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.”

ABC News’ “20/20,” a newsmagazine show, will delve into the unsolved case as part of a series of shows featuring people who have disappeared.

Darien Biggs, Mikelle’s father, remains convinced that a sex offender sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for the brutal rape of a neighbor is responsible for his daughter’s murder.

While suspicion has focused on the convicted rapist, Mesa police consider Mikelle’s disappearance an open case and have never named a suspect. They say there isn’t enough evidence to charge anyone.

Mikelle disappeared about 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, 1999, at Toltec Street and El Moro Avenue in central Mesa. Mikelle had heard an ice cream truck and ran out to meet it. Her sister, Kimber, went home to get a jacket. Tracy Biggs, their mother, sent Kimber back to tell Mikelle to come home.

Only 90 seconds passed, but Mikelle already was gone, less than a block from the family’s house.

Mikelle’s body never was found. No one apparently witnessed what police still believe was an abduction. Police found Mikelle’s bicycle and two quarters she planned to use to buy the ice cream.

Elizabeth Vargas, an award-winning reporter who worked in Phoenix early in her career for KTVK (Channel 3) from 1986-1989, interviews the Biggs family as part of the show.

“It’s such a heartbreaking case,” Vargas said. “Within two minutes, she vanishes into thin air.”

Vargas said she has worked on profiles of 10 to 15 cases where people have vanished; some eventually were solved and others remain unsolved.

“I think the thing we have found repeatedly in these shows is that not knowing is the worst,” she said.

Darien Biggs called the “20/20″ interview another in a series of attempts to finally find out what happened to Mikelle after more than a decade.

“I won’t be a whole person again until we know for sure,” Biggs said. “I think there has to be more than one person in the world who knows what happened. It’s so hard to keep a secret.”

His hope is that the “20/20″ profile will jog memories and generate more tips for police, perhaps from someone who once lived in Mesa but has moved out of state.

“I just hope that someone will say something. You never know,” he said.

Danielle McBurnett has had people compare her to the main character in the old television show “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” about a teenage doctor.

The first time she heard that comparison, however, someone had to explain to her who Doogie Howser was. The show was canceled in 1993, when she was just 1 year old.

On Wednesday, McBurnett, 17, became the youngest person ever to receive a bachelor of science degree from Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation. She graduated summa cum laude from the program and plans to enroll in the school’s doctoral program in nursing practice in the fall.

McBurnett lives in Chandler with her parents, Ray and Lori, and three siblings. She was home-schooled, but at age 12 she started taking classes at Chandler-Gilbert Community College.

She received her associate degree (4.0 grade-point average) and high-school diploma at the age of 15 and enrolled at ASU.

She said she has never let her age stand in the way of accomplishments.

“Most people (when told her age) have just said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ When I meet people, I don’t wear a big name tag that says, ‘Hi, I’m Danielle, I’m 17.’ I’ll tell some people when it’s pertinent information, but I don’t let my age dictate who I am.”

McBurnett has always carried herself in a mature fashion, said her mother, Lori McBurnett.

“She was born an adult, that’s the world she wanted to live in,” she said. “When she was very, very small, she wanted to talk with the adults and be with the adults. She didn’t want to play with toys. That was her nature.”

Danielle McBurnett has also been active in performing arts: She plays piano and has acted in a variety of plays. That training has helped boost her confidence and allowed her to project herself in a more dynamic fashion.

She said college just sharpened her focus on a goal she has held since she was 10 years old.

“I knew I wanted to be a nurse,” McBurnett said. “Now, I’m more focused on what I want to be on top of that and the next degrees I want to get. Now, I want to be a nurse practitioner. After that, I’m even considering going to law school, too.”

McBurnett said she didn’t want to become a doctor because she wanted a closer relationship with patients and the doctor’s career path didn’t offer as much flexibility.

