Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 151

Mesa OMMUNI TY SERVING Mesa THE PHOENIX GAZETTE. THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC I 11 i Town Plate's a license for Ian ghter By Chuck Hawley Staff writer way chase through Los Angeles O.J. Simpson's Bronco followed by a tag-along squad of police cruisers. After that chase, the former football star was arrested and charged with killing two people; he was acquitted of those charges Tuesday. "I told my wife one day I ought to get the plate and she said, Do you know jiow stupid that is? People will just he said, adding that is exactly what happened.

People laughed all right, but the joke's on her now; because she drives it most of the time, Marty Reger said. Donna Reger said there has been no end of comment about the distinctive plate, even in overheard conversations. "When I'm at work (at a Tempe supermarket) people will come in talking about it," she said. "Some of them even ask me, 'Did you see that license plate out the parking "Sometimes I admit it's mine." Marty Reger said the plate is "not about the crime" but simply a joke. A joke that may not be played out, because people continue to roll down car windows at traffic signals to say how much they enjoy the gag.

"Most people laugh or give it thumbs up," he said. "Nobody has ever asked me what it Marty Reger said there's really only one thing about the license that surprises him. "I'm surprised it stayed on the truck as long as it has." MESA No telling how many thumbs up and chuckles Marty and Donna Reger have gotten since January, but it's been a lot. That's when they put a personalized license plate on their white 1986 Ford Bronco: NOT OJ. Actually, said Marty Reger, the same people who've laughed about his unique license were those who caused him to think about getting it in the first place wiseacres who joked about about his sports vehicle.

"They'd look at (the white Bronco) and say, 'Oh, you've got an OJ Marty recalled of those days last summer after a nationally televised, low-speed free Flower power in Queen Creek Queen Creek goes wild for flowers. The town has purchased 10 pounds of wildflower seeds, and Boy Scouts scattered them recently, hoping for 26 varieties of blooms in a mile stretch along Ellsworth Road south of Ocotillo Road. Bloom is anticipated sometime in November, weather permitting. To make sure residents don't mistake emerging seedlings for weeds, maintenance supervisor Todd Motsick has posted road signs: "Wild flowers. Please do not mow or spray." Last year's wildflower crop so impressed residents that anonymous donations were sent to Town Hall to help pay for this year's $500 seed bill, Town Manager Cynthia Seelhammer said.

Coming up Chuck Hawley Community staff Donna Reger says there Is endless comment about the distinctive license plate on the Ford Bronco that she and her husband drive. jo i iw Hal V1 J'Ti Jil Carpet seller faces jail 1 Admits felony theft; sentencing Oct. 25 'ii'; 9 -9 By Edythe Jensen Staff writer Learn not to burn: The Tempe Fire Department plans to hold an open house at each fire station today from 9 a.m. to noon, getting a jump on Fire Prevention Week, which officially runs Sunday through next Saturday. We know many of these dedicated lifesavers and urge you to stop by a firehouse to say howdy.

Bring the kids. The engines will be all spiffed up for a bit of showing off. Little kids love those big, shiny fire engines (big, shiny firefighters, too, for that matter). rix.ru. is if: i I J.

'VI ri Follow up 1 15 Going way back: Remember? We asked you recently if you know what the state fossil is and said we'd clue you in later if you hadn't looked it up by then. It's petrified wood. Watch this space for other arcane stuff, and if you have some of your own (verifiable), send it to us. v. Christine Keith Staff photographer Gentle Strength Co-op members Marai Sireci and Ken membership meeting.

Bylaw changes were approved Volk look over an agenda item during the recent putting more power in the hands of the members. Members change bylaws to restore their power Trends A Mesa man whose carpet-selling tactics got him into trouble with his customers and the law has pleaded guilty to two felony theft charges. Louis Gulermovich, 52, has been ordered to reimburse nearly 30 customers more than $35,000 he took for carpet that never was delivered. Restitution and supervised probation are part of the plea agreement, Assistant Attorney General Warren Granville said. Gulermovich took the deposit -money when he operated American Carpet Brokers in Tempe.

He closed American Carpet Brokers in 1994 and opened Pay Less For Carpets at 4210 E. Main Mesa under the name of Louis Williamson. The business name later was changed to Payless Interiors. One of the felony charges dropped as part of the plea bargain stems from use of a fake name on the Mesa business license. Efforts to contact Gulermovich earlier this week were unsuccessful; his business telephone number has been disconnected.

Granville said he will ask that conditions of Gulermovich's probation include prohibition from conducting any business that requires cash deposits. Gulermovich also could receive jail time on top of probation and restitution when he's sentenced Oct. 25 by Judge Michael O'Melia of Maricopa" County Superior Court. The theft charges are the most serious of numerous counts filed against Gulermovich in connection with the business dealings. He and his wife, Marjorie, have been' convicted in Tempe and Chandler courts of misdemeanor charges of contracting without a license.

See CARPET, Page" 8' and then I blah, blah, blah: Look up "boring people" in an Arizona State University faculty guide, and you'll find Geoff Leatham's name. He's not offended. Indeed, the visiting assistant professor of communication devotes a big chunk of his time to studying boring conversations. He's even listed in ASU's Media Guide as an expert on "boring people." Maybe he can study the yawns stifled at a Board of Regents meeting. ration, and the community aspect will be lost." She said she yearned for the return to its roots as a member-run community of people who like to eat healthy, learn yoga, make group decisions and discuss Utopia.

