Quail race across a secluded Phoenix street where Gretchen Freeman and her husband will soon break ground on a new home. Their future backyard affords a view of Camelback Mountain’s Praying Monk. Neighboring houses sprawl across roomy, desert-landscaped lots. Home prices in this development, Biltmore Alta Vista Park, start at…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio likes to boast about all the attention he receives from the national media, mostly for the spartan life of jail inmates. Now his jails are the focus of a different kind of national spotlight–an investigation by the United States Department of Justice. New Times has…
Sue Ellen Allen once wore a crystal-studded frog pin on the back of her blouse, hoping to get attention for her costume-jewelry business. The gimmick worked. In the early Nineties, jewelry from Tempe-based Collectibles by Sue Ellen was featured in fashion periodicals like Women’s Wear Daily and in stores like…
Lorne Shantz looks like a cop, even out of uniform. He’s so fresh-scrubbed he could have walked a beat in Mayberry, but instead he got a job as a patrol officer for the Arizona Department of Public Safety. In his 14 years with DPS, his worst offense was waiting a…
Bob Hirschfeld, fathers’-rights custody lawyer, keeps the door of his Phoenix office locked during business hours. Unexpected visitors are vigorously questioned by Hirschfeld’s staff, and he seems almost proud of two bullet holes in the windows of the reception area. Hirschfeld is convinced he is a good lawyer. But now…
By now, everyone knows that Governor J. Fife Symington III has legislative approval to remodel his offices, which inhabit the top two floors of the state’s Executive Tower. The $1.7 million project has drawn criticism from the usual suspects–particularly the media–who are complaining that the rehab is far too lavish,…
The middle-aged clerk at the sundry shop touches her brown, feathered hair, gazing appreciatively at the bodies pushing into the main exhibit hall at Phoenix Civic Plaza for the National Rifle Association convention. “Lotta men in town, inn’t there?” Well, yeah. Lotta guys wearing tee shirts with slogans like “Political…
Bryan Gilliam knows that crime doesn’t pay; the 20-year-old is serving a five-year sentence for car theft. Now he may be learning that truthfulness doesn’t pay, either. While incarcerated at Fort Grant, a minimum-security prison near Safford, Gilliam took training to become a legal assistant. That, combined with the fact…
Some people believe that all manufacture, sale and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) will be banned as of January 1, 1996–and that the world will instantly be without refrigeration. That’s not true. Here’s what is: Only the production of CFCs, also known by the trade name Freon and mainly used in…
Last week, the Arizona Press Club presented its first-ever Brick Wall Award to Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, because he tends to ignore the state’s Public Records Act. Governor Fife Symington finished a close second in the competition, which was judged by a committee of print reporters and editors. The…
Scott Bundgaard used to believe that chlorofluorocarbons–most commonly known by the trade name Freon–were depleting the Earth’s ozone layer and increasing dangerous ultraviolet radiation. He’d nag his sister for using aerosol hair spray. Then he was elected to the legislature, where he and his colleagues on the House Environment Committee…
Debby Kosobucki vividly recalls her first gig as a topless dancer. It was 1984, and she was 28 years old. She had fled a broken marriage, packed up her three daughters and moved to Phoenix from Washington state. She chose Phoenix for her fresh start because she had read there…
In recent months, government officials have challenged Arizona prison inmates’ rights to receive magazines like Playboy in the mail. The courts have upheld the prisoners’ rights. But it’s apparently a hollow victory for inmates at one state prison. According to inmates who say they witnessed the crime, employees at the…
It was October 1994, and Peter Galvin, a conservation biologist, was studying trees slated for logging in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The trees were part of the Hay Timber Sale, which had been contracted to Precision Pine and Timber in Heber. The project involved cutting about eight million board feet on…
For state Senator Jim Buster, environmental regulation is like a midway game named Whack-a-Mole played at the Yuma County Fair. As soon as industry dares to make a buck, whack! Regulators pound it with environmental laws. Buster, chairman of the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee, intends to change…
Ann has three young children and a husband who held a gun to her head. “He threatened me in front of my kids, and my little boy started crying, and saying that he didn’t want to be there,” Ann recalls. So on February 13, Ann called a battered women’s shelter…
Jan Brooks was bustling about her new Mesa apartment, preparing for her daughter Ashley to come home from the hospital. It was June 9, 1993, and in a few days, Ashley would be 18 months old. Happy days like this one had been rare for Brooks, who had moved from…
As the mayor of Phoenix, he pushed for a dress code in local public schools. As a candidate for governor, he called for a statewide dress code. Now Paul Johnson may finally get his wish–at least at one Phoenix public school. Shortly after his third-place finish in the 1994 Democratic…
Veteran Arizona Republic reporter David Schwartz lost his job last month after it was revealed that he impersonated Valley attorney and former appellate judge Bruce Meyerson, allegedly to impress a woman he wanted to date, Meyerson confirmed last week. Meyerson says, “Obviously, it’s outrageous. It’s an intrusion into my privacy…
It’s three days before Christmas, and tired shoppers–including Jennifer, a preppy young woman–are resting against a marble fountain at Fashion Square. A graduate of Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, Jennifer’s home on break. She’s a junior in college. With her are two boys, both high school freshmen, both wearing baseball…
Everyone’s a Critic “I made some stupid mistakes,” Eddie Basha says matter-of-factly. Once again, “chubby grocer” is his full-time occupation. During a ten-minute phone interview Monday from Bashas’ Inc. headquarters, the vanquished Democratic gubernatorial nominee employs some brutal adjectives to summarize his performance against Fife Symington–like ignorant, unsophisticated and naive…
As election day nears, so dawns the realization that by this time next week, we might not have Governor J. Fife Symington III to kick around anymore. As a public service befitting the gravity of the occasion, New Times has marshaled its vast resources to reflect on what we and…
