Blanche White (left) visits with laundromat owners Michael and Clarisse Kostolny on Thursday at the Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, 3993 E. Grant Road. White is president of the Oak Flower Neighborhood Association, which will be honoring the laundromat for neighborly service.

Some people who live near the intersection of East Grant Road and North Alvernon Way used to avoid shops there.

“People want to shop near their homes,” said Blanche White, 73, president of the Oak Flower Neighborhood Association, one of four neighborhoods bordering the intersection.

But “in one neighborhood meeting, someone said, ‘I don’t feel safe there, so I drive to another place farther away.’

“That was really eye-opening, I think.”

Since that meeting some months back, the four neighborhood associations – Oak Flower, Garden District, Palo Verde and Dodge Flower – have worked with area businesses and organizations to make shopping a safer and more pleasant experience.

The associations are honoring seven with Business Good Neighbor Awards at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Tucson Botanical Gardens Pavilion, 2150 N. Alvernon Way.

The Botanical Gardens is one of the honorees for offering its facilities for neighborhood meetings and special events.

The others are Specialists in Dermatology, Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, Fry’s, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Sign-A-Rama and Emerge!

Those honored will get a certificate and a placard proclaiming they make good neighbors to place in their front windows.

“We have a lot of neighborhood businesses that are deserving,” White said. She added that more awards will be forthcoming.

The two businesses in her neighborhood, Specialists in Dermatology and Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, both had good reason to nab the awards.

The dermatology practice worked with residents even before the office was built a few years back. Some employees have attended neighborhood cleanups.

The laundromat has increased security by making sure a worker is always present and posting a security guard at night.

“One of the problems we have is the panhandlers that hang out in the parking lot,” White said. “Businesses have made more efforts to put security guards out, to walk people to their cars if they don’t feel safe. It’s improved considerably.”

The entire area has improved, said Tucson Police Department Capt. David Neri, who is in charge of the midtown division.

The Good Neighbor Awards are just one phase of a larger program, the Alvernon-Grant Initiative. Those involved include the associations, area businesses, Tucson police, City Council Wards 3 and 6, and Pima County Supervisor Districts 3 and 5.

Efforts began about four years ago, Neri said. One of the most successful phases started in February 2008.

“In our first monthly report, we removed in excess of 40 weapons off the street,” Neri said. A number of arrests and confiscated narcotics also were part of the effort.

“It’s far safer now than it has ever been.”

Progress has been marked from February 2008 to February 2009 with a 60 percent reduction in burglaries, auto thefts and all types of fraud, leading to a 13 percent overall dip in crime.

“It’s really a great project,” said George Pettit, spokesman for Councilwoman Karin Uhlich’s Ward 3 office. “People are working hard trying to turn around the neighborhood. It’s really a feel good kind of thing.”

Laundry attendant Lynda Rae Cody helps customer Omar Daniel Cruz at Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners.

PHOENIX – The oldest soldier to be killed in Iraq fought in Vietnam and decided to re-enlist at the age of 59 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the death of his wife, according to his brother.

Army Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, was killed in Iraq on Sunday after a homemade bomb went off near his vehicle in Al Farr, according to the Department of Defense.

Richard Hutchison of Scottsdale told The Associated Press on Thursday that his older brother Steven wanted to re-enlist immediately after the 9/11 attacks, but that his wife, Candy, didn’t want him to.

But when Candy died of breast cancer, “a part of him died,” so he signed up again in July 2007, according to his brother and the Army.

“He was very devoted to the service and to his country,” Richard Hutchison said. “For somebody to go back into the military at 60 years old, obviously I didn’t want him to do it, but he had a mind of his own and that’s what he wanted to do. He’s been a soldier his whole life.”

He said his brother never explained why he wanted to re-enlist, but that “I’m guessing it had something to do with them coming into our country and killing our people.”

“He wanted to go back in,” he added. “He wanted to do his share.”

He said Steven Hutchison served in Afghanistan for a year after he re-enlisted and went to Iraq in October as a team leader of about a dozen soldiers who would train Iraqi soldiers how to fight. But, he said his brother’s mission changed and that he was working to secure Iraq’s southern border instead.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nathan Banks said Thursday that Hutchison was the oldest Army soldier killed in Iraq.

