Route 66 travelers have long admired the kitschy murals scattered around Winslow, but few know about the developing fine arts scene simmering underneath.

The owners of La Posada hotel, known for its painstaking restoration and co-owner Tina Mion’s huge, avant garde canvases inside, are working on renovations that will eventually turn the old train depot into an art museum.

Hotel co-owners Allen Affeldt and Tina Mion and Snowdrift art gallery owners Dan and Ann-Mary Lutzick and El Gran Garage owner Paul Ruscha have formed the Winslow Arts Trust, a revocable trust to help secure grant funding and ensure that their efforts to bring art to Winslow continue after their deaths.

The trust includes the hotel, Mion’s art gallery and the evolving sculpture garden there, El Gran Garage across the street, and the Snowdrift art gallery in the old Babbitt Brother department store downtown. All of the spaces have hosted various traveling or temporary exhibits like the annual quilt show, Railroad Days and, at Snowdrift, the traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibit Art on Main Street, where the Lutzicks met.

The trust has gotten a $750,000 grant to develop the depot into the Route 66 Art Museum, an art space that Lutzick says will have rotating installations by various artists. The trust is getting environmental and other construction clearances for an addition to the historic depot building, and the grant money is expected to be available around May 2012.

At full buildout, the art museum is planned to have a room that will serve as a visitor center for artist James Turrell’s landspace art at Rhoden Crater and a “Skyspace Gateway,” a meditative space with its roof open to the sky.

“The reason we can do all this is because the hotel has kept growing,” Lutzick said. Renovations on the main building are almost complete with 49 rooms available, to total 54 when the original hotel building is completed. Then the owners have to decide whether and where to add more rooms.

The trust also recently called on the Tucson-based International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA) to tour of the long-vacant Old Main high school, with an eye toward turning it into an arts complex. The group has already renovated the historic but formerly abandoned Curley high school in Ajo, creating inexpensive living and working quarters for artists.

The group sent a contingent to tour the school Sept. 7 and 8, but has yet to make a decision about whether to try to buy Old Main. The three-story building was built in 1929 and is linked to the Winslow Unified School District administrative offices.

Tracy Taft, executive director of ISDA, says the group has been occupied with construction projects in Ajo but hopes to make a decision by the end of the year. In choosing a site, ISDA has three main considerations. First, the project has to make economic sense. That may involve public and private financing, tax credits, grants and other sources of financing. Second, the community has to get behind the efforts.

“The community has to be interested in a facility for artists,” Taft said. “It’s really important that the community be open to folks like us coming in from outside.”

Local business owners are also trying to create interest in the arts and downtown business.

Marjorie LoPresti and her son opened Park Place Gallery on Third Street, just one door away from Snowdrift, two years ago. The gallery sells a mix of art by local artists and vintage items on consignment. The clientele is both locals and tourists, LoPresti said.

Downtown property owners Tess and Lawrence Kenna and Karen Harvey have been sponsoring Winslow Summer Nights for the last two summers, bringing bands, magicians, jugglers, car club events and other variety entertainment to the Route 66 Plaza park on weekend summer nights. The events have been a success but a lot of work, and it’s time for someone else to take over, Tess Kenna said.

“We wanted to provide something for the citizens of Winslow for every Friday and Saturday night through the summer months,” she said. “We wanted to prove that we could do it without any funding from the city.

The city provided free insurance for the use of the park and any assistance we needed, and The Scoop gave us free advertising every single week.”

Community groups including the Winslow Arts Council, a city committee; the Winslow Public Library, the Chamber of Commerce, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, the Just Cruisin’ Car Club, Rotary and other service clubs all provided events during the summers.

“People even picked up their own garbage,” Kenna noted. But, she’s stepping aside.

“I’m sure someone will pick it up. But I just wanted to prove it could be done. Already there are so many organizations that want to perform there. People have developed an interest for it,” she said. “Now I’m going to let someone else step up to the plate. It proves that you can open up the downtown, you can have a good venue and it doesn’t cost a lot of money.”

The Winslow Arts Council has also been working to bring a variety of arts and performance events to the area. The group arranged a seminar in November with Sedona artist Joella Jean Mahoney, which brought students from as far away as Tsaile to learn from the renowned abstract painter.

Some of those works may be on display when the council hosts its Arts Sweet Arts show and sale in February at the Chamber of Commerce headquarters in the Hubbell Trading Post on Second Street. FBN

Winslow’s Evolving Art Scene is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

Plans for a showplace park in Winslow celebrating the history and car culture of Old Route 66 are a step closer to reality, but the city still has miles to go before the tourist destination becomes a reality.

Visitors from all over the world already flock to tiny Standin’ On the Corner Park to stand on the corner and take photos next to a life-size bronze guitar player named “Easy” or the red flatbed Ford parked on the street and reflected in the slightly suggestive John Pugh mural that faces Kinsley Avenue.

While city officials have long worked toward a unified vision for Winslow’s downtown, they’ve had to do the projects as funding became available. Separately funded roadwork last year brought in new, nostalgic light posts and benches as well as parking “safety extensions” and clearly defined free parking spaces along Second and Third streets, the west- and eastbound lanes, respectively, of Old Route 66, that frame the old downtown commercial district. The intersection of Second and Kinsley now sports a Route 66 medallion that spans the pavement nearly from corner to corner.

