Jilted buyer wants to stop closure action by Gannett

The press stands idle moments after the final issue was printed late Friday night.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson late Friday to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen, which was announced by the Citizen’s owners early Friday.

The lawsuit said closing the Citizen stemmed from an agreement between Gannett and Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star, to eliminate competition and increase profits to both companies.

The case has been assigned to Judge Raner Collins, but Goddard said in a phone interview Friday night that his staff could not reach Collins to “express the urgency of the case.”

“Usually there is some district judge to handle emergency motions and we are trying to find one,” Goddard said. “But I’m not at all certain we will be able to find one; it is a small panel in Tucson.”

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for the Gannett Co. Inc., told Citizen employees Friday that the last print edition would be Saturday. Gannett will continue to run a “modified” Web site of daily commentary and opinion with a weekly insert of editorial content appearing in the Star, she said.

She said two people accepted positions with www.tucsoncitizen.com but declined to say how many staffers the Web site would eventually hire.

“That’s my starting point,” Marymont said.

A preliminary job description for those hired showed that the site would focus on the “watercooler buzz” of the day.

Staffers would likely link to other Web sites and blogs, offer an opinion and open the discussion to commenters in an online forum. The site would also incorporate social networking, the document showed.

The staff will be responsible for defining the Web site’s form, Marymont said. “I’ve left it to them.”

The recently launched Metromix entertainment hub will continue on a “provisional basis” only, Marymont said.

Gannett’s joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises Inc. also will terminate Saturday, although the two companies will continue as business partners in Tucson Newspapers, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers. The JOA has been in effect since 1940.

Under the arrangement, Gannett takes the unusual step of partnering with a newspaper publication in which it has no editorial say to retain its profit interest in the operation.

Lee and Gannett will continue to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, just as they did with the JOA, CEO Mike Jameson said. TNI, though, will no longer receive the limited antitrust immunity offered JOAs under the Newspaper Preservation Act.

The 1970 act gives newspapers operating under a joint operating agreement an exemption from federal antitrust laws in the hopes of increasing editorial diversity in cities and towns.

The announcement brings to a close months of uncertainty for the paper. Gannett announced in January that it was offering the Citizen archives, Internet domain name and lists of subscribers and advertisers to potential buyers, but not its 50 percent share of the JOA. If no buyer came forward, it intended to close the paper March 21.

On March 17, Gannett delayed the closure, saying “viable” buyers had come forward. The paper has operated on a day-to-day basis since.

Marymont informed Citizen employees of the closure at 9:30 a.m. Friday, about 30 minutes after notifying interim Editor Jennifer Boice.

“This is not about the journalism,” Marymont said. “Do not in any way take this as a reflection on your journalism. You have done outstanding journalism for decades.”

Laid-off employees will receive a week’s pay for every year they’ve worked for the paper up to 26 weeks, with a two-week minimum.

Boice, who has worked at the Citizen for 25 years and was appointed interim editor in July, could not hold back tears when making the announcement

“It’s been a difficult time,” Boice said. “But it’s also been fun. We’ve had people, even when our time was limited, going all out on stories, doing an incredible job of keeping the newspaper not only going, but good. And I am really grateful to all the people here who have put forth their heart and soul and energy in letting us go out with our head held high.”

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, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community,” he wrote.

Goddard said Hadland’s request was compelling, especially after he spoke with Gannett representatives.

“Their lawyer was unable to tell me how the proposed Web site would serve Tucson as a separate editorial voice,” Goddard said. “We took action because there was nothing in front of us that indicated any commitment to a vigorous continuing presence for the Citizen in some form.”

Reached Friday at his Santa Monica office, Hadland said, “We were, we are and we remain a bona fide buyer. We made a substantial cash offer; we later amended the offer to close to half a million dollars and were told that nothing less than $800,000 would be acceptable.”

In addition, Hadland said, he was “amazed” that Gannett was shutting the printed paper and going to an online-only operation because during negotiations, “a printed edition was an absolute requirement of Gannett’s.”

“This is the biggest perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act that I have ever witnessed,” said Hadland, who publishes five weekly papers in the Los Angeles area.

Goddard said the arrangement between Gannett and Lee did not, in his mind, “meet either the spirit or the intent of the (antitrust) exemption” granted through the federal act.