“Nurses really get to interact with patients more than doctors, typically,” McBurnett said. “I really want that human, patient interaction. Also, I want to have the ability to do lots of things. I don’t want to be confined to just being a doctor, and I feel like I can do that better as a nurse practitioner. And I want to possibly spend more time with my own children, some day in the future, and I feel I’d be better able to do that as a pediatric-nurse practitioner.”

She wants to eventually be an advocate for children, both domestically and abroad, which is why law school may be part of her future.

She has opinions on subjects ranging from the health-care system to tort reform that may make her seem mature beyond her years, but she has also taken part in more typical activities for girls her age.

“I did go to prom,” she said with a laugh. “The home-school community has its own prom. I’ve been to a number of dances, and I feel like I participated in every high school opportunity out there.”

ASU will begin allowing people to enter Sun Devil Stadium’s north gates at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday with staggered entry times thereafter until the gates close at 7 p.m. The pre-ceremony show will kick off at 4:45 p.m. The early arrival times are aimed at reducing the size of the crowd waiting in line at any one time in weather expected to reach a 99-degree high.

Still, ASU officials are warning people to expect up to a 90-minute wait to clear security checkpoints, which will be managed by U.S. Secret Service agents. And some people could spend up to seven hours under the scorching sun in an open-air stadium, waiting for the ceremony to wrap up with fireworks shortly after 9 p.m.That’s not counting time spent in traffic getting to and from the stadium.

Despite the wait, heat and other logistical headaches, the majority of ASU’s graduating class of about 9,267 students chose to attend commencement.

The pre-ceremony show includes an appearance by rock star Alice Cooper, mariachis, a gospel choir and a marching band. But the big draw is Obama.

Sarah Larson, a 23-year-old education major, said she is not an Obama supporter. But it never occurred to the future history teacher to let politics stand in the way of attending the commencement.

“My political views don’t exactly line up anywhere near his,” she said. “(But) no matter what your politics are it’s going to be a very cool thing. When else can you say I saw the president of the United States give my commencement speech?”

Ismael Paderez, 35, of Phoenix, has to arrive at the stadium at 3:00 p.m. He requested the maximum six tickets ASU offered graduates. Nothing, he said, would have prevented his family from attending the ceremony to see him get his degree in electrical engineering.

“I’m the first person on my father’s side to graduate from college,” he said. “With this economy . . . and looking for a job . . . I want to hear the president give a message of inspiration.”

ASU President Michael Crow will help fulfill the college dreams of five students who will become the first recipients of ASU’s President Barack Obama Scholars program. Crow will present the Valley high school students with the award following Obama’s address. ASU named the award in honor of Obama instead of providing him an honorary degree.

The scholarship offers up to $17,000 annually to help students pay for tuition, books, room and board.

Virgil Renzulli, an ASU spokesman, said ASU hopes the scholarship will serve as a national model for universities aiming to make college more affordable. Families making less than $60,000 annually qualify.

“We know that for Arizona to be competitive and the U.S. to be competitive we have got to produce more college graduates,” he said. “We hope this (scholarship) will have a lasting effect.”

While the commencement is making history-it appears to be the largest U.S. graduation ever and the biggest audience Obama will have addressed since his inauguration-public safety officials are more concerned with making sure the large crowds do not create a health or security hazard.

Cmdr. James Hardina, of ASU Police, said authorities are most concerned with the heat.

“This is a big event. There will be long lines. We want people to start hydrating at least the day before (commencement),” he said.

To ease traffic, ASU is encouraging people to take the light rail and other public transportation to commencement. Veteran’s Way and other surrounding streets near the stadium will be closed Wednesday.

Hardina said ASU’s 74 police officers and an additional estimated 150 officers from 18 Valley public-safety agencies will monitor the lines and stadium area. The Secret Service, he said, will man security checkpoints and will be in charge of the president’s security plan.

A member of the White House communications staff said people should expect security similar to that at airports and carry as few items as possible. People will go through metal detectors and be checked to ensure that they are not carrying prohibited items. Those include purses or bags larger than 12 inches on any side, balloons, signs or posters, weapons, pointed or metal objects, air horns, Mace or pepper spray.