The pocket park was a temporary fix for the site of the burned-out Rasco building, which was a charred scar on the back side of the Standin’ On the Corner Park.

The city started planning for the Route 66 Plaza back in 2006, but even then officials knew that finding money for the project would be an uphill climb. That hurdle was cleared in September when the city was awarded a $488,000 federal highway grant for the project. But it will still be six to eight months before the money flows into city coffers, City Planner Paul Ferris said. Until then, not much will happen.

That’s because until the federal money is released, the city has to pay for any design or other work toward the project. That includes three stages of review – environmental, utility and right-of-way – that the city has to perform before any other work is started. At press time, the city was still waiting to find out whether the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) will help shoulder that cost, and by how much.

Nonetheless, the early planning has already paid off, says Sharlene Fouser, byways leader for the National Historic Route 66 All-American Road program.

“We had not planned for it, because the rumor was that because of the economy the grant cycle for 2011 would not happen,” she said. When it did, the application cycle was three weeks instead of the customary three months. “Paul Ferris really had his ducks in a row,” she said. “The city had this on its radar and some of the things had already been done. They did the landscaping and put in irrigation. That helped because they had been working on it even though they didn’t have the money to make it a reality…The city had already earmarked funds for the project so we were able to use that as our matching [incentive] for the grant.”

She noted that this grant was an 80:20 split, making it easier for small communities to secure than grants that require a city to put up 50 percent.

“So many times these grants are a 50-50 match, and small communities like Winslow can’t take advantage of it,” she said. “It was the only project awarded in Arizona, of about 111 nationwide.”

Arizona’s section of Route 66 is the only section to be designated among 24 “All-American Roads” in the country, signifying they are destinations in themselves and securing extra federal tourism promotion.

The city hopes to proceed with the original concept design for the park:

An archway would be cut through a blank section of the wall that has the existing Standin’ On the Corner mural (facing Kinsley Avenue). A path that would approximately trace the line of Route 66 on a map could run from the portal through the new park. At each end of the path, visitors would see a mural of the end of Route 66 they are facing – Chicago on the east side, Santa Monica to the west. As a gateway from the Standin’ On the Corner side, vintage or replica gas pumps would serve as columns to support the arch joining the parks.

The park would include a small amphitheater, which would be a welcome addition for the community, the touring acts that entertain at the park on summer weekends and cross-country motor rallies that use it as a checkpoint. The lighting along the back of the amphitheater would look like headlights. Along Second Street, benches with fins like vintage Cadillacs spread along a tree-lined lawn would beckon visitors. Toward the sidewalk frontage on the east side of the park, plans call for a diner mural with a 3-D countertop and stools for visitors to eat their picnics. But that’s the just the low-budget plan. Other potential embellishments may depend, to some extent, on luck.

“We would like to get a real Valentine Diner in there instead of just the façade,” confided City Planner Paul Ferris. (Valentine Diners were a line of prefabricated diners sold like trailer homes to eager restaurateurs in post-WWII America. Winslow still has a long-shuttered Valentine Diner at Second Street and Colorado Avenue, one of three known to have operated in Arizona during Route 66’s heyday.) “There is also talk of finding and putting up gas station logo signs, but finding them at a reasonable cost may be tricky,” he added.

The original project cost was estimated at $1 million, but some material and labor costs have come down since the project was conceived and Ferris is guardedly optimistic that, like other recent projects, bids will all come in below the original estimate. The city has posted renderings on the chainlink fence around the site. FBN

Winslow’s Route 66 Plaza Moving Forward is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

 Who knew cities could go bankrupt? These days, we understand the possibility too well. Like corporations and people, cities can find themselves in court renegotiating debt. In the past year, cities in states from California to Rhode Island have either filed for bankruptcy or are considering it. Like the United States government, the debt dilemma concerns raising revenues (usually taxes) or reducing expenditures (usually on city services).

How do cities spell relief? Are cities in Northern Arizona in danger of doing so?

Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy relief is reserved for cities, counties, townships, and school districts that find themselves in financial trouble. When services cost more than revenues, a city may have to consider this option. It’s nearly impossible to force this choice on a city and Chapter 9 filings are rare. Since 1934, when the U.S. Congress first established the process, fewer than 500 petitions have been filed.

But, could it happen here?

“No,” said city managers Kevin Burke of Flagstaff, Jim Ferguson of Winslow, and interim city manager Joe Duffy of Williams. A key factor is low debt burden. According to Burke, Flagstaff’s “debt to assessed value remains in check.” The city is scheduled to “retire debt early and the new debt is funded within the existing property tax levy.”

In August, however, Standard & Poor (S&P) awarded a negative outlook for Flagstaff after assessing the city’s reserve fund. S&P is the same credit rating agency that downgraded the U.S. bond rating this year.

While a negative outlook is cause for concern, Burke said that the credit agency looked at “cash on hand.” Per policy, Flagstaff maintains a reserve of unallocated money for emergencies. “We rarely ever use those dollars,” said Burke. This year, Flagstaff plans to spend money on capital projects. Whether or not the project goes through depends on many factors, such as whether the city can attract matching funds. “Either way,” said Burke, “on paper, it shows that we will be reducing our reserves.” That resulted in the negative outlook, though Burke predicts that if the reserves are not spent as planned, S&P may reassess the city and give it a “stable” outlook. “We think that is more likely,” he said.