An Associated Press database of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that Hutchison is the oldest member of any service branch killed since the wars broke out.

Richard Hutchison said Steven was a great big brother and a best friend who was always looking out for him. “He took care of me,” he said.

“I was worried about him. I didn’t want him to go (to Iraq),” he said through tears, adding that he loved his brother “so much.”

He said Steven Hutchison worked as a college professor of psychology at a couple of California universities and then worked at a private health care corporation in Arizona before he retired a few years ago.

Records at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles show that Hutchison taught in the psychology department there on and off between 1988 and 1996. Hutchison’s résumé, provided by the school, shows he was a lecturer at California State University in Long Beach and taught at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.

Hutchison was born in Cincinnati and raised in Long Beach, Calif. Steven and Richard have a half brother and half sister living in Michigan. Steven Hutchison married four times, and was married to Candy for 10 years before she died. He had no children.

Richard Hutchison said his brother will be buried next to Candy in Scottsdale, and that a funeral is tentatively planned for Tuesday.

Hutchison was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division at Ft. Riley, Kan.

A. Bates Butler III, an attorney with Fennemore Craig’s Tucson office, was named to the 2009 Southwest Super Lawyers list in the Criminal Defense: White Collar category.

Nine nurses from the Arizona Health Sciences Center were among this year’s “Fabulous 50″ Tucson nurses honored during National Nursing Week. Nurses from University Medical Center were Marianne Ayers, Brady Burleson, Crystal Clark, Kathryn Grabenbauer, Christine Pasquet, Michael Teschner and Candace Urrea-Garza. Virginia Phillips from University Physicians Healthcare and Judy Doan from the University of Arizona College of Nursing were also honored. The Fabulous 50 nurses were chosen from among more than 200 nominees for their role modeling and mentoring of others, concern for humanity, contributions to the Tucson community and significant contributions to nursing.

The A List gives props to the Tucson business community’s movers and shakers. Send information to alist@tucsoncitizen.com.

Officer Carmen Figueroa a 5-year veteran

A state Department of Public Safety officer who shot at and missed a man Monday afternoon has been identified.

Officer Carmen Figueroa, a five-year DPS veteran, is assigned to highway patrol duties in the Tucson area, said Officer Quentin Mehr, a Tucson-based DPS spokesman. Figueroa was not injured, Mehr said.

Mehr said Tuesday he had no new information on the shooting.

Events leading to the 1 p.m. shooting started with an attempt to stop the man, who was driving a Chevrolet Suburban on Interstate 10, Mehr said Monday.

The man fled, eventually getting off the interstate at the South Park Avenue interchange and stopping at a motel in the 1000 block of East Benson Highway.

There, he and Figueroa got in a confrontation, the details of which were unavailable. Figueroa fired one shot at the man, who ran away.

Area law officers searched the area for several hours without finding the man, Mehr said.

The man was described as about 5 feet 6 inches tall, wearing black denim shorts and a gray tank top.

Mehr asked anyone spotting the man to call 911or 88-CRIME. He warned people not to approach the man, as he is considered dangerous.

Obama to speak Wednesday

Michael Crow

TEMPE – The abortion flap over President Obama’s invitation to speak at Notre Dame’s graduation is getting all the attention.

But Arizona State – the mega-university where he’ll speak at commencement Wednesday – says a lot more about his education goals.

Obama has called for all Americans to pursue at least one year of higher education, and places such as ASU will be at the forefront of efforts to expand college access.

In recent years, the sprawling university has felt more like a booming company than a college. There is a new campus in downtown Phoenix and a newly expanded campus in nearby Mesa, along with dozens of new programs and hundreds of new faculty. As the state population has exploded, enrollment has surged by a third in eight years to 67,000 students, among the highest in the country. There are plans for 10,000 more within five years.

ASU’s president, Michael Crow, insists his university can be both great and big – with both world-class research and mass-scale teaching. He calls the experiment the “New American University” and it’s being closely watched nationwide.