The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into the sale of the Citizen in February, when potential buyers told Justice representatives they were being told by Gannett’s sales broker that the Citizen wasn’t a good deal because Gannett wasn’t selling its interest in the JOA.

Marymont confirmed discussions with Justice were ongoing for the past month, but would not say Justice insisted on having a Web site instead of completely closing the Citizen’s presence in Tucson.

She said Gannett had not determined the length of commitment to the new Web site, and that there “is no legal document” saying the site has to remain operational for a certain time.

“In our conversations with the Justice Department, it was agreed that it was important we sustain a second voice in the community,” Marymont said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said Friday that Justice “closed its investigation today and no enforcement action was taken.” She would give no further details.

National media experts had predicted the paper would never sell because, without the JOA, the Citizen was all loss and no profit.

Thus the paper appeared poised to be another casualty of a newspaper industry struggling to survive amid declining advertising revenue and Internet competition.

But the Citizen defied the odds, at least for a while, because of the federal investigation.

At least five people expressed interest in buying the Citizen. All decided against bidding when they couldn’t persuade Gannett to include the JOA in the sale.

The Citizen was started in 1870 as a weekly, the Arizona Citizen, preceding Arizona’s statehood. Its reporters were on the front lines covering everything from the raids of Pancho Villa to the first university-led space mission.

In its last two months, the paper reported on its own predicted demise.

“A newspaper doesn’t close, it dies, and the death leaves a hole in the community,” said Boice.

Associated Press writer Art Rotstein (left) and Tucson Citizen reporter Renée Schafer Horton ask Gannett Co. executive Kate Marymont (right) about the company's decision to close the Citizen.

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Other troubled newspapers

• Hearst Corp. printed the last edition of Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on March 16, turning it into an Internet-only news outlet with 20 staff members, down from more than 150.

• E.W. Scripps Co. in February closed the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, one of two daily newspapers in Denver.

• Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle were told in February to prepare for closure or massive layoffs.

• The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.

• The Ann Arbor News announced in April it will close in July. In its place, the Web-based media company AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched, publishing continuously online and a print edition twice a week. About 272 employees remain at the News, and experts estimate that will fall to fewer than 50 for the Web venture.

By Carli Brosseau, Renee Schafer Horton

Warning period will be Monday through Sunday

After some false starts, Pima County’s 10 speed limit enforcement camera systems will be activated Monday and used to issue warnings to violators through Sunday.

After that, accused speeders with vehicle license plates caught on camera who can be positively identified will be mailed tickets by American Traffic Solutions Inc. of Scottsdale, the county’s contracted vendor for the program.

Drivers at the camera locations will notice strobe lights flashing starting Friday during a three-day test period of the camera system. No warnings or tickets will be issued during the test phase.

The speed limit enforcement program was approved by the Pima County Board of Supervisors this year as a pilot program that will be reviewed later in the year.

The camera locations were selected by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department based on incidences of speeding and crashes.

The 10 sites accounted for 26 percent of all speeding tickets issued by the Sheriff’s Department in 2008 and more than 4,100 crashes over the past three years.

Activation was delayed for about two months while the vendor fine-tuned the system for accuracy.

The locations are:

• North La Cholla near West Sunset Road

• South Mission Road near West Grubstake Drive

• East Ina Road near North Camino de las Candelas

• North Swan Road near East Calle Barril

• East Valencia Road near South Wilmot Road

• West Ruthrauff Road near West Rillito Street

• West Valencia near South Camino de la Tierra

• South Alvernon Way near South Station Master Drive

• East River Road near North Country Club Road

• South Nogales Highway near East Hermans Road

Gerardo Lopez

A convicted sex offender was arrested Wednesday night on charges of sexual assault.

Tucson police officers caught Gerardo Lopez, 54, as he was assaulting a 34-year-old woman in a desert area northwest of Interstate 10 at South Park Avenue, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a department spokesman.

Lopez, a level 3 sex offender, was convicted of attempted sexual conduct with a minor stemming from an incident in 1986, according to an online search of state corrections and sex offender data.

Lopez lives near the area where the incident took place, according to state sex offender records.

Pacheco said that police received a 911 call from a cell phone about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. He said operator could hear the sounds of a woman being assaulted and dispatched patrol officers to search the area near the interchange.

Police found Lopez sexually assaulting the woman within minutes, Pacheco said.