Melissa Werner, ASU’s director of university ceremonies, said planning for the 2009 commencement has been a major task, especially given that last year’s commencement was one of the largest to date with about 12,000 people in attendance.

———

Going to commencement

The ASU commencement Web site, graduation.asu.edu, is updated frequently. ASU recommends those who plan to attend to check regularly for changes to rules or the schedule.

Where: Sun Devil Stadium, 500 E. Veterans Way, Tempe.

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Arrival: ASU has posted staggered arrival times for ticket holders on its graduation Web site. Because of traffic, closed roads, crowds and the security checkpoint, ASU is encouraging people to take public transportation to commencement. Those driving should allow extra time to park and walk to the stadium. Metro light rail is running all of its trains to help ease commencement traffic. But officials are still warning people to arrive at light-rail stations early as a wait to ride trains is expected. For more information on light rail, parking and other public- transportation options: valleymetro.org or uabf.asu.edu/ parking_commuter.

Street closures: Veteran’s Way will be closed from Mill Avenue to University Drive, beginning at noon Wednesday. The street will reopen at the end of the event. Surrounding streets will be closed for limited periods. The most current information about street closures can be found on ASU’s parking and transit Web site.

Not able to get a ticket? Live broadcast: ASU cable channel. A live webcast will be provided at graduation.asu.edu/live.

TICKETS

• Everyone age 3 and older must have a ticket to enter Sun Devil Stadium.

• Lost, stolen or damaged tickets cannot be replaced.

• Tickets are heat-sensitive. Do not leave them exposed to heat or sunlight.

• Sold tickets will be canceled.

PROTOCOL

• Graduates must have their caps and gowns when entering the stadium.

• Guests are not allowed on the field.

• People who engage in disruptive behavior may be removed from the stadium.

BEATING THE HEAT

• Bring sunscreen, hats, sunglasses and water bottles. Bottles must be discarded prior to entering the stadium.

• Concessions, free water and restrooms will be available inside and outside the stadium.

• There will be tents in several locations outside the stadium as well as “cool zones” outside and inside the stadium. Complimentary fans will be handed out.

• Ticket holders who are uncomfortable in the stadium can watch the ceremony on a large video screen in Wells Fargo Arena but are not allowed to re-enter the stadium once they have exited.

WHAT TO BRING

• Cameras, cellphones, MP3 players, binoculars and small tubes of sunscreen will be allowed through security.

• There is a list of prohibited items, including: tools, unopened packages, aerosols, fireworks or explosives, laser pointers, containers of any type, foods, alcohol, coolers or grocery bags, and poles or tripods.

• For a full list of prohibited items and other commencement regulations, refer to the ASU commencement Web site, graduation.asu.edu.

Ceremony highlights

Pre-ceremony

Appearance: 6 p.m., Runaway Phoenix featuring Dash Cooper with guest Alice Cooper.

Pre-ceremony show ends: 6:47 p.m.

ASU President Michael Crow’s greetings: 7:25 p.m.

President Barack Obama’s speech: 7:52 p.m.

Presentation of President Barack Obama Scholars, followed by distribution of diplomas: 8:08 p.m.

Fireworks: 9:11 p.m.

Fireworks end, field is cleared: 9:17 p.m.

With the help of a therapist from a state-funded program, Gabriel learned how to feed himself by holding a spoon in the crook of his arm. He also learned how to bend over and use his forehead to fasten the Velcro straps on his shoes and how to hold a pencil in his mouth to draw circles and lines.

But the programs that help 2,000 developmentally disabled children like Gabriel – and 2,000 mentally disabled adults – would be eliminated under cuts proposed by the Arizona Legislature to solve a $3 billion budget deficit.

Advocates for the developmentally disabled say that cutting early-intervention programs for children or vocational programs for disabled adults would be short-sighted and cost taxpayers millions more in the long run.

