See also: Victims Wonder Why Arpaio Let Sex-Abuse Cases Languish See also: Ex-Police Chief's Book Details Arpaio's Negligence in El Mirage Cases See also: The Feds Proved Themselves a Cage of Cowardly Lions in the Arpaio Investigation See also: Inhumanity Has a Price
Considering the costly string of wrongful deaths that have occurred in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's gulags, it seems fitting that the MCSO's new headquarters, to be located at 5th Avenue and Jackson Street downtown, is being built on the site of an old cemetery, where human remains have been exhumed during the digging.
Indeed, that $93 million MCSO pad atop a burial mound could end up bearing the name of Emperor Joe, assuming Arpaio gets past his Democratic challenger Paul Penzone in November, and assuming the octogenarian tyrant doesn't stroke out before the estimated completion date of August 2013.
Seems the architects at the Phoenix firm of Gabor Lorant have mocked up some images for the county of how the front of the building might look, and a couple of them prominently feature Arpaio's name, along with an official seal or two, and a statue of a riderless horse, a perfect symbol for an agency so lacking in leadership that it's botched hundreds of sex crimes, whose victims include women and children.
Then, there's always the resemblance of a certain sheriff to a particular part of the steed's anatomy.
But I digress.
(View the design proposal for yourself, here.)
Whose genius idea was this, to honor the biggest un-indicted criminal in the county with a taxpayer-funded monument to his waste, corruption and inefficiency?
No one seems to know. The folks at Gabor Lorant referred all questions to Maricopa County spokeswoman Cari Gerchick, but Gerchick wasn't sure how the mock-ups came to be or if the Board of Supervisors would have to approve the plans.
"Someone may have suggested it to the architect," Gerchick surmised. "Who got the idea started, I don't know."
Hmmm, wonder who could possibly want Arpaio's name emblazoned on the front of a building? Can't imagine Supervisors Mary Rose Wilcox or Don Stapley made that proposal.
Gerchick said she wasn't certain of the decision-making process for how the building's entrance will look.
"I don't know if the Board will actually vote on the idea," she said. "I don't think the County has ever faced this specific issue before."
Some of the mock-ups lack any mention of Joe, and certainly if the voters deny the aged autocrat an unprecedented sixth term in office, it seems unlikely Arpaio would be so honored.
But if Arpaio is re-elected, it would not surprise me to see the gleaming, five-story structure christened after him.
Now if only they could build it with slave labor and erect some statues of shackled Mexicans, the image would be complete