The woman told detectives that she was walking through the desert when Lopez confronted her. She managed to call 911 but was not able to speak to the operator.

Lopez has been charged with three counts of sexual assault, one count of sexual abuse and one count of kidnapping.

Victim unhurt in predawn incident on North Monal Lisa Drive

Sheriff’s deputies arrested three men in connection with a predawn home invasion Wednesday on the Northwest Side.

The arrests came after deputies traced the suspects to an apartment in the 7500 block of North Mona Lisa Drive on the Northwest Side.

After obtaining a search warrant, deputies searched the apartment and found some of the victim’s property, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.

Deputies arrested Spenser E. Andrews, 20; Gerardo Monteverde, 22; and his 19-year-old brother, Xavier Monteverde, Barkman said.

The Monteverde brothers were each booked into jail later Wednesday on single counts of aggravated robbery, armed robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and kidnapping charges.

The burglary accusation is in connection with entering a building with the intent to commit a felony, Barkman said.

When they were booked, the brothers listed addresses on North Jensen Drive, Gerardo Monteverde in the 7800 block and his brother in the 7600 block, a jail records clerk said.

But, she said, they also each listed a previous address in the 7500 block of North Mona Lisa Road.

Andrews, who also listed an address in the 7500 block of North Mona Lisa, was booked into jail about 2:30 p.m. on suspicion of crimes similar to those on which the Monteverdes were being held, a jail clerk said.

According to Barkman, a resident of a complex in the 2600 block of West Ina Road was awakened shortly before 4 a.m. by the noise of someone breaking into his apartment.

One of the three intruders hit the resident with a pistol, and then the assailant and his companions made off with a television, a safe, computer equipment and weapons, Barkman said.

No shots were fired, Barkman said.

Closing arguments Thursday in malpractice case

The uncle of Christopher Lambeth said “knives and throwing stars” were confiscated from Lambeth’s room in the last few months before he murdered his grandparents with a knife.

Their bodies were so disfigured that their coffins were closed to mourners, according to testimony Wednesday in a medical malpractice-wrongful death case under way in Pima County Superior Court.

The civil lawsuit, filed by Lisa Lambeth, who is Christopher Lambeth’s mother, and her sister Karen McCollum, blames COPE and the Community Partnership of Southern Arizona for allegedly failing to provide proper mental health care for Lambeth.

On April 10, 2005, Lambeth attacked his grandparents Carl and Patricia Gremmler with a knife. He is serving two concurrent life sentences at the Arizona State Hospital for the murders.

COPE was Lambeth’s mental health provider for two years prior to the stabbings.

The partnership is the nonprofit agency that oversees publicly funded mental health providers in southern Arizona, including COPE. Lambeth received subsidized care from COPE because he was found to be disabled by serious mental illness.

The uncle, Mark McCollum, told a jury that Lambeth “locked horns” with his grandfather, Carl Gremmler, 76, in the weeks before the murders and exhibited “very bizarre and violent behavior” but McCollum didn’t tell his wife, or alert authorities or Lambeth’s mother.

Lambeth was 20 when sheriff’s deputies found him in bed at his grandparents’ Rillito home and discovered their bodies. They had been dead for two days.

McCollum, who said he spent most weekdays at the Gremmlers helping to restore cars and do chores for his in-laws, said Gremmler was “the head of the family” and it was not McCollum’s place to call authorities about his concerns about Lambeth.

“That was his (Gremmler’s) call,” he said.

He also said he didn’t tell his wife, Karen, about Lambeth’s “increasingly bizarre behavior” because “I didn’t want to upset her any further than she needed to be.”

The suit named Lambeth’s psychiatrist, Dr. Virgil Hancock III, as a defendant.

He was a contract provider for COPE but not an employee and he settled with the Gremmlers’ two daughters in October 2008, according to court records.

Details of the settlement were not publicly disclosed.

Hancock testified as a witness in the civil damage case Wednesday.

He said that if he had been told “of possible danger or a safety issue” by Lisa Lambeth or other family members, “I would have needed to address that.”

“Any information that showed the Gremmlers were at risk would have caused me to do something,” he said.

He said he was never told they might be in danger.

Lambeth had been treated for mental illness with medication for at least two years before the killings. Based on his monthly visits with a psychiatrist and a COPE case manager, he appeared not to need 24-hour care, according to court documents.

