Monthly Archives: May 2022

May 19, 2022

Perhaps the most well-known aspect of the generous gift to the Arizona State University Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions from Mike and Cindy Watts in 2018 was the funding of the colleges work with residents of Maryvale, where the Wattses grew up.

Erik Cole, who has led the initiative to help revitalize the west Phoenix community through ASUs Design Studio for Community Solutions, is moving out of state; his last day at ASU was May 6. Cole looked back on a record of solid accomplishment in Maryvale since the studios inception three and a half years ago, saying there is much more to do. Community members gather in March 2019 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony dedicating the "Si, Se Puede" mural in Maryvale. Photo courtesy ASU Download Full Image

The Valleys first-ever master-planned community, Maryvale is the largest of Phoenixs 13 villages. In recent years, residents have faced many challenges as they worked to raise incomes, educational attainment and property values.

Soon after the Wattses made their gift, the college inaugurated the Maryvale One Square Mile Initiative, which has since been extended to a larger geographic area of Maryvale. There, faculty, staff and students from the Watts College and other ASU academic units guided but were mindful to never lead endeavors to improve the quality of life there by engaging residents as full partners in their neighborhood's reanimation.

Today the initiative is one of the most notable examples of the Watts Colleges mission to Be the Solution and one of the universitys best-known examples of its commitment to social embeddedness. Cole is succeeded as Design Studio director by Allison Mullady, the studios senior program manager.

Read on to learn how Cole views the progress Maryvale and its residents have made in the past three-plus years, and his assessment of what lies ahead.

Question: Its been more than three years since the Design Studio was created. Tell us about the Maryvale you encountered then, and the one you have been working in today.

Answer: I find that Maryvale was and still is a very welcoming community. I think its a diverse place that is also a surprising place. With a lot of communities, its true nature isnt completely well known to the outside world. Phoenix and Phoenixs Latino community have probably a better understanding of Maryvale (than others). But I felt welcomed as an outsider, able to meet people, able to start finding out what the situation, the issues and peoples concerns were. I think part of that is because our whole approach with the Design Studio is to meet people where they are, and show up with our ears first and our mouths and ideas later, to really understand.

Maryvales got a cool, cultural, culinary, small business (community) that I dont think everybody sees except for the people who live there. Its fascinating. Its almost like an understated vibrancy. A lot of it is food shops that pop up in garages at night, and drink carts on bikes going through the neighborhoods.

I think if you read the headlines or see the general coverage of Maryvale, its often heavy on crime, police activity, etc. I found Maryvale when I got there, and even today, not a place where I saw a lot of visible crime. I found it just to be a neighborhood that was misunderstood on the outside.

Erik Cole, former director of the ASU Design Studio for Community Solutions. Photo courtesy ASU

Q: Maryvale faces difficult challenges, from providing good jobs to improving health, from building connections among residents to expanding infrastructure, public facilities and transportation. How well has the community fared in meeting these challenges? What was the Design Studios role?

A: Interesting, because I feel sort of like everybody, individuals and families, have done what they needed to do over the last three years to make ends meet, to have their needs taken care of. We definitely saw a big upswing that continues (today) in getting demand taken care of, for food banks, clothing, basic needs issues.

We saw with the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly, why this idea of social determinants of health is so important to a community. This is basically saying that having health insurance, seeing your doctor and getting medical treatment is all important. But so is how walkable is your community, and so is your housing quality, as well as access to green space; all the things that make up a healthy community.

During the pandemic, we saw a real sense of how the health infrastructure and political leadership were saying, "How do we connect with communities like Maryvale?" It showed how frayed that infrastructure is, not just resources, but early on, we learned people didnt know where to go to find information and services. There are very low rates of internet connectivity, so people cant find things online as easily.

We saw an example of that with testing and vaccinations, as that rolled out, because you had to sign up for those appointments online, and they were largely in English.

I was really proud of our role, not that we did the work, but in getting community partners together, like Mountain Park Health Center and the Urban League, with the school districts, consistently doing events, doing things for free, not just for their patients. Embry Health was in a lot of different places.

COVID really limited our ability to connect with people, because most connections are in person, and email is not as reliable as face to face. We started the Maryvale Youth Provider Network as one way for people who serve youth to come together, network and take collective action. Now the network has over 30 members and is growing! One way we could pivot is to bring together different resources. We did a weekly email blast that talked about health, jobs, housing, translated it into Spanish, and it got great traction. A school district could call and ask, "Can you add us on it?"