In fact, S&P’s rating was good enough to garner the city a low interest rate (2.12 percent) in its $15.86 million sale of general obligation bonds in late August to fund projects like an emergency communication radio system, another fire station, and new street/utility projects.

“Winslow is not anticipating any downgrading of our bond rating,” said Ferguson. “We are in good standing on our bonds and have built appropriate reserves to ensure performance.” According to Ferguson, Winslow is in no danger of bankruptcy unless “the entire municipal bonding market is impacted.”

Like all cities in Arizona, though, revenues for Williams have decreased significantly, stemming from the economic downturn. According to Duffy, his city has “stayed ahead of the revenue decrease, taken the necessary, sometimes painful measures, to keep our budget balanced, while maintaining our levels of service in most areas.”

An important debt burden for cities is pensions for city workers, like police officers and fire fighters. In Williams, 2.4 percent of the budget goes toward pension expenses while the city payroll is 33 percent of the total operating budget. The city reduced its staff over the past several years and doesn’t anticipate increasing it as the economy improves (though readers should note that Williams is presently advertising for a permanent city manager). Flagstaff has reduced its pension obligations to workers in non-public safety categories. Burke cited 2011 legislation in Arizona that places the majority of new funding responsibilities on employees. Winslow takes part in the State Retirement Program and its “contribution has been funded annually without problems,” said Ferguson.

While cities in Northern Arizona aren’t in danger of needing Chapter 9 relief, the situation isn’t quite rosy either. Flagstaff “has been making tough financial decisions for the last three years,” said Burke, “in order to position ourselves to live within projected revenues.” He added that it will be difficult to maintain existing levels if inflation increases and revenues stay flat. In that case, the city will review its services “and look for programs that can be consolidated, transferred or eliminated. This could be painful.”

City managers encourage citizens to stay aware and involved, especially in annual budgeting processes. What else can citizens do to help? “Buy local,” said Burke. FBN

Bonds and Bankruptcy in Northern Arizona is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

After last month’s groundbreaking at Twin Arrows Casino, Northern Arizonans hope to be put to work on the $150 million construction project. “Hopefully, work will be awarded to local contractors, but it is really up to the construction manager’s or owner’s discretion,” said Kim Brewster of Northern Arizona Building Association. “We have a lot of qualified subs in Northern Arizona.”

NJ Shaum & Sons is one of the qualified. “We hope we can get some of the bid,” said Frank Patton, president. The electrical contractor investigated three potential jobs on the project: I-40 interchange work, site lighting for the parking area and electrical work for the facility. He contacted Hunt Construction, the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) overseeing the project, to procure plans for the third job. “Hunt allowed us to look at the electrical drawings, but after looking, we thought it was beyond our ability considering the time constraints dictated by the project.” Patton still hopes to hear on the other two projects. “We haven’t heard anything – they are working on final details.”

“The number of local companies that will be involved is still being worked out,” said Rich Bowen of Economic Collaborative of Northern Arizona (ECoNA). “Because of the economy, they are probably getting extremely competitive bids from state and regional contractors that our local contractors may not be able to meet. We’ll see, but because the casino budget has been tightened already – commodities like copper are going up – the original budget is in a “constant value engineering” process to get maximum value per dollar. So other values, like trying to hire local contractors, may go out the window. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Robert White, CEO of the Navajo Gaming Enterprise, confirmed that it was too early to announce bid acceptances. “The CMAR final contract will be signed some time this week. The GMP [Guaranteed Max Price] contract will take place in the month or so.” White explained that the loan arrangements with the Navajo tribe dictate that construction go out to a preliminary bid. “All that is going on now. We’re selecting bidders and there will be no answer for 30 days.”

Marco Spagnuolo of Eagle Mountain Construction is another local businessman hopeful that knowledge of the area might help land the job. “We submitted pricing five to six weeks ago and have been going through rounds of re-pricing since. We’re excited about Twin Arrows being a local job,” said the civil contractor, who does earthwork and underground utilities. If awarded the bid, Eagle Mountain may be working off plans designed in part by Shephard-Wesnitzer, Inc. (SWI) a Flagstaff civil engineering and surveying firm.

SWI did the grading and drainage plan for the whole Twin Arrows site, public infrastructure design for the casino and is wrapping up the design of the wastewater treatment plant and water distribution system.

“We were selected because they wanted someone familiar with the climate and topography of Northern Arizona,” said Guillermo Cortes, SWI. As part of the design team, he took many trips to Phoenix. “It was a great team to work on – very interactive. The project was put together pretty quickly, so architects, structural engineers, MEP [Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing] engineers and civil engineers had to work together really closely.”

Cortes divulged that the Twin Arrows contract was worth about five percent of SWI’s business in 2010. SWI worked with EnvironSystems Management and ETD, Inc. on the project, both of which are woman-owned small businesses headquartered in Flagstaff.

“We did the environmental assessments – both the biological evaluation and the cultural resource investigation,” said Eunice Tso of EDT, a native-owned business.

“We have promoted to the Navajo Gaming Enterprise that it would be more cost effective to look to Flagstaff businesses for their needs, during construction and afterwards,” said Bowen of ECoNA. “We are demonstrating that there is good benefit to use Flagstaff businesses. We are interested in their long-term success and deepening the relationship.”