Coordinating Committee convenor (similar to the president of a board of directors) Scott Taylor doesn't think it's possible to turn back the clock. The store has become a $7 million retail business with more than 3,200 members. Most of the members don't come to meetings or work at the store, he said. They come from all over the Valley to buy one of the largest local inventories See CO-OP, Page 7 Committee. Two decades ago, the core of about 400 Gentle Strength members were called "hippies" by conservatives who made Richard Nixon president.

Co-op members gathered to talk about Utopia as they bagged nuts and raisins in the back room in exchange for price breaks on health food. They touted advantages of cooperative living and healthy eating before oat bran and anti-oxidants were part of Madison Avenue jargon. Twenty-year member Lucy Logan was among them. She said what was happening to the co-op before the bylaws change "is probably the worst fear of the founders: that the co-op will be just another big supermarket, another corpo zby By Edythe Jensen Staff writer TEMPE Power struggles usually don't start with Yoga breathing exercises. Parliamentarians aren't often called "vibes watchers," either, but things are different at Gentle Strength Co-op membership meetings.

More than 100 people sitting on chairs in a circle in the Tempe Library basement changed the course of the 25-year-old natural foods grocery store's history on Sept. 24. They took it back. To do that, they assembled a two-thirds vote to approve bylaw changes that put power back in the hands of members and limit the authority of an eight-member elected Coordinating Don't burst the balloon: We're informed by press release that the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to kick in for Tempe's Rio Salado project amount to be determined. The release notes that the Army's idea for creating a lake involves 16-foot "inflatable containment dams." Maybe they can inflate with hot air imported from Washington, of course.

Home buyers enjoy country living while they can and now that is paramount, she said. Traffic moved slowly around a maze of construction barricades, bouncing on a bed of rocks and ruts. This is the southern leg of Alma School Road, the north-south It must mean something: Personalized license on a late-model Honda in Tempe: YA in a license frame reading "Blonde and Luvin Every Minute." How 'bout: See Ya Charlie? (We don't know.) The Bottom Line COLUMNIST thoroughfare that runs through the center of the third-fastest-growing city in America Chandler. 66 For Clarice and Ted Hummel it was the smell of a nearby dairy farm, among other things. For including the swimming pool the aroma triggered a nostalgia for the Hummels.

"We were within walking distance of a dairy farm when we lived in Portland, Oregon," Clarice said. The Hummel's new home faces the south edge of Ocotillo Golf Course, 27 greens and fairways interspersed with enough lakes to compete with the upper peninsula of Michigan. This is as pastoral as the Hummels can get, within 25 minutes or so of Ted's i job as a data-processing manager for a bank in Tempe. Already, Clarice is concerned about the rapid development closing in around her new home. "It amazes me how fast they go up and how close together they are," she said.

"I'm already thinking I'm closed in." Art Thomason can be reached at 497-7971. their new home, the Sandovals can look south across alfalfa fields and sprawling, ranch-style homes on 1-acre lots with horses. Christina said they realize that the fields, and maybe the horse property, will soon disappear. "We saw it the way it is now," she said. "We know it is not too far away from the congestion.

We know that eventually it's going to be shopping malls and new homes." The appeal of cropland, cattle and horses also has become a marketing shtick for real estate agents and developers. "They still like the feeling of being out in the country even though they know eventually it won't be here," real estate sales associate Jackie Gleason said as she stood in one of a handful of model homes on an otherwise empty tract southwest of Arizona Avenue and Pecos Road. Gleason acknowledges that it is contradictory to use countryside living as a sales pitch in a city that is growing at phenomenal speed. But to home buyers, it's what is here on the agricultural fields southeast of Pecos Road. On the west side of Alma School, new-home developments continue south for more than a mile, leapfrogging agricultural fields as if they were following a plan to retain remnants of the city's pastoral charm.

But soon, all of the fields will be covered with boxy-looking, stucco homes with wood-frame skeletons. David and Christina Sandoval realize that. But for now, living on the edge of Chandler's urban sprawl feels, looks and smells enough like the countryside to attract them to Chandler. "It's a real kick back, and we love the farmland," Christina said as she stood in the doorway of her new two-story, home. "It's real quiet out here; we just love it." For a while, the Sandovals and their three children won't feel hemmed in like they felt in their previous home near the Superstition Freeway in Mesa.

That's one of the reasons they moved to Chandler. From the second-floor windows of Widened to six lanes and beautified with landscaped medians, it has become Chandler's Boulevard of Dreams the city's proverbial red carpet to developers. We have water-soluble phone lines. That's the standard joke around here. Art Thomason 99 On both sides of the highway, endless rows of new, boxy-looking homes march relentlessly toward the south in a construction frenzy unmatched in most parts of the nation.

The Boulevard of Dreams will help deliver the latest home-building assault Janine Muto, Mesa Unified School District director of instructional technology, on why the district's phones intermittently go dead after a rainstorm Compiled by staff writer Chuck Hawley..