Ferd Haverly, the sole legal casualty of the downtown baseball stadium debate, is insisting on his day in court. Last Monday, Haverly appeared before a city judge and requested a court date to defend himself against a disorderly conduct charge stemming from his curious arrest during the meeting two weeks…

The revelation in December that Samaritan Health Systems will shut down the only Poison Control Center in Phoenix passed as a blip on the public radar, coming as it did between Christmas and New Year’s. But the decision is sending waves of outrage and panic through the medical community, and…

Baseball lovers and tax haters waited all last week for word on the proposed baseball stadium they will be asked to pay for. Two months after Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo and an investor group announced plans to pursue an expansion franchise, a breakthrough in negotiations was expected any day,…

Months after allegations of union corruption and favoritism first surfaced at the U S West Direct Yellow Pages sales office in Phoenix, investigations into the company and officers of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1269 are mushrooming. Three federal agencies have now been asked to probe various allegations…

In a downtown Phoenix law office, filed along with hundreds of other documents, are four unique sheets of letter-size paper. They are the personal notes of Arizona State University President Lattie Coor–written in his own tall hand–of a meeting held on March 25 of this year. The curtain was falling…

Evan Mecham, Arizona’s only impeached governor, can’t make headlines these days, no matter how hard he tries. Four years ago, the ousted Republican governor announced plans to launch his own Phoenix newspaper, an “unbiased” publication to compete with the impertinent scribes who insisted on chronicling the financial and political quirks…

Jerry Colangelo’s plan to build a glorious, open-air baseball stadium in downtown Phoenix has Norman King sitting somewhere in the infield. King, proprietor of King’s Onion House, is a 34-year-old farmer’s son who has run a produce operation in an almost-historic building at 425 East Jackson for seven years. He…

Robert Carter, Arizona’s most famous hot-dog salesman, is learning the price of fame. Right now, the tab looks to be at least five years in the pen. Carter, you may recall, is an escapee from the county jail’s work-furlough program who was pictured on the cover of New Times four…

Dennis Bedford and Albert Monteverde wish the state of Arizona would stop wasting time and money trying to protect them from themselves. For almost four months now, the two gainfully employed, apparently competent men have been attempting to cut a simple business deal that would allow them to invest in…

In his 52 years, James Osipenkof has developed strong, if unremarkable, habits. He smokes two packs of unfiltered Old Gold cigarettes per day, and drinks whatever coffee is at hand, no matter how bad. His life is arranged so that, come evening, there is a familiar bar within walking distance,…

The ax has finally fallen on Kamala Stillwell, director of the Maricopa County Library District, who has been involved in a bitter, years-long fight with County Manager Roy Pederson about how the district spends its money. On September 22, after a brief executive session, the county Board of Supervisors voted…

In a cool, hushed room on East Magnolia Street, Maricopa County officials threw away more than $12 million in taxpayer money last week. The county’s Health Care Agency–with the blessing of the Board of Supervisors–began to dismantle a brand-new, multimillion-dollar computer system that was mostly paid for but had scarcely…

Don’t get shot after 10 p.m. That is the macabre advice being passed around South Phoenix, as word spreads that the only emergency medical center south of the Salt River will be scaling back operations on October 1. The Jesse Owens Memorial Medical Center on Baseline Road, a satellite of…

Kamala Stillwell opened her Sunday paper early in July to disquieting news. The Maricopa County Library District, she learned for the first time, was advertising for a new director. The job offering came as more than a slight shock to Stillwell. She has, after all, held the director’s post for…

Indignation, and some amount of beer, compelled Robert Carter’s first telephone call. Carter had just seen Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on television, he said. The sheriff was bragging about the county’s work-furlough program for jail inmates, and defending his department’s recent inability to keep prisoners from escaping. Carter had…

Amid racks of guitars and stacks of amplifiers at the Arizona Music Center hang autographed publicity photographs, the type most any music shop will accumulate over time. Inexpensive frames display the grinning likenesses of Tanya Tucker, the Bellamy Brothers, Barbara Mandrell and others who have passed through the Glendale store…

Dan Jessup and John Stempniak were playing a friendly game of golf on the Sun City Vistoso course in Tucson five years ago. Things went awry on the way to the 13th tee. Between holes 12 and 13, the golfers had to drive across a public road. Stempniak, who was…

David Beattie Jr. was delivering flowers one Saturday last month when he had a run-in with the police. Specifically, Phoenix Police Lieutenant Charles Crawford ran a patrol car into the side of Beattie’s flower-shop van. No one was hurt in the minor mishap. But what happened next has become the…

On a starlit Wednesday night in November of last year, about three dozen members of the Dirty Dozen Motorcycle Club are gathered at a dusty truck yard on North 27th Avenue. It is the weekly meeting of the club’s Cave Creek chapter, although members from the Phoenix and Mesa chapters…

Claudia Webb can’t forget the day her late husband was betrayed by his union. Reed Webb was a new salesman for the U S West Direct Yellow Pages in Phoenix. In 1991, his second year, Webb’s sales were near the top of the highly competitive 30-member staff that sold the…

Capitol insiders are calling it “the Express.” With Republicans in control of the state Senate, the House and the Governor’s Office, party leaders are pushing to have both chambers wrap up their legislative business this year in 100 days, the length of time sessions are supposed to last, but seldom…