The Navajo tribe opened its first casino east of Gallup, N.M. in 2008. Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort, 21.5 miles east of Flagstaff on I-40 at Exit 219, is the tribe’s first in Arizona. Plans call for a hotel, conference center, spa and golf course at the site.

Hunt Construction’s current projects include the Barclay Center, future home of the Nets in New York City, the Marlins Ballpark in Miami, and the international terminal at the Atlanta International Airport. Completed projects include University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale and Arizona Isleta Casino & Resort near Albuquerque. FBN

Eagle Mountain Construction

3885 E Industrial Dr, Flagstaff

928-526-2587

Navajo Gaming Enterprise

PO Box 1700

Church Rock, NM

Northern Arizona Building Association

1500 E Cedar Ave, Ste 86, Flagstaff

928-779-3071

NJ Shaum & Sons

25 S Mikes Pike, Flagstaff

928-774-4564

Shephard-Wesnitzer, Inc.

110 West Dale Avenue, Flagstaff
928-773-0354

Locals Hoping to Hit Jackpot on Twin Arrows Casino Bids is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

In the chef world, the James Beard is the equivalent of an Academy Award.

John Sharpe of Winslow’s the Turquoise Room is on the short list of finalists.

The Turquoise Room is part of the historic La Posada hotel.

Sharpe began his career 50 years ago while still a teen.  He was an apprentice chef at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate, England, the only 5 star hotel in the northern part of the country.  He has been earning accolades since then, in cities around the world.

In Winslow, Sharpe focuses on his interpretation of southwestern cuisine, with a focus on locally grown organic ingredients.  He is also committed to the slow foods movement and the Chef’s Collaborative.

John Sharpe also authored La Posada’s Turquoise Room Cookbook.

The James Beard Award’s Ceremony will take place March 9th in New York City.

No. AZ Chef Finalist for James Beard Award is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

There is a good deal of buzz around the Southwest about Chef John Sharpe of the Turquoise Room Restaurant in Winslow. Located inside La Posada, the magnificent 1930 hacienda- style inn on a remote stretch of historic Route 66, the restaurant has been reborn by Chef Sharpe and his sumptuous holiday meals.

For the past 10 years, Chef Sharpe has mixed the holiday traditions of the south- west with those of his home country of England. “Christmas Eve is like the evening in Santa Fe – we deck the restaurant with luminarias and candles.” The menu features traditional tastes of the Southwest and Mexico, including wild game, lamb, fish

and mouth-watering descriptions such as red chile pipian mole sauce with roasted pumpkin seeds.

“But then on Christmas Day, we do an English Christmas dinner, since I am English,” explained the restaurateur. The variety of menu items includes a free-range, heritage Roast Christmas Goose, Roast Leg of Churro Lamb in fresh mint sauce, and prime rib with Yorkshire pudding.

“I’m not limited anymore to simply Southwest cuisine… I try to be a bit more local-foods focused with the restaurant now,” said Chef Sharpe, who escaped a decade ago from the glitz of the LA food scene. As a member of Chef’s Collaborative, he works to encourage local growers to provide the restaurant with foods of all kinds.

The European-trained chef uses local ingredients, incorporating into his menu indigenous foods that are important food sources and intrinsic to the ritual and spiri- tual lives of the Native Americans of the region.

Chef Sharpe selects Churro lamb, known for its light herbal fragrance and complex grassy flavor, from Navajo herders, traditional Piki corn bread from Hopi women, and goat cheese from local farmers. Sharpe’s prized ingredients, squash blossoms, come from Phoenix and “Coho Salmon caught by the Nez Perce tribe on the Columbia River is in the kitchen now. I always serve fish, but it depends on what is on the market.” American White Sturgeon, another local Columbia River fish, was served in a potato crust for Sharpe’s annual Thanksgiving Day dinner.

The restaurant owner is also an accomplished cookbook writer. “It’s a bit more than a cookbook,” explained Chef Sharpe of his book, La Posada’s Turquoise Room Cookbook. Along with full color photos and recipes of his creations, the book showcases historical photos of La Posada Hotel, one of the last remaining great railway hotels. The book has been praised by foodies and history buffs alike. In its second edition, the book and its author will be featured at Tucson Festival of Books in March.

A signature dish of the restaurant is the Churro lamb. “Churro lamb is totally and completely unique [to this area]. From a foodie point of view, you can get it else- where, but it’s not going to taste the same as that grown on the Rez. It’s tantamount to ‘you can only get Camargue cattle in Southern France’ or ‘the only place you can really experience Brest chicken is in Brest, France,’” explained Chef Sharpe.

Because presentation is an intrinsic part of the Turquoise Room dining experience, Chef Sharpe had to invent a way to serve the Piki bread. Piki, used in Hopi ceremonies, is paper-like blue bread. “The novelty is that the food is unique… We had to find what we call a vehicle for it, so that it will present nicely.”

To do that, Chef Sharpe created Hopi Hummus. “I boil the beans and the roasted corn and then blend them together in a food processor and add garlic, sunflower seed oil, corn oil, pumpkin oil, a little French mustard, and I come up with hummus. Just spoon the hummus onto the Piki bread. It is a tribute to their food and their cuisine, but it’s my version of it.

