The new district, which officials are referring to as the Upper San Pedro Water District, would put water issues at the forefront and into local hands.

Several towns and cities, including Yuma, Camp Verde and Payson, have begun negotiations with the agency to take over the operations of their parks and keep them open, said Ellen Bilbrey, chief public information officer for Arizona State Parks.

On the cracked pavement of Main Street resides Florence's cherished, faded adobe buildings, most of which are in decent shape. A few brick shops stand between the preserved walls, connecting the uninhabited commercial buildings. Few school children and locals stroll the streets, with even fewer stores stay open for business (including saloons, cafes and mom-and-pop shops) past 4 p.m.

In just a matter of months, City Clerk Brenda Ikirt has formally rejected a total of three petitions calling for the removal of city councilmembers and another for the mayor.

However, one local resident, Moe Sinsley, refuses to give up the fight.

Three top-level Tombstone public officials are under investigation by the Cochise County Attorney’s Office as to whether they have violated Arizona’s open meeting laws.

Those implicated in the investigation include Mayor Dusty Escapule, City Attorney Randy Bays and City Clerk Brenda Ikirt.

The Arizona Department of Transportation will re-perform state tests to determine if a crosswalk is warranted along Arizona Highway 80 and Fourth Street where a British couple was killed on Oct. 19, an ADOT information spokeswoman said.

This is the third request by Tombstone city leaders to put a crosswalk along Highway 80 since 2001. ADOT information Spokeswoman Linda Ritter said Bill Harmon, the ADOT Safford district engineer, has been in contact with Mayor Dusty Escapule and Tombstone City Council within the past couple weeks.

“The plan is to do a comprehensive pedestrian safety study which will involve tests for crosswalks, speed limits and we’re going to look at lighting,” Ritter said.  “We are going to be looking at the four different intersections of Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Streets along Arizona State Route 80 in the next couple weeks.”

Security is important to Tombstone’s interim city clerk. That’s why, one year after her appointment, Brenda Ikirt refuses to take on the official title.

She wants to be able to keep her job, and she worries that if she takes on the full title she could lose her position after the next election.

The red dirt of Allen Street that, at one time, was kicked up by the hooves of horses, ground beneath the wheels of carriages and whipped by the wind and countless gunfights now sits quietly where it was piled in a lower-level parking lot on the south end of Sixth Street.

The removal of the dirt was carried out near the end of June after the city answered the growing number of complaints from merchants and tourists.

“Before we took the dirt off the street, I had to change my vacuum bags every week with five pounds of dirt in them,” said Frank Groppo who co-owns Russell’s Road Runners at 428 E Allen St. “I change them once a month now, they’re half full. We had to wipe our counters all day long, every single day. Now we keep the store clean but it’s not an all day effort, and we can do other things like selling merchandise.”

Although Tombstone has a freshly repaved highway thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, other projects have yet to be tackled and will likely remain without federal funding for now.

The improvement of Route 80 involved repaving about a mile of ragged asphalt and improving the road’s median strips while adding decorative accents between Fulton and 11th Streets. The project cost about $622,000, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.