Rudman Flees, Sparks Fly Anyone who has driven through east Phoenix in the last year has seen Roger Rudman’s handiwork. He’s the guy who posted those horrendous signs urging voters to “Recall Rebecca Macbeth.” Macbeth is a justice of the peace and Rudman’s estranged lover. Rudman put up the signs…
U.S. Senator Larry Craig, a conservative Republican from Idaho, came to Phoenix a couple of weeks ago to lunch at the Arizona Biltmore and stump for GOP Senate hopeful Jon Kyl. Kyl’s opponent, Democrat Sam Coppersmith, celebrated the Idaho senator’s visit by faxing around a newspaper clipping that quotes Craig…
Say Cheezy! State legislator Sue Grace caught a familiar sight, glancing up from her microphone at a candidates’ forum last week. It was Becky Fenger. And her camera. A bit of history: Fenger, who unsuccessfully challeged Grace in September’s Republican primary for the House of Representatives seat in District 24,…
The race to lead the nation’s eighth-largest city has been so quiet that Skip Rimsza was able to undergo and recover from triple-bypass surgery this summer without missing a beat on the campaign trail. Rimsza, who represented north-central Phoenix on the city council until March, when he resigned to run…
Miss Karan’s Frozen Out Why didn’t Arizona WINS–a political organization devoted to electing female candidates–endorse the reelection campaign of the state’s highest-elected woman, U.S. Representative Karan English? “I just can’t stand her. I think she’s an embarrassment and a failure, and probably gonna set women back God only knows how…
You’re U.S. Senator John McCain, and you’ve got a big problem. Your wife, Cindy, was addicted to prescription painkillers. She stole pills from a medical-aid charity she heads and she used the names of unsuspecting employees to get prescriptions. The public is about to find out about it. Until now,…
Is There an Echo? What do former Phoenix mayor Paul Johnson and Michigan state senator Debbie Stabenow have in common? Plenty. Both are Democrats. Both paint themselves as outsiders bucking special interests. Both–until August 2–hoped to nab their party’s gubernatorial nomination and face, in all likelihood, the state’s incumbent Republican…
Calling itself the Committee for Clean Air and Better Transportation, a group of Valley business leaders wants Maricopa County voters to approve a referendum this fall. The measure would extend by ten years a half-cent, 20-year sales tax that expires next year, and add another half-cent tax. Most of the…
The World’s Best Run City may also be the World’s Most Paranoid City–at least as far as press relations goes. After placing a routine request for documents relating to Phoenix’s curfew program, New Times happened upon a copy of a “confidential” city missive informing the city council, the mayor and…
Most days, Linda Rawles rises at 8 a.m., drinks a Diet Coke, reads the morning newspaper and goes about the business of running for Congress. If she gets up any earlier, she vomits. Her husband, Tom, however, is an early bird. He’s on the freeway to Phoenix–and his dual career…
No matter how hard they run for Congress by bashing it, once they’re on Capitol Hill, representatives learn quickly that in dealing with fellow lawmakers, kid gloves are required accessories. It is not kosher to meddle in the affairs of another member’s state or district. And unless there’s opportunity for…
When the chieftains at the Arizona law-and-lobby firm Fennemore Craig learned in 1992 that their partner Marc Spitzer intended to run for the state Senate, red flags unfurled. Could Spitzer serve in a legislature whose decisions were influenced by his own firm’s lobbyists? Fennemore Craig maintains a hefty roster of…
In March 1989, freshman Representative Robert “Bob” Burns, Republican-Glendale, was better known at the Arizona State Capitol as a lobbyist than as a lawmaker. Before his election to the House of Representatives, Burns, who then owned two child-care centers in the Valley, had been a ferocious advocate for the Arizona…
From all appearances, Walter Wrobel is the model Catholic priest. He’s got a doctorate in divinity, years of experience and he looks the part–clad in a suit jacket and black shirt buttoned to the neck. Scholarly glasses. Sweet disposition. Wife and kids. Wife and kids? Wrobel is one of a…
When Alberto Ros received a phone call a few years ago from a songwriter who wanted to set his poetry to music, he tossed it off as another “coffee house guitar sort of thing.” Sure, Ros said, why not? The nationally acclaimed poet, who teaches at Arizona State University, is…
The Luhrs building, at the intersection of First Avenue and Jefferson Street, is somewhat magnificent–by Phoenix architectural standards. But inside the 1920s-era art-deco structure, the flat, patterned carpet has aged and the hallways smell, faintly, like dirty laundry. It is here, on the first floor, that you will find the…
Late on a recent spring morning, a green Hyundai pulls up to the entrance of Phoenix Zoo, depositing a fiftysomething man clad in a tattered, satin clown suit. He has glittery circles of makeup smeared on his cheeks and nose. After stowing a cardboard box and sweater under a palm…
Late on a recent spring morning, a green Hyundai pulls up to the entrance of Phoenix Zoo, depositing a fiftysomething man clad in a tattered, satin clown suit. He has glittery circles of makeup smeared on his cheeks and nose. After stowing a cardboard box and sweater under a palm…
Late on a recent spring morning, a green Hyundai pulls up to the entrance of Phoenix Zoo, depositing a fiftysomething man clad in a tattered, satin clown suit. He has glittery circles of makeup smeared on his cheeks and nose. After stowing a cardboard box and sweater under a palm…
United States Senator John McCain is live on KTUC-AM talk radio in Tucson. He’s speaking with a caller named Rosemary, an elderly woman who’s deeply concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. “You make some excellent points, Rosemary, and I wish that everybody were as concerned about the issue as…
At the Phoenix Country Day School in Paradise Valley, students begin instruction in lab science at age 4. Spanish at 5. High schoolers learn physics on computers and fire ceramics in an imported kiln. They use a library that, in some respects, outranks the research facilities at Arizona State University;…
With all the hubbub about the downtown baseball stadium–for which Maricopa County taxpayers are expected to pay up to $250 million–it’s high time for some perspective. With apologies to Harper’s Index, here’s what else could be done with a spare quarter-billion dollars: 1. Estimated number of molestation lawsuits Michael Jackson…