Q: It was important for you and your colleagues to help but not dominate, avoiding the impression that you were from the big university that was going to do it all, rather than empower residents. How successful was that effort?

A: Its hard, because three and a half years is not enough time, obviously. The model we use is to move at the speed of trust. You have to build relationships. You have to follow up, have longevity, still be there after months and years. We heard stories of leaders who said they were burned by outside institutions, not just higher education. They would promise a new program, have the community be a part of a set of research or hold a public planning process. Once the meetings, or the research, or whatever, are done, then theyre gone. The community doesnt hear from them again. We heard pretty specific examples of where that did not sit well with community members, where they didnt see results of time they had spent working on those initiatives.

So we try to be sort of humble conveners and systems integrators. We try to connect the people who want to improve the quality of life for them and their neighbors and empower them. At ASU, we have access to real smart people, great programs, great data analysis, etc. We want to make those resources available to community and grassroots leaders.

The most important thing was for us to say we are in it for the long haul. The Watts gift enables us to be that backbone for 10 years. So in that regard, I think weve done the best we could.

I am excited about the Maryvale Youth Leadership Program that we are launching this summer!

Q: Talk about the results of your efforts to make a difference in the local school districts and the learning and recreational environments for Maryvale children.

A: (We knew that) we needed to have strong partnerships with both the Cartwright and the Isaac elementary school districts. One reason is that Phoenix is so big. They have 13 different villages to manage and work with. These school districts are small, and they fit the geographic areas where we wanted to work in Maryvale. With each one, weve had some baseline success to place interns, social work practicum students, in the schools themselves.

Weve had several class-related projects. Im thinking about one (School of Community Resources and Development Professor of Practice) Dale Larsens class did in Cartwright, engaging the Boys and Girls Club with ASU students coming, playing, doing athletic activities outside in the afternoons with those young people. It was incredible, the bonds between those ASU students and those kids. Some we began in Cartwright the pandemic really derailed, but were starting them for the future.

We have connected Cartwrights innovative refugee and immigrant support office to the Next Generation Service Corps, for instance. Many students come in to schools and speak other languages, dont know how schools in the United States work. The idea will be that ASU students, many of whom may also have immigrated, can support the teachers, help the office plan and access more resources. The project is very new and innovative, and we hope our students can help them reach all 23 of their schools.

In the Isaac district, we had a strong partnership with both the administration and their community center, the House of Isaac Community Center. We try to participate in their outreach events and support their health care promotoras, who are family-member and community volunteers (aunts, uncles, grandparents) serving the families of Isaacs students. They are the experts on their community and can help neighbors in ways no outside program can.

The most engaged project at Isaac is that in May and June 2020, the district leadership told us they were not able to connect with kids on the internet prior to going virtual. And so there was huge gap around high-speed internet.

I never dreamed that what we would eventually do is pilot a system that would provide free, high-speed internet to Isaac district families in some areas of Maryvale where they didnt have any other way to connect. It was a pilot program, but it continues today, and its super exciting. We built a very strong relationship with the school district, their superintendent and their chief technical officer. Its very tied in now, not just with the Watts College, but also with the university in the technology side of things. Its great ground for further research for student engagement.

Q: Decades ago, Maryvale represented the future as an example of the then-new idea of an affordable, master-planned community. Look into the future of Maryvale today and talk about the kind of community it is and striving to become.

A: Even though there is a Maryvale identity people say I am from Maryvale there is not a broad, across-the-community organizing structure. One thing I think that the community would love and will be a necessary ingredient for meeting the needs of what they want to achieve is not from ASU but ASU helps it come about is a community quarterback who can advocate and help guide how things come out.

Just like the transition in the 1960s and 1970s, we may see another transition going forward. Maryvale is very affordable, close to downtown Phoenix. But the transportation issue is a critical issue, whether its light rail or bus rapid transit. Maryvale is a community that depends on transit to connect to employment. As the higher-wage jobs come in, whether they are call centers or service centers north on I-17 or west on I-10, you have to get workers there.

But the hard part about transportation planning is it takes a long time, and by the time youre done, some things have changed. Hopefully, we can be talking to Valley Metro and the city and others, bringing in community members, for input.

I dont want to be clich, but everyone I worked with in Maryvale is working very, very hard, whether its multiple-family (housing), creating jobs or giving back to the community itself. If those tools are there, the community can really take off and thrive. One of the things weve really zeroed in on with the One Square Mile Initiative is focusing on young people, recruiting more people to come to ASU, people who went to Maryvale High School. Or maybe an apprentice program, to become, say, a roofer.