“If there is a prototype school on track and designed to fulfill (Obama’s) mission, we are it,” said Crow, who became president in 2002. “We’re open, we’re accessible, we’re high quality – all those things that he talked about.”

But there are also cautionary tales in ASU’s experiences. Some aren’t persuaded high quality and rapid expansion are compatible. And after years of blistering growth, ASU has been hit hard by the economic downturn – a reminder that Obama’s target will be hopeless unless the economy starts growing again.

In his address to a joint session of Congress in February, Obama called for every American to pursue some form of education beyond high school. The United States has slipped to 10th in the world in its percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with an associate degree or higher.

In Arizona, a board of regents study found the state must double its number of bachelor’s degrees in the next 12 years just to meet the national average. Meanwhile, Hispanics – one-third of the population – enroll in college at less than half the rate of whites in the state.

Those challenges intensified this year when the bust of Phoenix’s real estate-based economy curtailed tax collections and the state cut $88 million of ASU’s funding. The school had to cap enrollment, freeze building projects and lay off 900 administrators, support staff and part-time teachers. The student newspaper called Crow’s “New American University” the “Neutered American University.”

As the Legislature considered even bigger cuts for the upcoming year, Crow reluctantly raised the possibility of closing two campuses.

Such worst-case options now look unlikely, thanks partly to federal stimulus money and a tuition surcharge approved last month. Full-time professors have kept their jobs but are picking up extra classes and handling clerical tasks that used to fall to support staff. Enrollment is expected to rise slightly next fall. Crow calls the economy a “100-year storm” but insists it won’t derail his long-term goals.

Even before the downturn, Crow had critics who thought ASU was trying to do too much.

“At times, it seems like the university wants to be all things to all people,” said John Chance, an anthropology professor on the Tempe campus. “We want to admit as many students as we can, and we want a topflight research faculty. We want to do them all. I, for one, have personal doubts of whether that is possible.”

For students, ASU offers endless choices, including more than 250 programs and majors. But personal attention is a challenge. The latest federal figures show ASU’s six-year graduation rate is about 56 percent – about the national average.

Colin Miller, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, lives in Tempe but likes to take classes at a campus 25 miles away.

“I don’t mind driving this far for smaller classes,” he said. But this year he had trouble getting into the courses he needed because they filled up so quickly.

In conjunction with Obama’s visit, ASU is expanding a key financial aid program and renaming it for the president, who has also called for the United States to have the world’s highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. The level of family income needed to qualify for ASU’s program will go from $25,000 to $60,000, and the number of Arizona freshmen who will benefit next fall will more than triple.

Meanwhile, ASU has risen into the top tier (No. 121) in the U.S. News & World Report College Rankings. The school has lured dozens of big-name faculty and lavished resources on an honors college that has attracted 674 National Merit Scholars during the last four years.

Crow has also won over many faculty with his relentless defense of higher education as the Legislature considered budget cuts. In February, faculty senators from ASU’s four campuses approved a resolution supporting him 68-4.

“We are coming out with a serious problem,” sociology professor and faculty senate president Gary Grossman said, “but because of the actions of the administration, it has not been catastrophic.”

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ON THE WEB

Arizona State University: www.asu.edu

Gomez

For Republican Judith Gomez, running for the Ward 5 seat on the City Council is about telling the truth.

“That’s the foundation of my life,” the 27-year-old mother of three said. “That’s what I teach my sons. Sometimes it’s going to be hard, but it’s about integrity.”

On the matter of truth-telling, she wants to start with the city budget, with how the city ought to manage its cash as a family does: necessities first.

“The council says they put public safety first, but I think when you study the way that they’re disbursing the money, it’s not true,” said Gomez, the wife of a Pima County Sheriff’s Department sergeant.

She says public safety is at the top of her priority list. She thinks the budget proposed for the fiscal year that begins July 1 diverts money from the city’s necessities, which she lists as public safety, smooth roads and economic development.

“They’re sending money to things that are less important than public safety,” Gomez said.

Among the recipients of money Gomez would prefer went to the Tucson Police Department are Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities and the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Honesty and family are undercurrents when Gomez speaks about seeking the council seat for Ward 5, roughly the area south of 22nd Street. Democrat Steve Leal has held the seat for 20 years but chose not to run for re-election.