Lisa Lambeth said in testimony earlier this week she blames COPE and CPSA for not finding a residential placement for her son, who took multiple psychiatric medications for “schizoaffective and bipolar disorders,” court records show.

Lisa Lambeth’s two children, Christopher and his sister, lived with the McCollums for four years at their mother’s request, following their father’s accidental death, according to testimony in the case.

His mother took her own apartment during that time, according to Mark McCollum’s testimony.

McCollum said Lambeth never displayed any symptoms of mental illness or violent tendencies during the period Lambeth lived with his aunt and uncle.

But in the months before the stabbings, McCollum said he saw Lambeth repeatedly strike a tree trunk with a hockey stick while speaking incoherently.

He also said he saw a bruise on Carl Gremmler’s face that Gremmler said was the result of Lambeth hitting him, but he did not call authorities to report the alleged assault.

He said Gremmler was deeply religious and “feared no evil and no man,” and felt that “God would take care of things.”

But he said Patricia Gremmler, 72, was so fearful of her grandson that she carried pepper spray in a bathrobe pocket at all times and hid pepper spray on a bookshelf in her home to defend herself from him.

McCollum said the couple never slept at the same time so one of them could observe Lambeth.

McCollum said Lambeth usually spent weekdays at his grandparents and weekends with his mother.

But on the weekend the Gremmlers were killed, his mother traveled to Mesa, leaving him with her parents on a Friday, and never spoke to them again.

Lambeth had complained that he did not like staying in the rural community, according to court documents.

McCollum said the Gremmlers required Lambeth to stay in his room whenever Carl Gremmler left the house.

He said Lambeth would knock holes in the walls of the room and kick them while he was confined.

Closing arguments in the case are set for Thursday.

Leal says Trasoff meeting in “twos and threes” with colleagues improper

City Council budget talks derailed Tuesday amid allegations of a violation of the state’s Open Meetings Law.

In proposing a plan to cut spending to nonprofit groups and other jurisdictions that could save the city $1 million, Councilwoman Nina Trasoff described meeting with her colleagues “in twos or in threes.”

The descriptions raised questions for at least one council member who was not included, as three of his colleagues were. A meeting of four council members represents a quorum and makes public notice necessary under the law.

After listening to Trasoff’s explanation of her proposal and how she came to it, Councilman Steve Leal said: “That’s really a violation of the Open Meetings Law. That violates transparency.”

He said he was rebuked in the 1990s for similar action.

Trasoff said later that she met separately with council members Regina Romero, Karin Uhlich and Shirley Scott “to get their input on some of the things I was thinking.”

She said what she proposed integrated her colleagues’ suggestions, so she felt that she could not alone take credit for the savings plan.

“But it doesn’t represent an agreement,” she said. “And we didn’t vote. I’m not even sure that my colleagues would vote for it.”

Trasoff denied that her meetings were inappropriate.

“There was no rotation (of speaking with other council members),” she said. “There was no collusion.”

At least one legal expert said Trasoff’s chain of meetings was an example of “polling the public body” and a violation of the law.

“If she’s meeting with them separately and trying to achieve consensus, it’s a violation,” said Dan Barr, a lawyer who specializes in media law with Perkins Coie Brown and Bain in Phoenix. “Why is she meeting with a quorum if not to achieve a level of consensus?”

Barr said that if a court was to find that there was a violation, it would nullify legal action related to the illegal discussion.

In this case, that means the city budget and its most politically sensitive bits.

Trasoff said her motivation in identifying the savings was to avoid instituting a tax on residential rental properties, a proposal hundreds of Tucsonans have protested at public hearings.

Protesters have highlighted the city’s $12.7 million allocation to so-called “outside agencies” such as Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Tucson Pima Arts Council as a place to cut spending and thus avoid the $17.4 million in proposed tax increases in a $1.3 billion budget.

That funding, however, has historically gone to organizations that function as key sources of political support and to groups that officials view as complementary to their policy aims.

Before the acrimony broke out, City Manager Mike Letcher tried to make clear what those policy aims are in the context of the budget.

“One of the things we need to explore is ultimately, what kind of community do we want in the future?” he said. “. . . $68 million (in expected sales tax revenue) is gone, and that’s serious.”