Maryvale is such a young place and thats how you identify the future, that there is a place for young people to succeed and thrive. Weve spent a lot more time with the people than the place.

This interview was edited for length and clarity. Read more about recent milestones achieved in Maryvale in the Design Studio for Community Solutions State of the Studio report.

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Community progress in Maryvale based on coming together, hearing people, says former ASU program head - ASU News Now

For us the supposedly growing masses who believed in a multicultural, egalitarian future the election of Barack Obama signaled the great confirmation and, perhaps, the conclusion of a slow moving story that started with the Emancipation Proclamation. The possibility of a Black president had always been a litmus test for an egalitarian society, and we had finally passed it. The headlines the morning after Obamas 2008 victory suggested this was not only a win for the Democratic Party but the country, as a whole. America Makes History, USA Today proclaimed. This newspaper went with Obama: Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory.

But the election of Donald Trump shattered the narrative going forward that Obama had promised an increasingly diverse country that would eventually melt into a post-racial utopia. But Trumpism didnt really break free from the linear vision of history and promise some new political future. Instead, it just proposed we go back the other way.

The man who is suspected to have killed 10 people in Buffalo also believed in the linearity and the inevitability of American change. He saw the browning of the country as a sin against a natural order in which people stayed in their own countries; where immigration and the mere existence of Black people could only be stopped by acts of extreme violence. Reading his rambling manifesto, I was struck by just how much his vision resembled the hope that so many of us espoused on Election Day in 2008 one that might not have even been electorally accurate that the growing coalition of us had overwhelmed them. Time would win.

On a recent long car ride, I listened to the end of Francis Fukuyamas landmark 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. It had been about 20 or so years since I had first picked it up and had forgotten that Fukuyama concludes the book with an extended metaphor about a series of wagons all traveling to the same destination, which he sees as a world that has settled upon Western liberal democracy as its universal governing ideal. He writes:

The great majority of wagons will be making the slow journey into town, and most will eventually arrive there. The wagons are all similar to one another: while they are painted different colors and are constructed of varied materials, each has four wheels and is drawn by horses, while inside sits a family hoping and praying that their journey will be a safe one. The apparent differences in the situations of the wagons will not be seen as reflecting permanent and necessary differences between the people riding in the wagons, but simply a product of their different positions along the road.

Proving Fukuyama wrong has almost become a rite of passage in philosophy and political science. His theory of an entire world of free markets and elections was predicated on what was happening in the late 80s and early 90s with the end of the U.S.S.R., the mass demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Throw a dart at a map now, and youll likely find a counterpoint: the authoritarian government of Vladimir Putin, the election of Donald Trump, the resurrection of the Taliban.

I agree with Fukuyamas critics, but I still think there is value in his wagon metaphor, not in its veracity, but in how it reflects the way in which so many of us, especially those raised in the 80s and 90s, believed in the slow, but steady march of American progress. Fukuyamas faith in the unrelenting spread of liberal democracy was just as blinkered and hopeful as the progressive, American belief that all the Jesse Helmses would eventually die out and leave behind a much more tolerant and forward-thinking country, unencumbered by the bigoted relics of the past. That was our end of history, and much of the disorientation of recent years has come from the perpetual disruption of that optimism.

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Opinion | American Progress Is No Longer a Sure Thing - The New York Times

The outside perception of the Colorado football program is that the Buffaloes are in for another rough season.

Coming off a 4-8 campaign in 2021, VegasInsider.com has an over/under of 3.5 for the Buffs win total for this year. The ESPN Football Power Index (FPI) projects 3.2 wins with a 6.3% chance of reaching bowl eligibility. Both of those FPI numbers are last in the Pac-12 behind even an Arizona team that is 1-23 in its 24 games.

As the Buffs wrapped up their spring workouts last month, however, head coach Karl Dorrell told BuffZone that hes confident in where the Buffs are headed and not concerned with outside expectations.

A lot of the expectations that we feel inside the program are probably more important than what the perception is outside the program, Dorrell said. Our expectations are to compete every year to get ourselves in the thick of contending for the (Pac-12) South Division and in playing great football. I dont think thats really going to ever change.

I dont ever talk to them about what people think about us. Its really whats in the building, whats important to us, and then proving our worth every time we go out there and play.

