Front page news stories that week included a story about President Reagan, who had vetoed a bill guaranteeing southern Arizona’s Papago Tribe water from the Central Arizona Project. Governor Bruce Babbitt said he was “disappointed” at the vetoing of the bill, which was supported by Congressman Morris Udall.

Also on the front page, in public finance news, Governor Babbitt had informed state agencies that their just-approved 1982-83 budgets would have to be cut by an additional 10 percent, due to state revenue forecasts being very “dismal.”

Rounding out the front page coverage of our first issue was an article titled “Litigation and legislation due in Yuma.” This article covered the battle brewing over the formation of the state’s 15th county, which would be formed by dividing Yuma County into north and south portions.

The interesting part however, was that the popular vote from the county had defeated the proposal, with 4,094 “no” votes to 3,258 “yes” votes. However, Arizona law at the time stipulated that as long as two-thirds of the voters in the area who wanted to succeed voted “yes,” then only 15 percent of voters in the rest of the county had to agree.

La Paz county was formed on the strength that “yes” votes in the under-populated north were worth more than “no” votes in southern Yuma County