“It will remain a signature dish as long as the Hopi women will bring me their Piki bread,” Chef Sharpe said.

“That’s a good example of how my style of cooking and type of food have evolved in the years that we’ve been here. By looking at what is available and then figuring out a way to use it by drawing on my classically- trained techniques as a European-trained chef, I will hopefully be able to put some- thing on the table that people will enjoy.”

The local and international clientele that come regularly to the hotel and restaurant prove that he does. FBN

Classic European Chef Integrating Local Foods is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

The RB Burnham Trading Post exists in two worlds. There’s its home in Sanders on the Navajo reservation. Then there’s the outside world, the one that passes through in a trickle of tourists, the one that five generations of Burnhams have greeted, and more recently, traveled out to meet.

The trading post started in Dinnebito, but moved to Sanders in the early 1970s. Later, the reservation expanded around the trading post so today, it is surrounded by reservation land.

The day-to-day business has followed the same path for decades, supplying the locals with everything from groceries, household goods and yarns for weaving to video rentals, while taking in jewelry, art and rugs from artisans. It’s steeped in the kind of history and charm that keep tourists coming back.

Thirteen years ago, Bruce and his daughter, Sheri Burnham – generations four and five to operate the family business – decided to push beyond their boundaries. They went to auction school and started holding Navajo rug auctions.

The early auctions drew as few as nine bidders. Now they draw healthier crowds, even in tight economic times.

“Thank goodness we’ve started the auction process as another venue to sell,” said Sheri Burnham. “What we see, [the economy] hasn’t impacted us in a major way. But we have to hit the road.”

And so they do, holding 13 auctions per year, each partnered with a nonprofit. Two are in Flagstaff and benefit Flagstaff Cultural Partners (a joint venture of the Coconino Center for the Arts and Flagstaff Arts Council) and the Museum of Northern Arizona. One is as far off as Indianapolis. Most of the rest are in the Four Corners area.

And there’s strategy to the scheduling. Auctions in the Valley do better in winter, for example, because of visiting snowbirds.

“We actually produce the auctions and bring in the Burnhams. We contract them to be our auctioneers. The goods come from the community at large. Weavers and people who come from the community consign them,” said John Tannous, executive director of Coconino Center for the Arts.

“Those consigners come to us here in Flagstaff directly, but they also go to the Burnham trading post out in Sanders. About half of the inventory of each auction will be consigned through the Burnhams at the trading post, and half of it will be from people who come here and consign in Flagstaff.”

If the auction circuit conjures images of an old trader hauling rugs on a mule, think again. The Burnhams do about $1 million a year in volume because of the rug auctions, Sheri Burnham says.

Each auction features hundreds of hand-woven rugs, each a work of art. They range in size, style and color, but all are of Navajo origin. It’s not unusual for some of the weavers to be in the audience, and buyers can persuade them to pose for pictures with their rugs (such photos help establish the provenance for collectors).

“It’s important to the weavers. We don’t do it just because it benefits us financially, we do it because it creates an opportunity for the

community to purchase the rugs,” Tannous said. “[The rugs] are an important art form. It is intricate work, it is beautiful work and it deserves attention not only in the art world but in the community as a whole.”

The weavers also get better prices for their work in an auction environment, the Burnhams say.

“The best part of the job is the people,” said Bruce Burnham, whose wife is Navajo. “I’m a Navajo people person. Everything about my job is the love for the Navajo.”

The Burnhams don’t take home all the cash. They get a 10 percent premium on the final price of each item. The weaver or consigner gets 80 percent and, in the case of the Flagstaff auctions, Flagstaff Cultural Partners and MNA split about 20 percent.

The most recent auction, Nov. 6, brought in $62,007 total, which means the art organiza- tions get $7,380. That’s down from when the auctions started before the recession, but is starting to rebound. The first auction, in June 2008, raised $125,136, of which the groups got $10,815. Tannous sees that as a reflection of the broader economy.

“This one that we did in June of 2010, of all the auctions that we’ve done since the first one, got us back up to that number,” he said. “The auctions sort of mirror what’s going on in the general economy. It’s starting to get better.”

Even so, the challenging economy has brought out sellers looking to make ends meet by selling family heirlooms or items from collections.

“We have more consigners than we have spaces,” Sheri Burnham said. “I’m seeing more people wanting to sell their stuff. With the weavers, artists and consigners, we have more than we can sell.”

The Burnhams inspect consignment items prior to auctions to make sure the seller is expecting an appropriate price, and to make sure they have something in every price range.

“I’m making sure the prices match the inventory,” Sheri Burnham said. “To keep succeeding, we have to have something from every level.”

On auction day, potential bidders have several hours to inspect the goods before the bidding starts.

“You can see them, touch them, see how finely they are woven and lay them out on the floor,” Tannous said. “They learn not only from the weavers but also the Burnhams, who are fifth generation traders and know more about the fine art aspect than most.”

The Burnhams visit, appraise and educate as bidders inspect the goods. Bruce Burnham is the sort of fellow who makes it nearly impossible to be uncomfortable, even for novice collectors. His warm personality and quick laugh put people at ease.

“Character is probably an understatement,” Tannous said. “He’s a national treasure.”