Marie Nemerguth, assistant to the city manager, said that under the proposed budget, residents can expect stable public safety staffing and a cut of 8.6 percent to the allocation to outside agencies from the year before.

She described how the city has eliminated 400 positions, cut department budgets by more than 7 percent and public safety allocations by 2.5 percent, as well as forcing employees to take what amounts to a 2 percent pay cut and benefits cutback.

Trasoff portrays her proposal as a way to face the issue head-on.

She suggests funding two job training programs that began under Pima County Interfaith Council, a group with substantial political clout, for six months and then requiring JobPath and School Plus Jobs to submit to a competitive process.

She recommends cuts to the amounts Letcher recommended the council give to Tucson Gem and Mineral Society and other groups but adding funding to Tucson Botanical Gardens, Tucson Children’s Museum, Tucson Museum of Art and the Critical Path Institute.

“It’s just a concept,” she said, after running through the changes.

Scott and Romero backed Trasoff up, at least about the appropriateness of the meetings.

Scott bristled at Leal’s suggestion that the talks were out of line, pointing out that she sometimes has lunch with him.

Romero said she thought Leal took the meetings out of context.

“I have to have the opportunity to speak to my colleagues, of course without breaking the law,” she said. “I really appreciate (Trasoff) wanting to build some consensus in the group.”

Romero also said she disagreed with the central point of Trasoff’s plan – deciding which outside agency gets what – preferring instead “an across-the-board, depoliticized cut” based on this fiscal year’s allocations.

Uhlich, who listened to the meeting by phone, didn’t enter the debate and focused on her proposal: to increase the utility tax by 2 percent instead of 1 percent to replace the rental tax.

After the study session, City Attorney Mike Rankin said, “There was no violation of the Open Meetings Law today.”

As to whether Trasoff’s string of meetings constituted a violation, he said, “From what I heard today, no comment.”

Lambeth

The mother of Christopher Lambeth, who killed his grandparents – her parents – in 2005, said she never filed a grievance against COPE or his psychiatrist while they provided medical care to her son for about two years before the killings.

She is suing them in Pima County Superior Court, claiming wrongful death and malpractice. The case, in Judge Carmine Cornelio’s court, began last week.

Under cross-examination Tuesday by defense attorneys, Lisa Lambeth said she waited for months for a residential placement from COPE for her son while he washed his hands 10 times a day, talked to himself, paced back and forth incessantly and used “special hand signals.”

She blames his psychiatrist, Dr. Virgil Hancock III, a COPE employee, and the behavioral health provider for her parents’ April 10, 2005, killings at the hands of her son.

Christopher Lambeth, now 24, was taking lithium and other drugs to control symptoms of his mental illness, including psychosis.

Lisa Lambeth and her sister Karen McCollum filed the lawsuit, claiming negligence was a cause of the violence that ended the lives of Lisa’s parents, Carl and Patricia Gremmler.

Carl was 76 and Patricia 72 when they were stabbed by Lambeth, who is serving two concurrent life terms in the Arizona State Hospital.

During testimony in the civil suit Tuesday, Lisa Lambeth said her son told her he killed his grandparents because “he thought they were trying to tell him what to do. He really can’t articulate that very well.”

She said she feels no responsibility for her parents’ deaths.

Attorneys for COPE and the nonprofit Community Partnership for Southern Arizona, which oversees COPE and other behavioral health providers in southern Arizona, said Tuesday there were several things she could have done to help her son and protect her parents.

They asserted she is partly responsible for what happened.

She knew, she admitted, that her son would sometimes not take his medications and that she had called police because of Christopher’s alleged menacing and punching holes in the wall.

Before Lambeth left for Mesa for several days to be with her husband, she did not make sure her son’s blood level for lithium was tested to see if he was properly medicated, even though she knew it was necessary, she said during questioning.

She admitted under cross examination that she did not advise her parents before they took Christopher Lambeth into their home for the weekend that the blood test needed to be done to make sure his medication was at a therapeutic level.

“She wasn’t sufficiently concerned,” said CPSA attorney Marshall Humphrey.

Lambeth said she attended her son’s monthly appointments with his psychiatrist and asked each time for her son to be placed in a residential facility where he could get full-time care.