Gomez describes her decision to decline admission to college as a quest for a greater challenge.

“I grew up in a broken home,” she said. “The challenge I decided to take up was to have a family and the security of a family and to have that family be healthy.”

She became a bookkeeper, a guardian of financial accountability, she says, emphasizing that she’s quick to learn.

“Just because I don’t maybe have the same things behind me that other people have, I can do this. I can learn,” she said.

Gomez hopes the Legislature won’t obliterate the funding for downtown redevelopment, but she advocates an overhaul.

“We need to build something that will bring revenue to Tucson,” she said. “Rio Nuevo was supposed to bring (progress) to Tucson, not decay, not delay.”

She says she’s opposed to a tax increase and thinks the current City Council is ducking its responsibilities by laying too much blame on the national economy.

As a solution, she offers an ear. She pledges to listen closely to Ward 5′s residents.

The other part of her solution is compromise. “You can’t find solutions by being rigid,” she said.

Shaun McClusky of the GOP is also seeking the Ward 5 seat, as is Democrat Richard Fimbres. The primary will be held in September.

Allows for stabilization, says President Crow

Arizona State University President Michael Crow says money from the federal stimulus program and a new tuition surcharge will provide the Tempe-based university with a financial “calming point.”

Crow told university faculty and staff in a video message e-mailed Friday that the additional funding will provide ASU with “sufficient resources to financially stabilization the institution” despite state funding cuts.

He said university officials plan to use the next two years to focus on lower-cost options and on faculty recruitment and retention.

In Crow’s words, “while the financial hurricane is far from over, we believe that we are stable moving forward.”

WASHINGTON – A new independent commission to investigate the cause of the financial meltdown and chart the nation’s path ahead will lean left politically, with Democrats getting to pick six members and Republicans four.

While a Republican senator helped write the legislation creating the commission, and nearly all congressional Republicans have endorsed the measure, the uneven split on the proposed Financial Markets Inquiry Commission could call into question the group’s impartiality and hamper its ability to raise consensus on the issue.

While it is not uncommon for a congressionally appointed panel to favor the majority party, high-profile issues often are given an even split to try to generate consensus.

The president hasn’t received the bill yet and already the 6-4 split designated in the measure has prompted partisan bickering.

In a statement Wednesday, Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., of “political opportunism” for putting the bill on the House floor.

Under the bill, the commission would focus on more than 20 areas, including how the government failed to protect investors and the role financial fraud may have played in the meltdown. The group would be able to issue subpoenas to interview witnesses and demand documents before it reports its findings by Dec. 15, 2010.

Tucson-area bankruptcy filings in April jumped 85 percent from the same month a year ago, according to statics released Wednesday.

Arizonans, stung by particularly heavy job losses and housing weakness, are filing for protection at a much higher rate than Americans generally.

“People are throwing in the towel like we’ve never seen before,” said Brad Stroh, co-CEO of Freedom Financial Network, a firm with a debt-negotiation unit in Tempe that employs 250 people. “A lot of them are saying, ‘I need to hit the reset button.’ ”

There were 643 bankruptcy filings last month in the Tucson sector, compared with 348 in April 2008, according to the report by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona. Sixty-one percent of those filings were in Pima County. The Tucson sector also includes Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pinal and Santa Cruz counties.

The majority of the filings were Chapter 7, which is liquidation for individuals and small businesses. There were 532 Chapter 7 filings in April, a 105 percent increase over the same month last year.

Personal reorganization filings, Chapter 13s, were up 23 percent. And Chapter 11 filings, business reorganizations, jumped 40 percent over last year, though the total number is small: seven.

In the first four months of 2009, there were 2,023 filings in in the Tucson sector.

James Portman Webster, a bankruptcy attorney in Mesa, sees consumers pressured from several angles, including high credit-card debts and job losses. Even for workers who keep their jobs but face pay cuts or temporary furloughs, the income disruption can be enough to push some over the edge. “Any wiggle room some of these people had is just gone,” he said.

Webster attributes the April surge in part to the tax-return filing season, since refund money provides the cash for some debtors to pay attorney fees and other bankruptcy expenses.