Rugs sell for anywhere from $100 to $10,000, depending on size, intricacy and quality. The artisan’s reputation and who’s bidding

can also be factors. “We still need to keep it diversified. A lot of these people are not sophisticated buyers,” Sheri Burnham said. Those people need to feel comfortable buying, and part of making that happen is Bruce’s auction style.

He’s part storyteller, part encyclopedia, part comedian as he banters through the list of items for sale. Assistants parade the items before bidders while he tells about the style, materials and weavers.

“He is entertaining,” said Tannous. “He’s just got this sort of cowboy charm to him. He’s telling jokes throughout, and he’s mixing in edu- cation. He’s telling people about the weavers and where they come from.”

The weavings aren’t just beautiful; they are a good investment, Tannous says.

“It’s an amazing investment. Purchasing a Navajo weaving, the value does not really go down on them. You might have trouble selling them right now, but generally the value usually goes up or holds steady,” he said.

That is one reason another popular aspect of the auctions is appraisals. Anyone can bring a native rug in and get a profes- sional appraisal for $25 – also split with the nonprofit. Sometimes that leads to an “Antiques Roadshow” moment, as Don Richard of Flagstaff found out Nov. 6.

He brought in two rugs that had been in his family for years that he plans to pass along to his children. One was a grayscale geometric Bruce Burnham judged as a fairly common saddle blanket for its age. The other was a colorful rug about four feet long.

“I should be paying you for bringing that in to see,” Burnham quipped as he rendered his verdict. This one, he declared, was a Germantown style rug, circa 1890, valued between $7,000 and $12,000.

The 2011 auctions with Flagstaff Cultural Partners are scheduled for June 11 and Nov. 5. FBN

The trading post makes a great day trip and also sells from its web site: R.B. Burnham and Co. http://www.culturalpartners.org/

Market Enduring for Traditional Rugs is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

When President Barack Obama announced help for struggling homeowners in April 2009, millions of homeowners facing foreclosure or payment resets breathed a collective sigh of relief.

What most of them didn’t expect was how much time, effort and paperwork would be involved, and how difficult it would be to qualify for many government assistance programs.

That’s where foreclosure intervention counselors come in. They help troubled borrowers understand their options, assemble their documents and negotiate with lenders, with a goal of getting loans modified. Best of all for the borrowers, the help is free.

“We [serve as] a negotiator with their lender or their servicer,” said Devonna McLaughlin, director of Bothands, Inc. in Flagstaff. “We help them to craft their hardship letter and get their packet together for the lender.”

Bothands has about 100 clients from Coconino, Yavapai and Mohave counties in its intervention program at any given time. With just two counselors to work on foreclosures, the organization has had to take only clients making $100,000 a year or less.

Banks require borrowers seeking relief to submit a “hardship letter” explaining why they are unable to make their existing mortgage payments, documents proving income, application forms and budgets.

“A lot of people just get overwhelmed with the paperwork. There is a lot people have to do to apply,” said Susan Bardsley, the Winslow- based foreclosure intervention specialist for Northern Arizona Council of Governments (NACOG), which helps borrowers in Navajo and Apache counties. “The outcome could be worth their time and effort. We can’t help them if they don’t apply.”

There’s no guarantee that any applicant will get a loan modification. With nothing in the federal program to force banks to modify loans, it’s entirely at their discretion.

When clients call because they have received auction notices from their banks, Bothands kicks into high gear to get modification applications submitted and try to stop the sale. But they may have to do it several times during the negotiation period, because each stop only lasts 30 days, while the modification process may take more than a year.

“Clients consider it being held hostage. They can’t move on with their lives. They can’t change jobs, they can’t move. They are frozen until the lender makes a decision,” said Cher Ferry, foreclosure mitigation counseling program manager at Bothands. “Buy a birthday present? They don’t do it. They don’t do anything until the lender says its okay to do it.”

Some of the problem is that banks just don’t have enough staff devoted to modifications. Departments within banks may not be communicating efficiently, either.

“People can’t get through to the lenders. Phone numbers change. People don’t know which department to send you to. And sometimes there is a language barrier. Some calls go to call centers in India and people don’t understand each other,” Bardsley said.

In addition, Ferry says, hold times are increasing. She routinely waits on hold for 45 to 90 minutes just trying to reach bankers. And when she does, their demands can seem heartless.

“Sometimes the lenders’ demands are getting pretty extreme,” she said. “I had a client, I set up a budget for him. The man has cut everything out of his life but what he needs to survive. I had a [bank] processor call me wanting to go over his budget. He wanted to know what else could be cut.

“I told him there was nothing left to cut but food,” Ferry said. “He said, ‘That’s why I’m calling. He works at a restaurant. Can’t he eat at the restaurant and cut out his budget for food?’”

Another client, an elderly woman in Cottonwood, will lose her home despite keeping her heat off and sitting on an electric blanket to save money. She just couldn’t save enough to satisfy the bank.

Many borrowers won’t qualify for federal programs, but banks have their own modification programs that are often less publicized.

“Often it’s better to try for a lender’s in-house modification than the government program,” Ferry said.

Even the new Save My Home AZ program has tight requirements: The loan value can’t be more than $50,000, and the loan can’t have been an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) or flexible payment mortgage. Anyone who took cash out in a refinance is ineligible. And even for borrowers who qualify, there’s not much money for Northern Arizona.

“The vast majority of people that will be helped will be in Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties,” Ferry said. “It’s a very small box. The ones that we need to help are the adjust- able and option ARMs. We don’t get a lot of people with fixed-rate loans.”

