19 West Valley View, Avondale, Arizona, Tuesday, April 10, 2012
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years old, as well as early childhood professionals. For information, call Candice Ratlief at 623-333-2721.
Goodyear to offer classes on disaster preparedness
offer month-long classes on basic disaster preparedness. The Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT training, will provide instruction to a minimum of 15 residents on a variety of emergency topics. They include fire safety, basic search-and-rescue techniques, team organization and disaster medical operations. The training is available to all Goodyear and Litchfield Park residents. To sign up, call 623-882-7302 no later than April 24, or send your name and phone number to
cert@goodyearaz.gov.
Driver’s license frauds trigger
ADOT warnings Fraud artists have gone online to scam Arizona motorists on supposed driver’s license services, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation. The agency’s Motor Vehicle Division has issued
warnings about various fraud schemes intended to charge Starting May 1, the Goodyear Fire Department will
a person’s credit card account for bogus license services that are not delivered.
to falsely advertise the ability to provide driver license services that in Arizona are only available through
http://servicearizona.com,” according to a warning that was issued April 3. ADOT officials are alerting customers that the above website is the only site that customers can use to transact an array of Arizona motor-vehicle services.
Phoenix Symphony offers
‘Rat Pack’ video contest The Phoenix Symphony is offering a video contest for
“The fraud occurs by scam artists using the Internet
Safety class for parents
set in Avondale Parents and caregivers of young children may attend an
Avondale Police Department’s Community Services Bureau. It will be geared for parents and caregivers of children to 5 years old. For information or to register, call Candice Ratlief at 623-333-2721.
fans that will coincide with the orchestra’s performance of “The Rat Pack!” on April 28. Contestants have through April 20 to submit a video with songs from the musical. The winner will receive an evening of prizes, including a dinner and a chance to meet the stars of the show. In addition, anybody who submits a video will receive a free ticket to a performance of “The Rat Pack!” on April 27 at Symphony Hall. Contest organizers say a variety of formats may be used to email the video to
publicrelations@phoenixsymphony.org. The entrant’s name, age, phone number and email address must be included.
Avondale offers new e-services
by Rachel Trott staff writer
Avondale residents can now pay bills, submit crime reports and have their voices heard with the click of a button.
Recently, the city unveiled a newly revamped website
and new e-services to make interacting with the city more convenient for citizens. “One of the things that we’ve really been focusing on is making it easier for people to do business with us,” C ity Manager Charlie McClendon said. “One of the ways that they can do that more easily from their own home or where ever is through the use of electronic, Internet-based services, so we’ve been installing a lot of new features recently.”
Crime reporting
Citizens reporting a theft, shoplifting, criminal damage, lost property, identity theft or burglary from a vehicle can now do so online through the city’s website.
Residents are still urged to call the police department or 911 for other crimes that have been committed or are currently in progress, said Detective Matt O’Halloran of the Avondale Police Department. “What these are are low-dollar property crimes, no
known suspects, no evidence for us to really collect or process,” he said. “It’s just ‘hey, I came home, someone spray painted something obscene on the side of my house, I just need a report number for my insurance company.’ That is exactly what this is designed for.”
Similar online reporting forms are currently in use in Scottsdale, Mesa and Peoria. Currently, up to 50 property crime reports are filed via the Scottsdale Police Department’s online reporting form per month, freeing up time for two to three beat officers, O’Halloran said. Last year, the Avondale Police Department received 72,500 non-emergency calls.
“I really anticipate that this is going to make a big dent in the call volume for us,” he said. “This is going to fit as a resource for some of our frequent callers, like home owners associations, property managers, convenience stores. They can simply file their report, get their report number and not have to wait for a patrol officer that’s tied up at the time.”
Utility accounts Paying your utility bill is now a little bit easier and cheaper in Avondale. The new payment website is run by the city, eliminating the $1.50 fee that used to be applied to online payments. “We previously had a third party who would process our payments. Residents would have to pay the fee, which is what the vendor was charging us,” said Budget and Finance Director Kevin Artz. The new payment process also eliminates a previous problem with applying payments to accounts.
“The other issue we had was if you keyed in your account number incorrectly [and it was] somebody else’s account, you were actually making a payment to their account,” he said. “With this you know you’re signing into your account, it’s been validated so you don’t have that risk of hitting that wrong key and getting into somebody else’s account to make the payment.”
The payment page also offers new features, such as the ability to view usage data for the past two years and previous payments. Currently, more than 300 people have registered for online utility payments since the payment process was updated two weeks ago. To register, residents must have their account number and their last name as it appears on their utility bill.