Other factors might be at work, too. Stroh said he senses a shift in public attitudes toward bankruptcy, as filing for protection from creditors has lost the stigma it once had.

In years past, “People would do anything to avoid filing,” he said. “But from (General Motors) and Chrysler down to the neighbors next door, it has become the American thing to do.”

Stroh has noticed fewer people seeking to work out their financial woes through his firm’s Freedom Debt Relief unit by consolidating debt and negotiating with creditors outside of bankruptcy.

“Demand for our products is still high, but it’s off from the peak,” he said. “We often can cut their monthly payments by 50 percent, yet a ton of people can’t afford even that.”

The statewide total of 2,902 filings in April marked an 87 percent increase from a year earlier. For the entire U.S., consumer filings rose 36 percent in April from the same month a year earlier, reported the American Bankruptcy Institute, using data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center. The overall April total of 125,618 filings was up 3.5 percent from March and puts the nation on pace for 1.4 million cases in 2009.

The Arizona Republic contributed to this report.

Peter Smith

The Phoenix Mars Lander mission has been a successful steppingstone to greater discoveries on our neighboring planet, Peter Smith said Tuesday night.

Smith, the principal investigator for the University of Arizona-led mission, told about 125 people attending a Flandrau Science Center science cafe event that mankind is likely to set foot on Mars.

“Eventually I think the human race will get to Mars,” he said.

“There are no technology hurdles that would stop you from sending people to Mars. But you really want to be sure you are bringing back live astronauts.”

He said the seven-month journey each way and planet positioning means that the mission would likely last three years.

Current plans call for such a mission to take place between 2030 and 2035, he said. But if there are problems with efforts sooner to send people to the moon again, there will be a delay going to Mars.

The Phoenix Lander tasted frozen water in material scooped from the planet’s northern arctic region, but found no conclusive evidence that life exists or existed on the planet.

That will likely change.

“I’m predicting that in 10 years we will have found strong signatures of life on Mars or the other planets we’ve discovered,” Smith said. “We’re not trying to make Mars into something it isn’t – it may not have life. If that’s the case it’s still a great planet that has no life.”

Smith fielded many questions from the capacity crowd at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, which featured a special $4 Martian margarita to mark the occasion.

When asked if Mars is the new high ground for U.S. military imperialism, Smith said no, adding tongue in cheek that the moon would be a much better choice for a military outpost.

“I don’t think there is any military use of Mars – not in a decade, a century or a millennium,” he said.

He said there was no question about basing the mission in Tucson.

“I didn’t want to participate if we didn’t do it my hometown. I grew up here,” Smith said to applause from the crowd.

Steve Walkosak, 69, a Tucson Realtor and investor, said the presentation was great.

“We got to see what they had to go through to put it together and see what they found out,” Walkosak said.

On Arizona Skin Cancer Institute’s Web site

A new tool to detect skin cancer has been made public by the Arizona Cancer Center’s Skin Cancer Institute.

“Skin Cancer: Learn to Spot it Early” is a 12-minute video that shows how to do skin self-exams to find growths that could be or lead to cancers, said Lois Loescher, the institute’s director of education and behavior research.

The video may be found at www.azskincancerinstitute.org/SCVideos.aspx.

“The whole purpose of doing the video is getting people to do skin self-exams,” she said. “Everyone should know how to examine his or her skin regardless of risk factor.

“Early detection really plays a role in survival from skin cancer,” Loescher said. “It’s very important to protect yourself from the sun, but if you don’t catch it early, you increase your chances of having the disease be much more serious.”

A study proved the video’s effectiveness, she said.

“We found a highly significant change – more people were doing skin self-exams after viewing the video,” Loescher said. “We also found a very significant change in knowledge; they had more knowledge about melanoma.”

The video stresses the importance of early detection of skin cancers. Melanoma survival rates are 98 percent if detected early, she said.

The video recommends that people carefully examine their skin each month for changes in moles and spots.

Hand-held and full-length mirrors are needed for an effective self-exam.

Things to look for in moles and spots include asymmetry, border irregularities, color variation, diameter larger than a pencil eraser and changing appearance and feel.