That’s not the only hitch, Mclaughlin points out. The most difficult sell may be the two words likely to make a lender wash your mouth out with soap: “principal reduction.”

“You have to have a lender who’s willing to play, lenders who will do principal reductions,” she said. “In order to get the state’s money, your lender has to match the principal reduction.”

If all efforts fail to get a loan modified, Bothands and NACOG try to help the borrower get back on his feet.

“I can’t guarantee that they will get a modification through. If they don’t, we refer them to other agencies that can help them with transitional housing and help with utilities,” Bardsley said. “The frustrating part of my job is that I can’t help more people. People who should qualify don’t.”

Even with all the pitfalls, the agencies encourage troubled borrowers to try, and the sooner the better.

“The first step everyone should do when they are in trouble is call their lender, and then call me,” Bardsley said. “A lot of people don’t realize that there is a chance to work things out. A lot of it is denial. But 90 percent of it is, especially if they are unemployed, they don’t think there is any hope. With the stress level, a lot of people just ignore it until it’s too late. That makes it harder for me or the bank to help them.” FBN

Foreclosure Intervention Options for Troubled Borrowers is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

The capture of the third of three escaped murderers from Arizona State Prison – Kingman has quieted fears of law-abiding citizens, but the daring escape leaves northern Arizonans questioning the benefits of prisons in their local neighborhoods. Prisons bring positive economic impact to a community. But do jobs created by prisons balance the negatives?

During a time when states and municipalities are having difficulty balancing budgets, added revenues from correctional facilities sound like a straightforward solution. 

Jim Ferguson of the City of Winslow said, “Any industry that is going to supply three hundred jobs is going to have a positive impact. We’ve had the prison here in Winslow for quite some time. The economic impact from the jobs themselves is good. Most other outside business is contracted with the state.” Sales figures of local businesses aren’t boosted by the Arizona State Prison Complex-Winslow (ASPC-Winslow) which buys from out-of-town vendors.

Opening in 1986 with 650 beds, ASPC-Winslow now has a designated capacity of 1,292. The number of jobs has grown with the number of those incarcerated. A 2008 W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University report backs the claim that ASPC-Winslow jobs are important to the local economy. According to the report, “State government employment was about 500, mostly at the state prison, which is basic to the Winslow economy.”

“On the public side, we’ve had good impact,” said Ferguson of the state-run prison in his community. “On the private side, there are mixed reviews.” Privately-run prisons are getting a bad rap since recent reviews blame lax security for the murderers’ escape from the Kingman complex. City Manager Ferguson revealed that in the past several years, all four of the largest private prison companies in the United States have been to Winslow. 

“The recent 5000-bed contract stimulated interest around the state,” shared Ferguson. “Some communities — that in the past were not willing to look at adding a prison — are more willing to do so because of the economy.”

Prescott Valley was one community that looked at the economic benefits of hosting the 5000-bed correctional facility. Gary Marks of the Prescott Valley Economic Development Foundation (PVEDF) said, “We are approached by a number of businesses every year. It is our job to look at the economic impact and report the findings. We found that it is much better to get a third-party source that can simply run the numbers.” 

Approached by Corrections Corporation of America, PVEDF hired economic analysts to predict the private prison’s fiscal impact. Elliott D. Pollack and Company of Scottsdale found that the fiscal impact of a correctional facility on Prescott Valley included $75,037 in utilities sales tax, $168,211 in sales tax from employee spending and $1,889,560 in state shared revenues. Total revenues from operations of the prison were estimated at $2,133,200. The town council opposed the prison without taking a formal vote after listening to public outcry.

“A prison may be potentially significant to a region, but the people may not be interested. Others look at it from a different light. Every project brings with it pros and cons and that is why each project is dialogued extensively before it is decided on,” explained Marks.

Bennett R. Bratley, Acting Director of the Mohave County Economic Development Department stated, “MTC is one of Kingman’s top three employers.” Management & Training Corporation (MTC) that operates the state prison at Kingman has housed minimum custody inmates since 2004 and medium custody inmates since 2005 in 1400 available beds. In 2008, the state contracted with MTC for 2000 additional beds. 

“After the expansion was completed some who had been out of work for over twelve months were hired and now are providing for their families,” disclosed Bratley. 250 were employed before the expansion in 2008, and that grew to 543 prior to the break-out.

Bratley reported that since the escape, Mohave County staff receives calls from concerned residents who mistakenly believe Mohave County has control over the actions of Arizona State Prison – Kingman.

“Some of our residents have shown they do not know the difference between our county jail and the state prison,” said Mohave County Manager Ron Walker in a press release. “There is a vast difference. Our county sheriff runs our jail. Alleged criminals who are going through the court system are placed in our jail. If found guilty of major crimes and sentenced to prison, the DOC takes charge of them for placement into a state prison. Some criminals sentenced to shorter terms will be housed at our facility. Convicted murderers do not get sent to jail; they get sent to prison.” 

“Jails are not prisons; they are built differently, they are managed differently,” said Coconino County Sheriff Bill Pribil. Pribil along with other county sheriffs backed Proposition 100 to keep the state from sending prison inmates to county jails for their final year of incarceration. 