Code enforcement Residents concerned with overgrown weeds or other unsightly code violations can now submit complaints online. “With this new online complaint form they are now able to submit issues to us 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Code Compliance Manager Stephen Erno. “They can still call us, email us or reach us the ways that they have before, this just gives them a new way for them to submit things for us to check up on.” The city also offers a “myAvonale” application for smart phones that allows users to submit both code complaints and other problems in the city. There have been 480 reports submitted through the mobile app since it was made available for download in 2010, Erno said. “It could be anything from a street light out to
overgrown grass and weeds, or a pothole they’ve found,” he said. “It just gives them a convenient way to submit issues to us as a city so we’re able to respond quickly.”
Customer satisfaction Another addition to Avondale’s website is a
new customer and satisfaction survey through the Neighborhood and Family Services department, Erno said.
“We wanted to be able to provide a convenient way for the public to provide feedback on the services they receive from our department,” he said. “A lot of times people want to provide feedback to us but sometimes it’s just not easy, they don’t know who to call or the easiest route. That way they’re able to go directly to a form to fill out.”
Through the online form residents can share the quality of customer service they received, response time, how helpful resources were and their overall satisfaction. They can then expect a response within two business days or less, Erno said.
Rachel Trott can be reached by email at rtrott@
westvalleyview.com or on Twitter @byracheltrott.
Rickyray Hernandez Rickyray Hernandez, 27, of west Phoenix died March 31, 2012, in Phoenix. Mr. Hernandez was born Nov. 10, 1984, in Phoenix. He worked at the Ashley Furniture Store warehouse. He is survived by his wife, Letisha Misquez; one daughter, Juliana; one son, Rickyray II; his parents, Angela Silva and Richard; two sisters, Elda and Monica; four brothers, Christopher, Rudy, Johnny and Anthony; and two grandparents, Raymond and Helen. Funeral services will be at
Rickyray Hernandez
This obituary is being rerun to include additional information.
A word about obituaries
The West Valley View publishes free obituaries for people who were residents or former residents of the West Valley. We also encourage the use of photos with obituaries. Photos will be cropped to a head shot, so they must be of fairly high resolution (at least 200 dpi) if submitted electronically.
Free obituaries are edited to conform to newspaper style. People who wish to have obituaries published verbatim, without any editing, may purchase a paid obituary; call 623-535-8439.
Obituaries may be submitted using our online form at
westvalleyview.com; click on Submit an Obituary. You may also email, fax or mail us obituaries. Our email is
news1@westvalleyview.com. Our fax number is 623- 935-2103. Our mailing address is West Valley View, Inc., 1050 E. Riley Dr., Avondale, AZ 85323.
Red Cross will conduct
blood drive in Buckeye Buckeye Outreach for Social Services has partnered with the American Red Cross for a blood drive in Buckeye.
Instruction will be offered by Kathy Laneri of the
Avondale workshop to learn how to keep their little ones safe. The class is set for 10 to 11:30 a.m. April 26 at Care1st
Avondale Resource and Housing Center, 328 W. Western Ave.
The Bloodmobile, a Red Cross vehicle, will be parked at 501 E. Mahoney in downtown Buckeye from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 28.
At least 40 donors are needed. To schedule an appointment, call the Red Cross at 520-230-7295, or go online at
www.redcrossblood.org and enter BOSS as the sponsor code.
10 a.m. Wednesday at St. John Vianney Catholic Church, 539 E. La Pasada Blvd. in Goodyear.
Teen Driving School Saturday, April 14th
Team Safety Driving School (TSDS) is holding a Teen Driving school at Arizona Motorsports Park’s driving pad, (not on the racetrack)
AMP donated the track time and NASA-AZ, a local driving club and other driving clubs are providing instructors.
Cost is $
99
Norman Hamden 928-254-5400
normanhamden@gmail.com teamsafetydrivingschool.org
Buckeye Funeral Home Serving the West Valley for over 70 years Funerals, Cremations and Gravestones (starting at $ Family Owned and Operated
( Phil M. Ganley Steve M. Ganley
Visit our web site for more information including pre-arrangements
www.Ganleysbuckeyefuneralhome.com 104 E. Baseline Road • Buckeye
623-386-4812 g 479) )
In loving memory of
Alexander Williamson Love IV August 3, 1971 to April 11, 2009
We will always love you! You are deeply missed every day!
Love, your wife Rhonda, son Logan, Mom & Dad, sisters & everyone who ever met you!
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