She never filed a petition with the court to have her son committed to a hospital for psychiatric observation after she thought he was a danger to himself or others, she conceded. She also said she did not bring him to an emergency room for an evaluation when he seemed to be agitated and uncooperative. But she did call 911 to have authorities take him to a hospital after one incident.

In the months before the killings, Christopher Lambeth was held for about a day in a psychiatric facility and then was released to his family, according to court records.

Defense attorneys accused her of seeking revenge with the lawsuit, quoting her from her therapist’s records: “I will bring them down.”

Lambeth responded, “It’s not revenge. I have a desire for justice. I feel they should be held accountable.”

She said she left her son with her parents during the week while she worked full time in human resources and kept him at her home on weekends.

Defense attorneys said that as a human resources specialist, she should have known that she had other avenues besides waiting for COPE to find her son a residential placement.

She could have gone over the psychiatrist’s head and complained to his supervisors but she did not, or look for a placement herself.

“I trusted him,” she said of the psychiatrist.

“I’ve lost my mom and dad and son. This has been ripped from me by two organizations who didn’t care about us,” she said. “I feel they are responsible for the death of my mom and dad.”

QUEEN CREEK – Nine-year-old Gunner DeBesk, who has autism, attends Walker Butte Elementary, a public school that integrates students with special needs in physical education classes and lunch period.

Betsy Custard’s 12-year-old Cammie attends ASCEND Academy, a private school in Prescott for children with autism.

In March, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a voucher system used by nearly 500 families across the state to help pay tuition at private schools was unconstitutional. That figure included about 300 families of children with special needs; the rest are families with foster children.

While some families benefiting from the vouchers say private schools are the best place for their children, others say that public schools can and do work effectively with special-needs children.

Amanda DeBesk said that Walker Butte has helped her son develop in ways that she didn’t think possible just five years ago.

Most of Gunner’s day is spent on motor skills – on exercises such as wiggling his toes in a bin of rice or jumping into a pile of foam padding. He works with a speech therapist once a week.

“They’ve really worked well with him. On top of the autism, he’s also very shy,” she said. “They took his shyness into account, and now he’s coming around and interacting with the other students and adults.”

Custard, a special education teacher in the Prescott Unified School District, uses a voucher to send Cammie to ASCEND. She said Cammie went to public school in the Humboldt Unified School District for three years, but she moved her to ASCEND because an aide assigned to look after her daughter and other students couldn’t provide the attention she needed.

“If ASCEND isn’t here, I’d have to consider whether or not I would send her to school,” Custard said.

Chris Thomas, director of legal services for the Arizona School Boards Association, said that private schools aren’t necessarily the answer for parents of children with special needs.

“It’s the school’s responsibility to educate these children, and if they can’t do it themselves they make other accommodations,” he said. “They (parents) just don’t have the absolute right to say they want to go to a different school.”

Thomas said that for each special-needs student, a group including three or four teachers, therapists and the parents develops an individualized education plan that sometimes calls for private school if that works better for a certain child.

“We’re not going back to the dark ages here,” Thomas said. “The vouchers came into place in 2006; we’ve been educating these kids for over 100 years.”

Pima County sheriff’s detectives are investigating the death of Arthur Huerta Nabor, 30, whose father and brother said they restrained him facedown on a couch until he became unresponsive Saturday, according to court documents.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.

Deputies were called to a domestic disturbance at the family home in the 5700 block of South Bryant Stravenue, near Alvernon Way and the Benson Highway, at 3 a.m., she said in a news release.

According to a search warrant return obtained Tuesday by the Tucson Citizen, sheriff’s investigators took drug paraphernalia, a “green leafy substance,” “various unknown prescription medications/narcotics,” and a small plastic bag “with powder residue” from the home as evidence.

They also took a plastic bag containing “unknown pills” from a brown purse and “unknown pills” from a closet in the house.

Family members told paramedics Nabor was using crack cocaine and fighting with family members, according to the search warrant papers.

Paramedics could not revive Nabor, according to those documents.

The search warrant request states that Nabor may have used a frying pan and a water pitcher as weapons.

Nabor was held on a couch in the living room, according to documents in the case. A detective described the incident as “somewhat of a prolonged event.”

Deputies said they believed the death may have been caused by “fighting,” according to the documents.

A kitchen blender and cell phones were also taken as evidence.

No one has been charged in the death. The investigation is continuing.