“Right now, I think with everything he’s learned, he’s perfect, he’s normal,” said Gabriel’s mother, Maria Palmerin.

She said she is inspired by her son to overcome obstacles in her own life.

“If he can do it, I can do it,” the west Phoenix mother said.

The proposed cuts affect about $41 million for state-funded disability programs and another $50 million to $60 million in state and federal money for long-term care for the more severely disabled.

For Gabriel, those cuts would be life-altering, said Tamara Gallinger, co-owner of Family Partners, a Peoria social-service agency that worked with him.

“He would be lying in a bed for the rest of his life, being cared for the rest of his life,” Gallinger said. “If we can reach a child between birth and 3 years old, they won’t need services. They’ll be able to walk, they’ll be able to talk.”

‘Millions of dollars’ saved

In Gabriel’s case, “we believe we saved the state millions of dollars” that otherwise would have been spent on his care over the course of his life, she said.

But state Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the state can’t spend money it doesn’t have. Legislators have no choice but to cut virtually all aspects of state government, he said.

“We’re dealing with a $3 billion budget deficit, and it’s growing every day,” Kavanagh said. “It’s hard to give any group immunity when the state is in a total meltdown.”

Kavanagh said the cuts for disabled programs are among the lowest in the state budget.

According to the proposed House budget plan, the state Department of Economic Security’s share of state revenues is being cut 9.8 percent. But when federal revenue and other sources are factored in, the net impact of the cut is only 2.7 percent. That is below the 3.4 percent average for the seven largest general-fund agencies.

“We understand they are a vulnerable population,” Kavanagh said. “That’s why we’re trying to have a minimal impact on them. We tried to protect them as much as we could.”

This is the second year of cuts for state agencies.

Hit hardest by DES cut

One of the measures lawmakers took to balance a $600 million deficit in the 2009 budget was a 10 percent across-the-board cut for DES, which led to state-supported programs for the disabled taking a hit because most other programs are federally mandated.

The DES cuts were placed on hold after a legal challenge that resulted in a temporary injunction to keep the cuts from taking effect. The ruling, however, was overturned by the state Court of Appeals last week. Now disabled advocates are appealing to the state Supreme Court.

Lawmakers are struggling to balance a deficit that has ballooned to $3 billion for the 2010 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

When Arizona State University officials got word that President Barack Obama would likely speak at a couple of university commencement ceremonies this spring, they quickly drafted a two-page letter in hopes of getting him at ASU.

They got right to the point.

“As president of Arizona State University, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to inform you that the university has selected you as our 2009 commencement speaker,” ASU President Michael Crow wrote in the March 12 letter.

The White House accepted.

On Wednesday, Obama will become the first U.S. president to speak at an ASU commencement.

The crowd expected to attend ASU’s commencement has swelled to 63,000 and appears to be the largest U.S. audience the president will have addressed since his inauguration.

She scanned the faces in the circle of mothers, each of whom was sharing the story of how her son was slain. Martin’s eyes settled on the tear-stained face of Victoria Garcia, whose grief was only 4 months old.

It had been more than 11 years since Martin’s own son was shot and killed, but the rawness of Garcia’s feelings was harrowing.

“Hearing her talk, I was reliving David’s death like it had just happened to me again,” Martin would later explain. “The pain you experience from an act of violence robs you of so much. For the parent of a child who’s murdered, your sorrow can surprise you, whether it’s been days since they died or years.”

Martin, 62, was one of six mothers who gathered last weekend for a three-day retreat in Pine, about 100 miles north of Phoenix. They came to find solace, guidance and hope. Like Martin, some members of this fated sorority came to find a new focus in their life. Others, like Garcia whose loss was so new, just wanted to know if their lives could ever be made whole. Some brought family members for emotional support during the weekend.

If the mothers were seeking a place of understanding, it would be here, in the mountain home of Roger and Carol Fornoff.

Twenty-five years ago this Saturday, the Mesa couple’s daughter was kidnapped, raped and smothered. The brutal death of 13-year-old Christy Ann Fornoff rocked the Phoenix area.

In the wake of her death, the Fornoffs have turned to help others like them, sharing a cabin that serves as a retreat.

On this weekend, the Fornoffs welcomed the women, members of the metro Phoenix chapter of Parents of Murdered Children, an advocacy and education organization. While the couple manned the kitchen, keeping meals and snacks at the ready, Beckie Miller led the retreat. Miller’s world was shattered in 1991, when her 18-year-old son, Brian, was shot by a gang suspect who was arrested and served seven years.

“I remember thinking, ‘I can’t live,’ ” Miller, 54, told the women as they began their sessions. “My son had such promise and was looking forward to a good life. I couldn’t believe he was gone.”

The six mothers, too, had lost sons. Four died of gunshot wounds. One was stabbed, the other bludgeoned.

“No matter how they died, it was senseless,” Miller said softly.

She took out a candle and asked each woman to light it and talk about the death.

Garcia began to speak, barely above a whisper. She held tightly to the candle as she lit a match in her son’s honor. Victor, 24, had been riding in a car in Phoenix with his cousins on Jan. 8, when an altercation erupted with someone passing by. Garcia was fatally struck by a bullet near his heart.

“I don’t understand what to do now that he’s gone,” said Garcia, 54, her voice choking. “We always had had each other. I should have been there for him, and I wasn’t.”

As they headed for bed that night, the women were physically and mentally exhausted.

“But it was good to just get to talk, knowing there were people who have been through the same thing,” said Amy Shaw, who lost her 17-year-old son, Ronnie, on Jan. 12, 2008.

It would be the next day when Shaw, 36, disclosed her rage, not only over the stabbing of her son but against herself. She can’t get out of her mind the image of her son, bloody from three stab wounds, her hand gripping his as he died.

“I’ve been so mean to other people, trying to deal with this,” she said. “And that’s not me. I want to scream, and I feel so out of control. This can’t go on. My pills to help me sleep don’t work anymore. I just have this anger that won’t go away.”

It’s not unusual, Miller said, for life to unravel.

“Your world is nothing like it ever was,” she said. “You lose friends, relationships, your health. You sleep too little, you sleep too much.”

The women said they were tired of people telling them that their time for grieving was up, that they should move on for their own well-being.

That kind of advice can be hurtful, said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, assistant director of the Office of Forensic Social Work at Arizona State University.

“Research shows it’s hard to compare the parents of murdered children with any other grief group,” she said. “These are people who must contend with the horror of violence (plus) the death of a child.”

The sudden absence of a loved one is something the Fornoffs know all too well.

The early evening that Christy Ann disappeared, she had been on her paper route, collecting from her subscribers for The Phoenix Gazette, once The Republic’s sister paper. Two days later, her body was found near a trash can at the Rock Point Apartments in Tempe. Donald Beaty, a maintenance man at the complex, was convicted of her sexual assault and murder and is on death row in Florence.

Carol Fornoff, 69, said she could have become mired in her grief. Instead, she started support groups and spearheaded a movement that led to the 1990 passage of Arizona’s Victims’ Bill of Rights, a measure designed to balance the rights of victims with the constitutional rights of the accused.

A $1.5 million settlement against the apartments where Beaty worked helped the Fornoffs buy the cabin in Pine. Outside, it reads, “Christy House in the Pines.” So far, more than 2,200 people have stayed at the cabin while attending one of the retreats the couple have hosted. For their home to become a haven was the dream for the religious couple. When they bought the cabin 15 years ago, splitting their time between Pine and Mesa, they pegged their recovery on helping others.

“We certainly don’t think of her 24 hours a day, but there’s times when it all hits us again,” Fornoff said. “We understand what other parents go through. When you remember the life of a child, that can make every parent feel good.”

A lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix contends the builder and lender engaged in systematic appraisal-rigging to inflate by thousands of dollars the value of new homes sold since 2006. The plaintiffs, seven KB Home customers in Buckeye and Surprise, say the practice has cost customers millions of dollars and contributed to the recent flood of loan defaults and foreclosures.

KB Home and BofA representatives said they had not seen the complaint as of Thursday and could not comment.

The lawsuit arrives amid widespread resentment directed at lenders for practices perceived as predatory and at home buyers for taking on more debt than they could realistically afford. It is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed in Arizona and across the country to try to assess blame in the wake of the worst housing meltdown since the Great Depression.

In exchange for its participation with KB Home, Countrywide and its appraisal-management subsidiary, LandSafe, were made the exclusive providers of real-estate settlement services for KB Home, the suit says. They earned thousands of dollars per customer in loan-origination, title-insurance, appraisal and escrow fees.

The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status to add thousands more KB Home buyers nationwide. In the Southwest alone, at least 14,000 KB Home-built houses have been sold since 2006, the complaint says.

Inflated appraisals?

Many critics of the lending industry say inflated appraisals contributed to the nation’s economic crisis. The industry’s shift toward selling off mortgage loans as securities to investment brokers made lenders less concerned about the accuracy of appraisals, the critics contend, just as the rise of new incentives for mortgage brokers gave them more reasons to push risky loans on buyers.

Homebuilders sold their homes for higher prices, the banks profited from making and selling loans, and the mortgage brokers benefited from earning more commissions.

Some appraisers have said that they had to choose between playing along or losing the bulk of their business.

The Phoenix-area residents’ complaint, filed by their lawyer, Robert Carey, a former Arizona assistant attorney general, says the plaintiffs cannot be held responsible for their own lack of due diligence because participants in the homebuying transactions who presented themselves as disinterested third parties actually were in on the scheme.

That includes appraisers “who were under direct instruction to value homes at their contract price and were hand-fed inappropriate – if not outright false – comparable properties to use in completing their appraisals,” the complaint says. Reports written by different appraisers who should not have been communicating with each other or with KB Home relied upon the same “unverified information and patently faulty methodology,” the complaint says.

The complaint cites three common elements to the appraisals.

The first was “improper selection of distant, dissimilar properties” when there were “numerous available neighboring, identical comparable sales that would have revealed lower value.”

In addition, the complaint says, the appraisals contained identical “false and misleading statements regarding market factors and conditions” that ignored known facts about the housing market’s downward trajectory after 2005.

The third sign of a problem, the complaint says, was the use of pending KB Home sales as a basis for appraised value, “even when no sale was actually pending because the ostensible buyer had abandoned the transaction.”

On a more fundamental level, the complaint argues that the use of pending transactions raises a red flag because such information “would only have been known to KB Home” and the appraisers were not supposed to be conferring at all with the builder.

Other lawsuits

The lawsuit is the second filed against Countrywide and LandSafe this year by Carey’s law firm, Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, which also filed a similar case in Phoenix against Wells Fargo and its appraisal-management firm, Rels Valuation, in February.

A Wells Fargo representative said at the time that the lender’s process for obtaining home-loan proposals is legitimate.

Appraisers in Idaho filed a still-pending lawsuit in October against Countrywide, claiming the lender had pressured them to manipulate appraisals. A Countrywide representative at the time said that the lawsuit was without merit.

And a recent investigation of appraisals by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo prompted federally sponsored lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to adopt new standards this month for the way appraisals are conducted.

The newest lawsuit describes the financial impact of KB Home and Countrywide’s appraisal maneuvers as “staggering.”

It contends that price inflation by the builder and lender is an average of $20,000 per home, which would have cost consumers $280 million in the Southwest region alone.

———

Transaction process for home sales under fire

Participants in home-sales transactions at all levels have faced accusations of manipulating the process. Here’s a look at how it should work and what can go wrong.

Appraisers

What they do: Establish a property’s fair market value, which is used by banks as the basis for issuing a mortgage loan.

The right way: Produce an independent property-value estimate based on recent similar-sale transactions.

The wrong way: Seek out recent transactions that justify a predetermined price and ignore transactions that conflict with the desired price.

Lenders

What they do: Approve or deny a mortgage loan based on a property’s assessed value and the anticipated ability of a borrower to repay the loan.

The right way: Rely on independent appraisals to determine a prudent loan amount for a given property.

The wrong way: Pressure appraisers to set the value of a property at an amount desired by the loan broker or property seller.

Home builders

What they do: Sell new homes based on current market value.

The right way: Establish a sale price based on an independent appraiser’s estimated valuation.

The wrong way: Pressure the lender or appraiser to set estimated property value at a predetermined amount.

Source: The Arizona Republic

GLENDALE – A dehydrated Anthony Monestero pulled out a victory on Friday to send No. 3 Palo Verde to the Class 4A Division II boys state tennis team finals.

On Saturday at Paseo Racquet Center in Glendale, he was called on again.

With his team tied 4-4 with fourth-ranked Chandler Seton Catholic, Monestero faced Vincent Lenzi with the state championship on the line.

Lenzi, playing with shin splints in both legs and suffering through several muscle cramps, took the first set 6-2. Monestero then took advantage of Lenzi’s injuries, capturing the next two sets 6-3 and 6-2, giving Palo Verde the 5-4 win and the state crown.

“It just feels really good,” Monestero said. “This is my senior year, and I feel like I’m on top of the world right now.”

The championship is the first boys tennis title for Palo Verde.

“It’s really been nice to play against high-caliber players like that,” coach Dan Ireland said. “Coming in every match, we knew it would be close, so it makes it exciting that way.”

Palo Verde’s Carlos Bermudez, the 4A-II boys state singles champion, had a big day. His powerful left-handed serve helped give his team an early 2-1 lead after the doubles matches, and he won his singles match over Dennis Rodgers 6-1, 6-1.

– JONATHAN FRANKEL, The Arizona Republic

Foothills boys win fifth straight

GLENDALE – One program was seeking its fifth straight Class 4A Division I championship, while the other is in the fifth year of building its program.

Tradition won out.

Catalina Foothills finished its blitz through the 4A-I state boys tennis tournament Saturday as it hammered upstart Goodyear Millennium 5-0 at Glendale’s Paseo Racquet Center to capture its fifth straight boys championship.

“We are better than I thought we were,” Foothills Coach Robb Salant said. “We’re just too deep. You can’t see a weak spot in our lineup. Compared to our last five championship teams, I’d say this team ranks somewhere between two and three. I say that because we’re solid 1-6, but we don’t have much beyond that. But those six are pretty darned good.”

Foothills got off to a strong start, winning all three doubles matches. The third doubles victory came when juniors Zach Hoffor and Dan Hyman upset freshmen brothers and recently crowned 4A-I state champions Hunter and Yates Johnson 8-4.

“To show what I know, I didn’t think we’d win that match,” Salant said. “But my two kids were too big and strong for them. Going 3-0 in the doubles was huge. How can you come back from that? You’d have to win five of the six singles matches and that’s never been done.”

Foothills quickly sewed up the match when sophomore Wade Heerboth downed Millennium senior Billy Mlsek 6-0, 6-0 at No. 3 singles, and senior No. 4 Mike Tringali topped Nate Kobylinski 6-2, 6-1.

– TIM TYERS, The Arizona Republic

Foothills girls knock off Chaparral for title

GLENDALE – After nearly three-and-a-half hours of tennis Saturday, Abby Cochran was so delighted to join her celebrating teammates that she left her racket on the court.

All the while her coach, Kristie Stevens, was fighting back tears.

That’s because Cochran won her team’s deciding singles match as second-seeded Catalina Foothills won the Class 4A Division I state team title 5-4 over No. 4 Scottsdale Chaparral, securing the team’s ninth championship at the school this decade.