“The people of Coconino County have a stable detention facility, but the state wanted to transfer their [fiscal] problems back to the county. The state needs to clean their own house before transferring them back to the counties without funding,” added Pribil. 

The one-cent sales tax raised by Proposition 100 should take care of the threat. But Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Mohave County Buster Johnson said recently in a press release, “The failure of the state to balance their budget is leading to uncertainty in all areas of state provided services. We are still living under the threat of the state sending inmates from their prison system back to the county.”

If that happens then communities like Prescott Valley that say “no” to state correctional institutions may yet get state convicts in nearby county facilities. Some believe perhaps it is well to embrace state facilities with attached funding as do Kingman and Winslow, if convicts are going to show up in local jails anyway.

The Big House: Cost vs. Risk in Small Town AZ is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper

Ah, the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody ever does anything about it.

That old joke has a bitter edge for truckers crossing I-40 during Northern Arizona’s windy season. Though the area has always been prone to spring and fall winds, it is only over the last two years that authorities have had to close I-40 in the interest of public safety because of wind and blowing, choking dust.

In 2008, wind and dust-related closures were confined to I-10. But from March to June 2009, authorities closed I-40 five times and required DPS escorts four times, according to Arizona Department of Transportation spokesperson Mackenzie Nuno. Between March of this year and press time, the number climbed to 15 closures; twice when traffic escorts were deployed in windstorms that later led to closures.

When that happens, trucks stack up in parking lots in Winslow, Flagstaff and some- times even Holbrook. That, says Arizona Trucking Association President Karen Rassmussen, sets off a chain reaction that causes freight problems nationwide.

“I-40 carries more truck traffic across Arizona than I-10,” she said. “Truckers using I-10 have alternatives if dust closes the road. Not so for I-40.

“There really aren’t good options. Even for freight that originates in Arizona, most of it is going to Los Angeles – it’s the largest consuming market in the country,” Rassmussen said. So as soon as officials decide to close the road, her organization springs into action. “There are 10 or 12 national organizations and when this happens, we notify them and they get the word out. The most important thing that we can do is make sure the motor carriers nationwide know as soon as pos- sible. That way they can seek an alternate route.”

One small measure of relief is on the way: ADOT says it will have the Meteor Crater rest stop, along with four others around the state, reopened some time in July. (See sidebar.) Those stops were closed and will be reopened for budgetary reasons unrelated to weather.

Authorities agree there is little else anyone can do to combat the problem, at least until someone figures out how serious it is.

Margaret Hiza, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, hopes to find out what has changed to cause the dust-ups.

“It’s blowing out from the Little Colorado River Valley, but also some other areas in Northeastern Arizona, northward into Colorado and Utah,” she said. “Papers published as early as 1912 describe the dust transport from here into Colorado. But back then, there were not the same technological tools we have now.”

In fact, the USGS has satellite images of dust blowing across the area from some of the storms over the last couple of years.

“There’s a lot of surface deposits here that are vulnerable to erosion because they are very fine-grained. It’s a place that is very sensitive to fluctuations in the amount of wind and the amount of moisture we get,” she said. In fact, the sensitivity of the landscape is part of what lured Hiza here.

“I study the geologic evolution of the Little Colorado River Valley, and what makes it more prone to wind erosion. But I’m also monitoring the area for changes like these,” she said.

The changes could signal a long-term change in the regional climate, or they could just be the result of anomalies. The only way to distinguish is to watch the frequency, duration and severity of wind events.

“We’ve had a lot of weather instability this year and last year…it’s not typical of the climate we live in,” Hiza said. “If next year and the next five or six years there are no high wind events and we don’t get a lot of dust blowing, then I would say it’s just a bilp on the screen. If we have these kinds of wind events every year over the next 10 or 15 years, then it could signal a change in the regional climate.”

The dust that has been vexing motorists and authorities is fine silt blowing up from the Little Colorado River Valley. In a wet year, or even season, the river rises and dumps silt on the banks. Then, when it recedes, the silt – fine particles that carry plant nutrients – blows away.

If a trend emerges over several years, measures such as creating parks or restoring areas of the Little Colorado River watershed might be considered to help bring the dust down.

Meanwhile, it’s impossible to quantify the cost of trucks being sidelined for a wind- or dust-related road closures, Rassmussen says, because there are just too many variables. But the impact shows up in many ways.

Truckers eastbound on the highway are bound for Los Angeles terminals and ports, where they may be booked to pick up return loads or empty containers that need to return to their eastern points of origin.

“It [delivery] is a window. If that truck doesn’t arrive during that window, they can refuse the cargo, or they can say ‘sor- ry, you have to wait until tomorrow,’” she said. “It creates a ripple effect throughout the supply chain.”

Considering traffic volume, it’s mind- boggling that 60 miles of road can throw such a wrench into national commerce. But based on 2008 figures, “data shows average daily traffic at 14,500 vehicles at Twin Arrows Traffic Interchange, the eastbound closure location. There are days when nearly half the overall traffic on I-40 is commercial trucks,” Nuno said. “It is the interstate with the highest average percentage of truck traffic in the state of Arizona.” FBN

To see a satellite image one of the dust storms that forced the interstate closure, visit http://sgst.wr.usgs.gov/dust_monitor- ing/dust-events/may-11th-2010/

Wind Sidelining Truckers in Northern Arizona is a post from: Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper