadland said in a phone interview that if a paper goes without printing one day, it loses all value and that is why he urged Goddard to act quickly.

By Carli Brosseau, Renee Schafer Horton