Low expectations from outside the building are no surprise.

In 2021, CU had an offense that was among the worst in the country and a defense that was OK.

From that offense, the Buffs lost their most explosive playmaker (receiver Brenden Rice) and top running back (Jarek Broussard) to the transfer portal. Rice now plays at Southern California and Broussard at Michigan State. Another starting receiver, Dimitri Stanley, left CU for Iowa State.

The defense was decent at times, but inconsistent, ultimately finishing seventh in the Pac-12 in points allowed (26.7 per game). The Buffs lost six of their best defenders, including three linebackers Nate Landman and Carson Wells and defensive lineman Mustafa Johnson to graduation. Three starters in the secondary cornerbacks Mekhi Blackmon (USC) and Christian Gonzalez (Oregon) and safety Mark Perry (TCU) all transferred.

CU didnt fill the holes with proven veterans from the transfer portal. Instead, the Buffs are relying on young players to step up, while counting on a handful of transfer additions to succeed in bigger roles than they had at their previous schools.

Given all of that, its no surprise that the outsiders dont think much of the Buffs, but Dorrell has been pleased with the offseason.

Theres no question theres a stronger commitment within the team, he said. Theyre working hard. Theyre doing what weve asked of them. I think the team is creating a strong bond. I think a lot of those things were missing in other years. Theres a lot of room for progress and fast progress when we have a team thats on the same page. Were going to just keep riding the stages of growth that weve made all the way through summer and well see where it takes us, but I liked the path where were headed.

Dorrell added that the Buffs got better at a faster rate this offseason than in his previous two years in Boulder.

I already feel were ahead of where we were a year ago, he said. But how much further can we go?

While CU will rely on a lot of youth in several areas of the roster, there is a more veteran coaching staff in place, especially on offense. Dorrell replaced six of his 10 assistants in the offseason, including four of the five on offense.

Theres a pretty defined system thats in place and I think thats the biggest thing (fans) will see, Dorrell said of the offense, led by first-year coordinator Mike Sanford. Theyll see that well have answers off of most things that we do.

Defensively, Dorrell likes the depth on the line and said the linebackers are more comfortable in our system this year. Despite losing several key players in the back and relying on a lot of youth, Dorrell said, I believe our secondary play is the best its been right now. We havent even played a game yet, but I feel like theyre better than where weve been the last two years.

The real test, of course, will come in the fall. The Buffs still have their entire summer program and preseason camp ahead of them before the Sept. 2 opener against TCU. But, while outsiders overlook the Buffs, Dorrell carries confidence into the summer.

Its more the excitement about what we can do when they get back after May? he said. Having a great summer, having a great training camp and seeing what it looks like then. But I feel good about where we are at this point.

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Karl Dorrell pleased with CU Buffs offseason progress - Greeley Tribune

The group is staffed with former hardware and software engineering leaders for the iPhone, iPad and Mac, in addition to key hires from NASA and industries spanning gaming, graphics and audio. But the division has suffered departures of some key engineers to Meta and other companies in recent months.

The team developing the device works from offices in Sunnyvale, California, a few miles from the companys Cupertino headquarters, Bloomberg has reported. The device has faced several challenges during development, such as finding compelling applications and content. Technical hurdles also included overheating and refining the devices on-board cameras.

The company has been working on AR versions of its core iPhone apps for the headset, as well as new apps that will handle tasks such as streaming immersive content and holding virtual meetings.

Apples headset was originally planned for an unveiling in 2019, with a release coming in 2020, Bloomberg reported at the time. Apple later aimed to announce it in 2021 before a release in 2022, only to delay those plans again into later in 2022 or 2023.

During its development, the device faced pushback from former chief designer Jony Ive, who didnt believe Apple should release a headset that would take people out of the real world. Ive, who left Apple in 2019, preferred the concept of augmented reality-only glasses, but that product wasnt going to be ready until much later.

Ive also spurned a plan for the headset to have both a stand-alone mode and an option that would make the device more powerful when wirelessly paired to a processing hub in the wearers home. That plan was nixed, and current versions of the device are stand-alone only. They include a more powerful variation of the M1 chip that appears in the companys latest laptops.

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Apple shows AR/VR headset to its board in sign of progress on project - AdAge.com

ROCHEPORT, Mo. (KMIZ)

MoDOTand construction workers held a behind-the-scenes tour to show people the progress made on the new Interstate 70 Missouri River bridge near Rocheport.

