It’s too late to save the fragile Sonoran Desert in Phoenix. But it’s not too late to preserve what’s left of it. Spend a few hours at the Desert Botanical Garden, and you’ll know the desert is worth protecting. First step? The city must figure out the exact boundaries of…
We know how to build streets. Oh, brother, we’ve got the experience there. Wish we paid as much attention to building parks. You’ve got to wonder about a city’s priorities when it has a specific five-year street-building plan, but parks are built catch-as-catch-can. The new council needs to put our…
“What a dump!” How many times has the phrase crossed your mind as you passed vacant lots, a ratty back yard, derelict strips of commercial buildings? Virtually no neighborhood between South Mountain and Squaw Peak is without a share of blight, as the Phoenix City Council finally acknowledged last year…
Nine Easy Steps to Filling in the Empty Spots Where Our City Is Supposed to Be. With nearly half the land within the city still vacant–much of it in single lots or small hunks skipped over by developers–the council needs to get serious about encouraging infill. 1) Require developers to…
Yikes. It’s 6:30. I’ve got to call my wife. I won’t be able to meet her for dinner after all. Dial, dial, ring, ring. “Hewwo?” “Hi, son. It’s Daddy.” “Hi, Dad.” “So you’re answering the phone all by yourself now, huh? You’re really getting to be a big boy, aren’t…
Fifty-one weeks out of the year we beat Mayor Terry Goddard about the head and shoulders with a long staff as if he were our own personal pinata; he is, after all, an elected official. The flailing is good sound employment and one indication of how seriously we take our…
Dawn. With the crashing thunder of Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyrie” playing in their headsets, F-16 fighter pilots lift off the tarmac at Williams and Luke. As early-morning commuters look on, the jets swoop low over the Phoenix Civic Plaza and bomb the acres of concrete courtyard into rubble…
I was driving to Evan Mecham’s Supreme Court hearing. A newscaster’s voice on the radio said: “The scene at St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo is described as near anarchy. Troops sent there to restore order have been told to shoot if necessary to defend themselves.” The Arizona State Legislature was…
“We don’t want any niggers and Mexicans out here.” Duane Pell didn’t think he shocked easily. But then, he didn’t think that being a politician meant he had to listen to crap like that. He remembers thinking, so that’s why I’m getting so much grief from this neighborhood. I’m just…
A prominent Phoenix zoning attorney waved Councilmember Duane Pell over to the side during a break in a council meeting in the summer of 1988. In an apologetic tone, he said, “This isn’t my idea. I’m only delivering a message.” And here was the message, Pell tells New Times: Neighborhood…
This should not be the golden age of weird pickled impulse food. The Cult of Nutrition approves of neither the produ~ction nor distribution of such semi-edible items as brine-suspended Polish sausages, hard-boiled eggs, pigs’ feet and pigs’ ankles (these are better known as “pork hocks”). Yet business is good down…
PROP 2 VS. BULLDOZERS When it comes to preserving what little heritage Phoenix has, good will is fine. But it takes cold, hard cash to make a difference. And cash is what Proposition 2 is all about. Most of the $15 million in new taxes that would be raised if…
Phoenix, while frantically trying to lure a giant semiconductor plant to Arizona, has levied a quarter of a million dollars in fines against ten polluting companies–among them an existing giant semiconductor plant–in an unprecedented crackdown. The crackdown on industries that discharge hazardous wastes to city sewers was prompted by pressure…
Ex-Hollywood jungle queen ACQUANETTA remembers those happy days when Scottsdale caterer FRANK CALI once carved a Lincoln out of cream cheese for her. Now their relationship has soured. The Phoenix socialite, once married to car dealer JACK ROSS, is embroiled in a dispute with Cali that may end up in…
Dear Dr. Dad: I have lost all communication with my children. I speak slowly and try to be as simple and precise as possible, but nothing sinks in. When they don’t ignore me altogether, they just stare at me as if I were yammering in Swahili, then run off to…
Even without his state police uniform, Van Jackson makes an impression. He is the physical epitome of a state trooper. At six feet five inches and 200-plus pounds, the former cop carries himself with the composed grace of an athlete. Despite the dignity of his well-cut pin-striped suit, however, he…
This is about the passage of time. Here in Arizona, we live in a dream world created by our own imagination. We are, of necessity, citizens of a different country. The television networks have decreed that the real world consists of New York City and Washington, D.C. Unless they subscribe…
The way Governor Rose Mofford sees it, Arizona credit-card customers are going to get screwed anyway. So she and state lawmakers might just as well help the process along in the name of economic development. Mofford supports legislation drafted by lawyers for Security Pacific Bank to “clarify” state banking laws…
When Tom Webb finishes reading a book in his room at the New Windsor Hotel, he sets it down carefully and precisely so the book’s spine is exactly flush with the edge of the shelf on his wooden night table. His own spine is straight, too. And he makes sure…
Got no place to show off your crucifixes-in-a-jar-of-urine and your photos of nekkid perverts? Bring ’em to Phoenix; we’re into weird art. Our city council, for instance, has such a weird sense of art it’s got the downtown art zone confused with the Dead Zone. Strange but true, the next…
“I knew those kids were trouble the minute they came through that door, the little bastards,” fumes the veteran 7-Eleven clerk we’ll call Midge. “You work in these places long enough, you learn to sense it. Or at least I can.” Never having worked in a junk-food fortress, I lacked…
Christina the lawyer had a great idea. It would turn an uneventful trip to the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado into a small adventure. Instead of flying directly to Telluride, we would go to Durango, rent a car and enjoy a scenic drive. The drive took more than three hours…
