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QCUSD scrambles for cash after bond sinks BY MARK MORAN Tribune Staff Writer
NEWS ........................ 6 New town manager is no stranger to the town.
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Q
ueen Creek Unified Superintendent Dr. Perry Berry vowed last week to continue serving the needs of students in the booming district despite the resounding 55%45% defeat of a $198-million bond for the second year in a row. “With or without that bond we are going to continue to offer high quality education for
our students and I just want everybody to know that,” Berry said at the Nov. 16 meeting. “We have the fastest growing district in the state of Arizona because people know we have high quality things for our students. That is not going to change. I am very proud of that. And I just want everyone to know that is going to continue,” he said. This year’s bond measure was leaner than the $265 million bond measure voters defeated last year in an all-mail election.
It would have funded “construction of new schools, expansions of existing ones, upgrades to facilities, security features, new buses, and other improvements to address the rapid growth of Queen Creek’s population. Berry said despite the latest defeat, there were some civic engagement positives that surfaced in a town with one of the lowest voter registration tallies in Arizona.
see SCHOOLS page 6
QC officer aims to engage with the public
COMMUNITY .......15 Bull riders carry many scars but some think the rewards are worth it.
SPORTS ................... 23 Yotes’ big new East Valley home in hands of voters.
COMMUNITY ..........................15 BUSINESS................................18 OPINION.................................... 20 SPORTS....................................... 23 GET OUT.................................... 24 CLASSIFIEDS............................ 26
BY MARK MORAN Tribune Staff Writer
M
egan Erwin wanted to be a police officer since she was a teenager in Tempe. “My high school had a career day and one of the Tempe homicide detectives showed up and I went in there and listened to him and it just hooked me,” Erwin said. “From that point forward, I knew what I wanted to do. It was very intriguing to me.” She signed on with Tempe Police and became a sworn officer at age 21. “I always knew that I wanted to do something in the public service type field, helping people,” she said. Fast forward a few decades, and now Sgt. Megan Erwin is the new community engagement Officer for Queen Creek
Police, in charge of interacting with the public and de-stigmatizing the presence of police in town, at schools and at local businesses. Her job, in effect, is to change what she said has become a negative perception of the police. “The media has put such a negative spin on policing,” Erwin said. “A lot of times people look at when they see the police somewhere and it’s like ‘oh they are there for a bad thing.’ And that’s re-
see ENGAGEMENT page 8
Queen Creek Police Officer Megan Erwin wants to engage with residents, school students, business owners and just about anyone else in town to erase what she believes is a frequent negative image of law enforcement. (Special to the Tribune)
Central Arizona College www.centralaz.edu
Paths to Great Careers