This project was startedto improve the safety of the Rocheport bridge.

Workers started construction onthe bridge replacement project in Januaryafter the department said the bridge had reached the end of its useful life.

MoDOT is working to replace the current bridge with two new bridges.

The new bridge will be twice the width of the existing bridge to allow for more movement and reliability.

Workers said today the new bridge is estimated to reduce crashes on the bridge by around 50%.

There is still a ways to go but workers were able to add three new peers.

MoDOT said the biggest challenge was that the river was historically low over the winter, which cause a few setbacks.

The bridge is still on track to be completed by the end of 2024.

MoDOT is encouraging people to join them this Saturday at Katy Trail in Rocheport, for a community engagement event where the progress of the bridge will be discussed.

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MoDOT gives behind the scenes of progress on Rocheport bridge - ABC17News.com

SOUTHWEST AREAINCIDENT MANAGEMENT TEAM

TEAM 4 AARON HULBURD INCIDENT COMMANDER

May 18, 2022 Daily Update

Acres:17,122 acres

Containment:28%

Cause:Undetermined

Total Personnel:667

Start Date:May 1, 2022

Location:San Mateo Mountains, Magdalena Ranger District, Socorro County, NM

Fuels:Pine, Pinyon-Juniper and Grass

Highlights:Firefighters have made significant progress on the construction of control lines ahead of the main fire, connecting hand lines and dozer lines into natural features such as ridges and cliffs as well as the existing road system. Despite exceptionally dry conditions, fire growth has been limited as the fire moves slowly against the wind and downslope. A daily operational briefing video explaining details of the Bear Trap Fire operations can be viewed on theCibola National Forest Facebook page.

Operations:Although firefighters have observed some heat on the northern and eastern sides of the fire, there is very little fire movement through the previously burned areas. Crews are continuing control line construction to the southwest, followed by low intensity burning operations inside the lines near Grassy Lookout and Hudson Canyon. By removing excess vegetation ahead of the main fire, firefighters can limit the fires intensity to prevent it from crossing these lines. In the southeast, firefighters continue to evaluate fire behavior as they develop a plan to finish line construction into the Narrow Spring area. Helicopters are supporting firefighters on the ground by dropping water from specially designed buckets to cool down the fire as it approaches constructed lines. Crews are working with local Resource Advisors to follow general guidelines for the protection of sensitive resources, including threatened and endangered species habitat, while achieving incident objectives.

Weather: Todays temperatures will be about 8 degrees higher than normal with light winds. These continued warm, dry, unstable, and breezy to windy afternoons are typical of mid-May in the Southwest, and are expected for the next few days. Temperatures should cool off later in the week but will likely be accompanied by increasing winds starting on Friday.

Closures:The Cibola National Forest and National Grasslands (NF & NGs) have issued a fire area closure, road and trails closure to protect public health and safety during fire operations on the Bear Trap Fire. The full closure order (No. 03-0726) and map are available athttps://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/cibola/alerts-notices.

Restrictions:Based on high fire danger and severe fire weather conditions, the Cibola NF & NGs implemented Stage 2 Fire Restrictions on the mountain districts, including the Magdalena Ranger District. The full order (No. 03-0724) and map are available athttps://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/cibola/alerts-notices.

Safety:The health and safety of firefighters and the public are always the first priority. Members of the public should stay away from Bear Trap Fire operations. A temporary flight restriction (TFR) is in place over the area, which includes unmanned aircraft, or drones. More information on the dangers drones pose to wildland firefighting aircraft and personnel on the ground can be found athttps://www.nifc.gov/drones/.

Smoke:Smoke from the Bear Trap Fire and other nearby fires may be visible in the areas of Alamo, Datil, Magdalena, Socorro, Winston, and San Antonio, NM. Smoke-sensitive individuals and people with respiratory problems or heart disease are encouraged to take precautionary measures. Information on air quality and protecting your health can be found at the New Mexico Department of Health Environmental Public Health Tracking website:nmtracking.org. An interactive smoke map athttps://fire.airnow.gov/allows you to zoom into your area to see the latest smoke conditions.

Fire updates are posted onInciWeb,Cibola NF & NGs website,FacebookandTwitterpages, theNM Fire Information website.

Email:2022.beartrap@firenet.gov

Phone:(928) 362-2906

Office Hours:8:00 AM 8:00 PM

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Firefighters make progress on control lines ahead of the Bear Trap Fire - nmfireinfo.com