This is a time for action. It’s a time to move beyond rhetoric and cosmetics. It’s a time to take bold steps to ensure that children get whatever help they need to grow physically, emotionally and mentally into healthy and happy adults. My vision is of an Arizona that leads…
The Republican revolution has a cure for the troubles of primary education in America, and it can be summarized in one word: competition. After more than a decade of dubious reform efforts, conservative Republicans are looking to change public schools from without, rather than from within. Their proposals have shiny…
In December 1990, New Times profiled Glenna Phelps’ fourth-grade class at Hamilton School in a story headlined “The Real War on Drugs.” Staff writer Paul Rubin interviewed many of Mrs. Phelps’ students at that time for the story. Five years later, Rubin tracked down Mrs. Phelps – who retired after…
Since late September, a media-shy collection of ranchers, legislators and sportsmen (that is, hunters) has met with Arizona Game and Fish commissioners and staffers in a basement room of the House of Representatives. The group has been discussing whether the state should pay ranchers to compensate for the forage that…
Dial Tone Having been with a division of the Dial Corp for 45 years, I found New Times’ six-page writings cheap, nasty and unnecessary (“Dial’s Dirty Laundry,” Paul Rubin, December 14). Why doesn’t Rubin come down and write six pages about the glorious things the Dial Corp does for its…
A lot of people swear they are going to do a lot of things when each new year rolls around. Promises of drastic life changes are ritually made and ritually broken: Money will be saved, bad habits will be curtailed, more attention will be paid, etc. Miss Candy Cantaloupes has…
Rave I: Ghost in the Machine, Icehouse, November 4, 1995 The beat. The beat. The beat. I can feel it through the concrete and steel from 300 yards away, like the pulse of some adrenalized titan going wild within the walls of the warehouse before me. It’s jackhammer fast–at least…
After 1 in the morning on May 1, as the off-duty police officers moonlighting as security guards cleared the parking lot of the Roxy, as 100 or so mostly black youths filed out of the club, there was a fluttering of automatic gunfire and a squeal of tires. When the…
If trophies are ever awarded for pointless web sites on the information superhighway, Arizona State University freshman Dan Siegel’s home page would seem to be a shoo-in for a Golden Speed Bump. The cyber equivalent of melatonin, the 18year-old broadcast major’s web page appears to be nothing more than a…
Every year, famed chef Nick Ligidakis’ efforts to feed the Valley’s needy on Thanksgiving are gobbled up by holiday-drunk newspapers and TV stations. Owner of Nick’s Cuisine of Southern Europe and its offspring, Nick’s on Central, Ligidakis creates an annual mass-feeding machine that is large and well-meaning and swaddled in…
It all started five years ago. This guy, whom we shall call Bob, took a job that entailed sitting in a small cubicle with a computer and a telephone in a large office building in downtown Phoenix. About 40 times a day, that phone would ring and on the other…
Bite the Bullet John Dougherty’s article “Sentence: 90 Days of Pain” about an inmate receiving “inadequate” medical care in Maricopa County jails is inaccurate and misleading (December 7). Confidentiality rules preclude discussing a patient’s medical condition without his written consent; but, had the reporter contacted me, I would have told…
When Olivia Birchett donated a prime piece of Mill Avenue real estate to the City of Tempe back in 1979, nobody seemed to mind that the philanthropic widow’s generous gift carried a few strings. The property was to be developed for use as a public park in perpetuity, a proviso…
Last March, Eve Edwards took advantage of what she sensed was a grand opportunity. She knew her ex-boyfriend, Jerry Ingalls, was immersed in a legal battle with his ex-wife–a top Dial Corporation executive named Joan Potter. Edwards also knew Ingalls had been talking about suing Dial for allegedly conspiring with…
First Interstate Bank cut Governor J.Fife Symington III two generous deals on more than $3 million in overdue loans, despite having evidence that Symington had submitted false financial statements to the bank, court documents reveal. First Interstate officials slashed the amount of interest and principal owed by the governor when…
A special review by the Arizona auditor general raises questions about how the Attorney General’s Office spends millions of dollars each year in representing state agencies. In the review, ordered by the Legislature, auditors criticized the Attorney General’s Office for failing to standardize agreements with state agencies it represents, and…
Despite his bankruptcy troubles, Governor J. Fife Symington III still has friends he can rely on. Friends who owe him their jobs, for example, such as the people at the Arizona Department of Real Estate. When Symington applied to renew his real estate broker’s license last month, his application should…
I suppose you would have to be on foot, or very bored, or have a sense of observation verging on desperate to notice it. It is another hunk of American refuse–a great, big, ugly, dead thing sitting there at 12th Street and McDowell, as relevant and as fascinating as a…
Water Whirl I was concerned about the recent article about groups objecting to the water use andthe city’s efforts at the new Sumitomo plant(“Sumitomo Wrestling,” Dave Plank, December 7). First, the information was highly exaggerated and wrong. The groups contend that the plant will “devour 2.4 million gallons per day…
Election night, 1995. Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza is beaming. Though it is the lowest-turnout municipal election anyone could remember, voters have given Rimsza a sizable victory over three challengers. In his victory speech, flanked by supporters, His Honor chalks it up to the confidence and sense of good stewardship he…
PATTY: Let’s go, Snoopy, up and at ’em. It’s a magnificent day for chasing rabbits. The air is clear, the sun is shining, the fields and woodlands lie open and inviting. SNOOPY: If it’s such a magnificent day, why spoil it for the rabbits? –from You’re a Good Man, Charlie…
Say Cheeseball! The pension funds that Governor J. Fife Symington III stiffed for $11.4 million are turning up the heat in his federal bankruptcy case. Attorneys for the union pension fund managers, San Francisco-based McMorgan & Company, have mailed more than 15 deposition notices. Formal subpoenas will follow. Pension fund…