Autopsy drug test results can take up to six weeks.

Two chief academic officers whose jobs were being eliminated in a reorganization at Tucson Unified School District were hired for next year as assistant superintendents.

Maggie Shafer will be assistant superintendent for elementaries; Jim Fish, assistant superintendent for middle schools.

The newly created jobs, which will pay between $95,000 and $120,000 annually with a possible $10,000 performance bonus, will include more responsibilities than chief academic officers had, said Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen.

The governing board on Tuesday night voted unanimously for these two appointments, and for three principals:

• Joe, Hermann, acting principal at Banks Elementary, 3200 S. Lead Flower, will become its permanent principal next year.

• Santa Rita High Assistant Principal Frank Armenta will be Cholla High Magnet principal;

• Paul De Weerdt, Pueblo Magnet High assistant principal will become Mansfeld Middle School principal.

In other action the board voted 4-0, with member Adelita Grijalva out of the room, to allow the possibility of a reduction in salaries if Legislative cuts are “substantially” more than the expected worst-case cut of $45 million for 2009-10.

Also, the board majority rejected by a 4-1 vote, a plan by member Bruce Burke to cut the 3.2-person governing board office staff by one full-time employee and one part-time one.

Trimming that office also was a recommendation of auditors the board hire last year.

Burke, who said he wasn’t “making this decision lightly,” said the cuts would bring the board staff in line with comparable staffs in Arizona and across the nation and would save the district $75,000,.

But member Miguel Cuevas said the board should go along with a 12.8 percent cut for $33,000 proposed by the district director of staff services. That cut is being done by decreasing overtime and supplies and discontinuing dues to the National School Boards Association. “I think Mr. Burke is incorrect and missing the bus completely,” Cuevas said. “It’s the employees that make this district.”

But Burke said the board should “set an example” and make the staff cuts plus the reduction in overtime, supplies and dues. “We’d save $100,000.”

Board President Judy Burns said comparison’s can’t be made between TUSD’s board staff and others because TUSD’s takes on more responsibilities. “We’ve already given up one full-timer,” she said. “Our staff archives everything that happens here. No other district does that.”

Clerk Mark Stegeman said the board office also works collaboratively with union groups. He said Burke’s plan “contains merit, but is premature.”

Traffic backs up at Campbell Avenue and Allen Road on Tuesday as Tucson Water Department employees work on a waterline break. The water supply was disrupted to two shopping centers and an apartment complex.

An 8-inch waterline break beneath Campbell Avenue was repaired by 11 p.m. Tuesday and Campbell was opened for traffic in both directions shortly after that.

Tucson Water Department spokesman Fernando Molina said Wednesday that the road was closed after a line running under the middle of the street broke Tuesday afternoon for an undetermined reason.

He said the water supply to a shopping center and to an apartment complex on Campbell was interrupted by the waterline break about 1:30 p.m.

Water service was restored late Tuesday to the shopping center and to the apartment dwellers, Molina said.

City employees distributed water to residents and businesses in the area.

A Tucson police captain has been named an assistant chief, filling the slot left open when Roberto Villaseñor was sworn in as police chief last week.

Terry Rozema, a 22-year veteran of the Tucson Police Department, will be in charge of the Support Services Bureau, which includes the homeland security and traffic enforcement sections of the department, as well as the SWAT team.

The bureau’s former head, Assistant Chief Kathleen Robinson, will take over Villaseñor’s duties running the Investigative Services Bureau, which includes the special investigations, property crimes and forensic divisions.

She also will oversee the violent crimes section, the Counter Narcotics Alliance and the gang unit.

Before his promotion, Rozema ran TPD’s portion of the multi-agency Counter Narcotics Alliance.

Two homes were destroyed Monday afternoon in unrelated fires that began outside the houses before moving into the buildings.

Tucson Fire Capt. Tricia Tracy said the fires left a family of six and a couple without places to live. The American Red Cross is providing shelter to them.

In the first blaze, a woman called 911 to report a fire at her West Side home, then left the scene to pick up a child from school, Tracy said in a news release.

Tracy said a smoke detector sounded shortly after noon as the woman was getting ready to leave the home in the 2200 block of South Hiram Banks Court, near South Mission Road and West Ajo Way.

Neighbors also called 911 to report that the fire was in the carport and that an elderly woman and some small children might be inside.