People finding anything suspicious should contact their primary care physician or dermatologist.

Producing the video and testing its effectiveness were funded with a $25,000 Laurence B. Emmons Endowment, said Loescher, principal investigator of the project.

The video was released on the institute’s Web site Friday and shown at a Living in Harmony with the Sun event Saturday and Sunday at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The event was to promote sun safety, awareness and skin cancer prevention.

A follow-up video on skin cancer prevention tactics is planned, Loescher said.

The video won the American Academy of Dermatology’s Gold Triangle Award, said Jennifer L. Allyn, spokeswomen for the Schaumburg, Ill., organization.

The award recognizes efforts that further understanding of dermatologic issues and encourage healthy behaviors in the care of skin, hair and nails, Allyn said.

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RELATED

Arizona Cancer Center Skin Cancer Institutes video site: www.azskincancerinstitute.org/SCVideos.aspx

Pima County Superior Court Judge Edgar Acuña sentenced Cirilo Pedro Macias Jr., 21, to 14 years in prison Monday for the baseball bat attack on Francisco Jacques on July 19 that left Jacques in a permanent vegetative state, according to court documents.

A photograph of the victim, permanently disabled and in a coma, was shown to the courtroom at Macias’ sentencing. Macias did not look at it.

Acuña, in determining the length of the sentence, cited the jury’s findings of aggravating circumstances that Jacques, then 22, suffered physical, emotional and financial harm from the attack.

The judge also found mitigating circumstances, including Macias’ lack of a prior felony conviction, family support and his potential to be rehabilitated.

Macias was indicted on charges of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or instrument and aggravated assault.

Acuña sentenced him to 10 years on the aggravated assault conviction, 10 years on the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon conviction and 14 years in prison on the attempted second-degree murder conviction. The sentences will run concurrently and Macias can apply for parole after serving 85 percent of the 14 years, almost 12 years.

He will get credit for 289 days in jail awaiting trial and sentencing.

Macias worked at a Wal-Mart as an “unloader,” according to court documents.

Jacques managed a restaurant at the time of the incident, according to Pima County prosecutor Jonathan Mosher.

Mosher said Jacques had been dating a co-worker over the July 4 holiday. The prosecutor said Macias was interested in her, too.

On the night of the attack, Jacques and the woman were standing outside her house when Macias and three of his friends approached the couple, according to court documents.

“Without any justification,” the prosecutor said in the documents, Macias “clubbed” Jacques in the head and face with a metal baseball bat “at least four times.”

Macias told Acuña at his sentencing hearing Monday he was simply concerned for the woman’s safety and that’s why he went to her house.

Jacques’ surgeon said his prognosis was “extremely poor for life” if he survived the attack and the risks “extremely high for deficits,” court documents state.

Macias told police he did not remember hitting Jacques with the bat. Several witnesses to the attack testified in Macias’ trial that the attack was unprovoked.

Macias’ mother, Gloria Macias, wept as she implored Acuña to show Macias mercy because he was sorry for the attack and accepted responsibility for it.

“He’s a good kid. He’s never gotten into trouble. He turned out well,” she told the judge.

Jacques’ mother, father and two sisters asked the judge for the maximum sentence of 21 years.

In a historic first, Uncle Sam has supplanted sales, property and income taxes as the biggest source of revenue for state and local governments.

The shift shows how deeply the recession is cutting. Federal stimulus money aimed at reviving the economy and a sharp drop in tax collections have altered, at least temporarily, the traditional balance of how states, cities, counties and schools pay for their operations.

The sales tax had been the No. 1 source of state and local revenue since the mid-1970s, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Before that, property taxes were the primary source. That changed in the first three months of 2009.

Federal grants – early stimulus money plus conventional federal aid – soared 15 percent in the first quarter to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $437 billion, eclipsing sales taxes, which fell 2 percent.

The dominance of federal money is set to expand dramatically this year because tax collections are sinking while the bulk of federal stimulus aid is just starting to arrive. “This money isn’t manna from heaven. It comes with a price,” says Indiana state Sen. Jim Buck, a Republican. He worries that the federal money will leave states under greater federal control and burden future generations with more debt.

