"If Governor Napolitano said we need to look at Tent City, I guarantee you there would be a couple of fire marshals out there looking at Tent City," Pell says.
The Governor's Office, however, also did not respond to my request for comment.
Peter Scanlon
View from outside the Tent City jail near 29th Avenue
and Durango Street.
Jackie Mercandetti
Linda Saville vowed to work to get Arpaio removed after deputies framed her brother James and locked him up for four years.
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It's clear that Arpaio has no intention of ever closing down Tent City, despite the construction of new jails. No matter how much it costs taxpayers from settlements of numerous lawsuits filed by inmates. He keeps the tents open purely for public relations purposes.
Napolitano has the power to put an end to Arpaio's tent jails by ordering acting fire marshal Barger to deny the sheriff's request for a variance. If she can't muster the courage to cut Arpaio off at the pass, she could at least give him notice that this is the last variance that will be issued, and he has six months to get the new jails up and running.
I doubt Napolitano has the nerve to get into a face-off with Arpaio. After all, it was Arpaio who came to her rescue during that razor-close 2002 gubernatorial race with the television commercial.
Many Maricopa County Republicans remain livid over Arpaio's defection to Napolitano's camp in 2002, blaming him for Republican candidate Matt Salmon's narrow loss. The Maricopa County Republican Executive Guidance Committee -- which includes the top party bosses -- last year refused to endorse incumbent Arpaio and instead backed Saban.
This severely damaged Arpaio's campaign. He went from a 71 percent approval rating among Republican voters in the winter of 2004 to the narrow 55.9 percent victory over Saban in the primary.
Ominous for Arpaio is that Salmon was elected last month to be the new head of the Arizona Republican party. Salmon now has the clout to rally the troops and generate campaign funds to back the planned recall of the sheriff.
In an interview last summer, Salmon made it very clear how he feels about Arpaio.
"I don't respect him," Salmon said. "I don't think he's playing with a full deck."
I'm confident there will be a groundswell of support for a Recall Joe Arpaio campaign from a throng of outraged citizens, police and fire unions and, most important, key Republican party officials.
"I don't think we would have a problem getting the county executive guidance committee to vote to support a recall," says Bill Norton, Republican District 22 chairman.
It was Norton who started the Republican rebellion against Arpaio last year when District 22 voted overwhelmingly against endorsing the incumbent. Norton says he's more than ready to keep the revolution alive.
Arpaio, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has in the past repeatedly said he's only accountable to the people who elect him.
"I don't report to any bureaucrat, any politician or any governor," Arpaio said at a recent Republican women's luncheon that I attended in Scottsdale. "I report to the people."
Arpaio has used a series of clever public relations ploys to keep his name in front of the public. Such gimmicks as pink underwear, the mounted posse, chain gangs, and now the voluntary fingerprints at traffic stops are meant to project the image that he's keeping everyone safe and aggressively fighting crime.
"When he came into office, he implemented some ideas that were unusual and strange to the Valley, but that seemed to be effective, and people were responsive," says the Arizona Police Association's Brian Livingston.
But over time, Livingston says, Arpaio has "lost sight that he's here to serve the people, and not that the people are here to serve him."
The recall would be the ultimate test of Arpaio's political strength. If it is successful, he would have a choice of either resigning or standing for another election sometime late this year or early next year.
Waiting in the wings of a successful recall campaign is Dan Saban.
Saban, 48, says that while he's staying out of the recall campaign so as not to be accused of sour grapes, he's ready to challenge the elderly Arpaio at the ballot box.
Saban could hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of a recall and the opportunity to run against Joe sooner than the 2008 election.
"If they are successful with a recall effort," Saban says, "you bet I'd run against him again!"
