This can’t be the place. Even in the darkness of 8 p.m., this is obviously a lovely two-story condo in Mesa, light blue with white trim, all the mod cons. This can’t be the dwelling of a vampire, the home of one of the undead, the digs of a child…
Ticket With a Grain of Salt Hopefully, New Times is getting $2,200 worth of publicity from the purchase of Fife Symington’s ASU tickets. Peter Gilstrap’s column about the retired carpenter using those tickets was a fine piece of journalism (Screed, October 19). The only part missing was the part about…
“This is where that bastard shot my son in the face, tu entendes?” he says.
At 8:30 on the evening of October 4, 1994, Rebecca haro, lead paramedic for Samaritan AmEvac, and her partner were parked in their ambulance near 83rd Avenue and Glendale. . A call came over the radio: A man had been injured in a fight just blocks away. All 911 fire…
They nailed Al Capone on his taxes, and now the feds are taking a hard look at Governor Fife Symington’s tax returns. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Symington cheated those who banked at Southwest Savings and Loan on the $30 million Esplanade investment; he cheated the taxpayers who had to…
Bob Huey looked uncomfortable as he began speaking. He was nervous, and his speech seemed on the verge of falling apart before it could really get going. But then, shifting his weight and taking a deep breath, Huey spoke in a clear, forceful voice the words the small crowd had…
The City of Phoenix turned a blind eye to Governor J. Fife Symington III’s financial troubles by failing for more than two years to demand repayment of a $2.7 million loan the city made to Symington’s Mercado partnership. Rather than meeting its obligations under a federal grant to immediately demand…
As the Fife Turns Yes, loyal Flashes readers, it’s time for another gripping installment of As the Fife Turns. In this episode, we ask the burning question: Have Arizona Republicans had enough of J. Fife Symington III? Are whispers of “Recall Fife” heard across the desert? According to e-mail from…
Arizona Secular Humanists member Randy Jones wanted someone to take Chuck Sloan’s camera so Sloan could get in the photograph. Since Sloan always takes the pictures, he’s seldom in any of them with his fellow nonbelievers. After an October 8 picnic at a Scottsdale park, Jones spotted U.S. Representative J.D…
This Is Your Fife Regarding that Fife Symington fellow (“Paying the Piper,” John Dougherty, October 5). . . . Tro da bum out! Robert H. Stone Phoenix Hey! Just think if the governor ended up in Joe Arpaio’s jail! He would have to eat all that baloney he’s been feeding…
Illegal immigrants have been flocking to the orchards of Chandler Heights for more than a decade. The immigration authorities continue to ignore the crime and suffering there. The man who calls himself “Pedro” inches his white Ford van off Power Road into a littered dirt clearing between two orange groves…
Waiting for the Grapevine.Squaw Peak Parkway is a good place to sell papers because of the shade underneath and all those working people who drive it. The motorists are potential customers who spill into idle formation as they wait to head east on Thomas Road where Chris and Michelle, the…
Le Big MacFor two years, a federal grand jury has investigated Governor Fife Symington’s business dealings. The state’s chief executive is suspected of being the Mac Daddy of phony financial statements. Financial statements are the backbone of all loans, credit lines, investments, partnerships, debt restructuring, write-downs and all the other…
The Mesa Fire Department’s September 26 shutdown of the explosion-riddled TRW air-bag manufacturing plant on East Germann Road ended almost as quickly as it began. Just 48 hours after ordering the plant closed, fire officials announced that all was well, that a 15point plan for safety improvements had been hammered…
On January 11, 1994, Attorney General Grant Woods announced the dramatic culmination of an intense criminal investigation. “We allege that hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen from elderly people who could not care for themselves,” Woods told the media. “They were dependent on Wayne Legg and Webber Mackey to…
Governor J. Fife Symington III apparently prepared conflicting financial statements in 1990–one showing that he personally controlled blue-chip stocks worth nearly $800,000; the other indicating that the stocks were controlled by a family trust. At least one of the sworn statements appears to be inaccurate. It is a crime to…
Flashes Putting on Heirs Some politicos have scratched their heads over the hubris of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s bankruptcy. Why would an ambitious man like the Fifester–anascent nova in the national firmament of states’-rights space cadets–run his political career aground in such a public way? Well, the bean-counters tell…
Governor Fife Symington threatened to sue New Times last week over a story stating that he had paid a kickback in connection with a $10 million pension fund loan for his failed Mercado minimall in downtown Phoenix.In a written response to the New Times story (“Paying the Piper,” October 5),…
Alleged backstabbing! Weeping editors! Miffed staff members! Financial strife! Confused readers! Unemployment lines! It’s all part of the topsy-turvy world of publishing, as the folks at Planet magazine have recently discovered. The tabloid is going through changes in both its editorial staff and its content, but just how drastic those…
The Blackboard Juggle Lisa Davis’ interesting article on the Phoenix Union High School District lacked the very same thing that the movers and shakers of today’s educational policies lack–no teacher input (“Does Not Work to Capacity,” September 28). Davis’ story was based on statistics instead of on kids. Could that…
A partnership headed by J. Fife Symington III made an apparently illegal payment to a pension fund investment manager who agreed to make a $10 million loan to a troubled Symington development, public records obtained by New Times reveal. The $10,000 kickback was paid in connection with a loan that…
Upon entering the Maricopa Association of Governments’ retreat early in September, each MAG councilmember received a few note cards and several small, adhesive-backed green dots. On the cards, they wrote problems they saw in the operations of the group; the notes were posted on a board at the front of…
