The Pima County Sheriff’s Department underwent a significant leadership change this week when Deputy Chief Chris Radtke resigned Monday.
He was the second-in-command at the department until he was charged with conspiracy and theft in federal court related to allegations he misused money seized in criminal investigations.
Radtke was indicted Sept. 28. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos announced Radtke’s resignation Oct. 10.
In this episode of Metro Week, Caitlin Schmidt of the Arizona Daily Star details her reporting that uncovered the department was using money seized in criminal investigations to run a jail café that did not appear to follow county contracting rules.
Also in this episode:
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Broadway Boulevard between Euclid and Country Club is known as the “Sunshine Mile,” and it’s also one of the 11 most endangered areas of historic buildings in the country, according to a new designation from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The CEO of the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation, Demion Clinco, explains what the designation means.
The designation was prompted by the planned widening of the same stretch of Broadway, but Clinco says the Historic Preservation Foundation is not opposed to the widening. It wants the city to come up with land-use planning goals to preserve the buildings and their historic nature during and after the widening.
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Arizona’s delegate to the United Nations Refugee Congress in Washington, D.C. is from Tucson. Iraqi native Bassam Mahmood is now a U.S. citizen, and works in the Tucson Unified School District to help refugees and other immigrants adjust and resettle in their new homes.
The Refugee Congress focuses on identifying what refugees need in order to ease the transition to a new life, and Bassam said he wants to work on reducing the time it takes to get an international college degree recognized in the U.S. education system. Getting his English literature degree from an Iraqi institution to be recognized in the U.S. took two years, plus much communication with Pima Community College and the University of Arizona.
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Steward Observatory on the University of Arizona campus got its start with a monetary donation 100 years ago. It helped start a number of other scientific disciplines at the university, including the world-renowned dendrochronology program – the study of tree rings to determine dates of significant events, such as climate change. AZPM’s Sara Hammond explains the Steward donation, and its legacy.
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