Firefighters arrived minutes later to find the carport and two vehicles burning. Smoke and flames were also coming through the windows in the front of the home.

A quick search revealed that nobody was in the house, Tracy said.

The blaze caused an estimated $150,000 of damage, destroying the vehicles and the home where the woman lived with five others, including three children.

Tracy said it is important that families plan escape routes from a home in case of fire and designate a meeting place in a safe area away from the building.

Tracy said family members should stay at the meeting spot until firefighters arrive to tell rescuers if any people or animals remain inside, and where they may be located.

The cause of the fire is under investigation but Tracy said it appears it have started in the carport.

The second blaze, which started about 2 p.m. was caused by a faulty electrical panel on the back porch of a home in the 3200 block of South Harrison Road.

A man and a woman were home at the time of the fire. They heard a loud noise coming from the back of the house followed by a smoke alarm going off.

Firefighters responding to 911 calls from the couple and neighbors found the porch and interior of the home ablaze.

The fire caused about $200,000 of damage, Tracy said.

A man who collided with and killed a motorcyclist on June 21 while driving with a 0.210 percent blood-alcohol level was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to negligent homicide.

Robert William Becker, 39, initially was charged with second-degree murder.

To avoid a trial, he pleaded guilty last week to negligent homicide, felony endangerment and driving with a blood- alcohol concentration of 0.15 or higher, a misdemeanor.

A driver is presumed impaired at 0.08 or higher in Arizona.

Becker was driving north on Flowing Wells Road when he turned west in front of Alan Echols, who was riding his motorcycle south on Flowing Wells, authorities said. Echols died at the scene.

The partially mitigated sentence was based on recommendations from the county’s Pretrial Services. Becker has no prior felonies, was genuinely remorseful and had begun to rehabilitate himself.

On the DUI charge, Superior Court Judge Edgar Acuña sentenced him to 33 days of incarceration, equal to the period he served in jail before he was released to Pretrial Services.

He was sentenced to five years in prison with consecutive community supervision on the negligent homicide charge.

On the endangerment charge, Becker got a suspended sentence of probation and he must take part in an aggravated DUI program for three years after completing his prison sentence.

Jose DeJesus Ortiz, 26, who eluded authorities for six years in connection with a March 17, 2002, killing, was found guilty of first-degree murder Friday by a Pima County Superior Court jury.

Ortiz’s defense attorney, Harley Kurlander, said his client was trying to help his friend, Jeffrey Roberts, when he saw Roberts grappling with Greg Arbuckle, 23, in Roberts’ home.

Arbuckle was shot six times with a .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun, prosecutor Jonathan Mosher said.

The shooting was reported in local media as an attempted drug ripoff and robbery of Arbuckle.

Roberts testified last week that Arbuckle was selling methamphetamine out of the house where Roberts lived with his mother and sister. Arbuckle and Roberts’ sister shared a bedroom.

Arbuckle kept a safe and a handgun in the bedroom, according to testimony in the case.

Roberts testified against Ortiz in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. He said he and Ortiz and other friends talked about “jacking” Arbuckle – robbing him of money from the safe.

But Roberts said they decided not to do that.

They hung out over several hours, drinking alcoholic beverages laced with “a handful” of unspecified pills. They also smoked marijuana from a water pipe, he said.

Arbuckle had methamphetamine in his system, an autopsy showed.

Roberts testified he walked to his East Side house with a gun in his waistband after partying with friends nearby and he began to argue with Arbuckle over a “lack of respect.”

The verbal confrontation became physical, he said.

Both men had pointed guns at each other at one moment.

As they fought, Ortiz entered the home, picked up a handgun he saw on the floor and fired six times. Four bullets struck Arbuckle in the back.

Roberts’ sister, a witness to the shooting, also testified that Ortiz shot Arbuckle.

Ortiz and Roberts were indicted in March 2002.

Ortiz fled and was on the Pima County Attorney’s Most Wanted list for six years until he was picked up in Phoenix last year under a false name on an unrelated matter. He was linked to the Arbuckle killing by fingerprints, according to court documents.

Ortiz faces a sentence of up to life in prison. He will be sentenced in June.

Roberts pleaded guilty to manslaughter and faces seven to 21 years in prison. He will be sentenced May 15 on the manslaughter charge.