The long-awaited 60 Minutes segment on Governor J. Fife Symington III appears to be on the cutting-room floor at CBS News.
It's been more than four months since Morley Safer interviewed a reluctant Symington--and the piece still hasn't been scheduled for broadcast. A CBS source tells The Flash that the delay occurred because the segment's producer left 60 Minutes for another CBS News department. The story is unlikely to move forward unless another producer picks up the information and makes a push to broadcast.
Of course, other factors could turn the tax-evadin', canyon-covetin', judge-bashin', chain-gangin', bankruptcy-filin', office-remodelin' governor into broadcast news in a hurry--a grand jury indictment, for example.
Symington was so nervous about the 60 Minutes interview that he had the entire encounter with Safer, etal., videotaped. New Times made a formal request for the video, but the guv's minions claim the tape was made by a nongovernmental source, making it private property and exempt from the state's Public Records Law. Of course, the governor believes every public record we seek is his private property; his administration ignores the Public Records Law as a rule.
Absolutely Nothing at All Unusual
Speaking of Fife, his favorite flame, Annette Alvarez, recently did some work for Rural/Metro Corporation. "She's not an employee of Rural/Metro," says spokesman Matt Phillips, who was shocked to learn of her retainer. "She was retained as a consultant to work on several business projects relating directly to the country of Mexico in the past. And, as of right now, there are no projects that she's working on for us."
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Teachers Display Nonsupport
And still speaking of the Fifester: Why don't teachers like him?
"Oh, I don't know," responds Suzanne Horst, a social studies teacher at Greenway High School. "School vouchers, funding to charter schools, decertification of teachers, little things like that. He's not a friend of education."
So to make their position known, the Glendale Union Education Association commissioned tee shirts bearing an unkind caricature of the governor--all jowls and frowns and eyebrows--and the legend, "Friends of Fife ... Not!"
The Flash spotted one recently on Maricopa County School Superintendent Sandra Dowling, who led us to Horst, who informed us that she's sold nearly 900 of the shirts. Proceeds go to the union's PAC.
The art work was drawn by a former Greenway High student.
"Some people find it very offensive," Horst says of the caricature. She relishes the annoyance.
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