Nick Johnson, a state finance expert at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says the federal aid is well-timed. “This has more to say about the severity of the recession than anything else,” he says. “Congress stepped in on a temporary basis to help states.”

The federal government plans to provide about $300 billion in extra aid to state and local governments during the next two years, mostly for health care, education and transportation projects. State and local governments spend about $2 trillion a year, and the federal government is now paying about 23 percent of those costs.

States are counting on tax collections rebounding by 2012, when stimulus money starts to run out.

The early flow of stimulus money helped lift total state and local revenue by 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with a year earlier despite a 2.9 percent drop in total tax collections. Spending rose 1.5 percent.

Compiled by Jared Juan. For information, call 573-4561.

LaMoine Ausbrook, 92, of Cottonwood, April 30, clerk. Evergreen Mortuary Cemetery & Crematory

Barbara Farley, 60, April 28, registered nurse. Adair Funeral Homes Avalon Chapel

Ruth Maxine Fritz, 88, April 27, homemaker. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

John Thomas Glover, 88, April 21, teacher. Adair Funeral Homes Dodge Chapel

Howard Wesley Hamm, 87, April 24, foreman. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Joseph A. Hettinger, 55, April 27, pilot. Evergreen Mortuary Cemetery & Crematory

Sean Patrick Kingsbury, 29, April 26, occupation unavailable. Adair Funeral Homes Dodge Chapel

Margaret P. Klotz, 93, April 25, homemaker. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Albert Meyer, 89, April 22, baker. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Mary Yvonne Miller, 53, April 25, teacher. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Jesus Felipe Navarro, infant, of Sierra Vista, April 26. Adair Funeral Homes Dodge Chapel

Velma “June” Owens, 87, April 28, homemaker. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Rose Mary Patterson, 81, April 26, homemaker. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Ruth Norma Reeder, 100, April 27, homemaker. Adair Funeral Homes Dodge Chapel

Archie W. Rifenbark, 80, April 25, plant operation. East Lawn Palms Mortuary

Devon B. Sullivan, infant, April 27. Evergreen Mortuary Cemetery & Crematory

Joseph Carl Termini, 85, April 26, electrician. Adair Funeral Homes Dodge Chapel

James H. Williams, 87, April 27, truck driver. Evergreen Mortuary Cemetery & Crematory

Virginia Weber Zaleski, 78, of Sahuarita, April 26, homemaker. Adair Funeral Homes Dodge Chapel

Briant Rodriguez

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Investigators were searching Monday for a 3-year-old boy kidnapped by two gunmen who broke into his family’s home, tied up his mother and four siblings, and stole property, authorities said.

The California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert late Sunday for 3-year-old Briant Rodriguez, about nine hours after the family called San Bernardino County authorities.

The men, each carrying a handgun, burst through the front door around 2:30 p.m. and tied up the boy, four of his siblings and their mother, Maria Rosalina Millan. They then ransacked the house and stole money and other property, the county sheriff’s department said.

After about 20 minutes, the men left with Briant, telling the still-bound mother and the other children not to call police, the department said in a statement.

A motive for the abduction remained unclear.

“It’s horrifying,” sheriff’s Lt. Rick Ells said. “I don’t think I could impress on you how rare a kidnapping like this is.”

One of the children – an 8-year-old boy – wiggled free from his ties and freed the rest of the family, sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said. Briant is the youngest sibling of Millan’s seven children. Her 16-year-old boy was not home and another adult child does not live at home. No witnesses saw the men’s vehicle.

The boy’s father, Raul Rodriguez, was at work at the time and the initial investigation pointed to the kidnappers being strangers to the family, Ells said. There were no emergency responses to the house in the previous 90 days.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border had been put on alert, and FBI investigators were also helping in the investigation.

The family lives in a modest, single-story home in a mainly lower-income slice of county territory abutting the city of San Bernardino, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles. Journalists photographed a distraught-looking Millan standing outside her home Monday.

Briant is a Hispanic boy 3 feet tall and weighs 40 pounds, with brown eyes and long, curly brown hair. He was wearing a yellow shirt, blue-striped shorts and black sandals when he was taken.