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Globe City Council discusses Jake Brakes

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GLOBE — Pop! Pop! Bang! Bang!  Gunfire in the neighborhood? A war next door?  No it is just late night engine braking noise from big rigs.   Lt. Bob Folker of the Globe Police Department explained the situation to the City Council on Tuesday. The big trucks like to use the compression in their engines to slow their trucks and save their brakes. Members of the council as well as a member of the public who had signed up to speak, doubted the part about the noisy  equipment actually slowing the trucks. They told of seeing cars continually being passed by trucks even though those cars were going the speed limit.

According to Folker, other highway-oriented cities have taken action with ordinances, either restricting the hours, truckers can use Jake Brakes or restricting the places they can be used. Since many people in Globe are shift workers who sleep during the day as well as at night.

Councilmembers Alderman, and Johnson spoke in favor of a ban within city limits.  The idea of zero tolerance for speeding, which is an issue bound up with the Jake braking, Lt.Folker, police chief Nipp expressed concern that zero tolerance would rob policemen of the autonomy to make good decisions in particular situations. They and council members thought signage and speed announcing trailer signs would be effective in educating truckers and other drivers to reduce speeding and excess noise. 

The council acted directing the city manager and his staff to bring the council a draft ordinance incorporating a 24 hour ban on the use of engine braking within Globe city limits.  

If Globe residents were to shift just 10% of their current business to local enterprises, they would be contributing more than three million dollars to their own towns in the form of increased tax revenue.  That contribution to the arm of government which has the most direct effect on the welfare of Globe and Miami people is just part of the picture, according to Sheilbi Lindesmith of the Local Arizona First Foundation. She explained how more and better jobs are generated by doing business with local rather than distant or distantly owned big box stores and other vendors. Thriving local businesses hire locally and spend locally also. She challenged community members  to spend just 10 dollars more out of a hundred in the Globe Miami area.  Vice Mayor Mike Stableton presented Lindesmith with a copy of a proclamation, “Proclaiming Shopping Local as a Community Priority.” , and that the period from November 25th to December 22nd would be a time to celebrate the Shift the Way you Shop Campaign. In the preamble to the proclamation, he noted that  for every 100 dollars spent in the community, 43 dollars remains in the community, versus  13 dollars of 100 dollars spent in a non-locally owned business.

Chris Collopy briefed the council on the significant aspects of the proposed sign code at Tuesday night’s meeting. There were important differences of opinion, with some stipulations and prohibitions exciting serious opposition on the part of councilwoman Charlene Giles with the support of Mayer Gameros who could not be present for the meeting.  Giles was eloquent in defense of business owners’ right to put up signs and in opposition to regulations that would hinder rather than help local business.  She wondered why the proposed regulations would keep she and other business people from painting signs on their own buildings, and using  temporary magnetic signs on their own vehicles.  And she wondered just why business owners could not have window signs that filled more than twenty five per cent of  areas of their windows. City staff and council members Roberta Johnson and Lerry Alderman raised the competing issue of preventing dangerous signs or counterproductive overcrowding of signs. 

City Manager Paul Jepson saw the issue as achieving a balance between “very restrictive and wide open chaos.” Giles proposed that business people be consulted, and not just downtown businesses, but also businesses in other parts of Globe such as those out on highway sixty. She was able to recite the names of over a dozen businesses that would be in violation because of signs painted on their buildings.  Jepson pointed out that those signs would be grandfathered in under the proposed code, but Giles wondered why the restriction was in the code at all.  She cited pleasant, and effective signs she had seen in Cottonwood. Jepson agreed to bring back possible alterations of parts of the code that were controversial, and to set up a work session that would include all affected businesses in Globe. Giles also wondered why Globe didn’t allow new billboards.  Jepson said that the issue could be brought up in the proposed work session.