John Gutekunst Parker

The annual Parker Tube Float returned Saturday, June 13, with participants launching from Buckskin Mountain State Park and floating down the Colorado River to Pirates' Den Resort at La Paz County Park.

The Parker Town Council heard a presentation on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-27 at a work session Thursday, June 11. Dennis Osuch, the consultant hired by the Town to work on creating the budget, said the proposed budget for FY 2026-27 currently stands at $12,172,406, which is $520,000 less than the budget for FY 2025-26. He added that, while special funds are balanced, more work is needed to balance the general fund.

President Donald Trump sure seems to spend time on his pet projects in Washington, D.C. These include the proposed ballroom and triumphal arch, as well as the mixed martial arts fight ring set up for his 80th birthday. He’s convinced these will improve Washington.

Monument Peak School in Big River is being transitioned by the Needles Unified School District into a K-12 school. High school students from Big River and Parker Dam will attended classes at Monument Peak rather than attending classes at Parker High School.

La Paz County has hired a new consultant to help modernize and streamline the county’s finances. James Menlove was hired at a special Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Wednesday, June 10. He’s a former county administrator who comes to La Paz County with an extensive background in county financing.

The Town of Parker has reached again into funds from a one-time gift from Arizona Public Service to make further improvements to Pop Harvey Park. The picnic tables will be replaced, along with the shade structures at the splash pad. Park benches will be installed at the new basketball court and around the playground.

I’m glad to see the Arizona Diamondbacks appear to have remembered how to hit the ball with runners in scoring position in their series in Cincinnati. They were something like 2-for-30 with runners in scoring position in their series against the Miami Marlins. They would get runners on base, but they couldn’t get them in. You’re not going to win a lot of ballgames that way.

Opioid overdoses remain a major cause of death in the United States, despite having declined from 79,000 in 2023 to 54,000 in 2024. One of the reasons given for this decline has been more access to overdose-inhibiting drugs like Naloxone.

For what seemed like many months, President Donald Trump boasted and bragged about the repairs and renovations he would be making to the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

I want to talk about another sport this week, specifically soccer and the World Cup. It seemed like the Trump Administration was doing all it could to wreck it. There were travel bans from certain countries, exorbitant fees for visas, talk of immigration enforcement at World Cup sites and a general impression that foreign visitors to the United State were not welcome or wanted.