Pope Duzy was out of town when her husband caved in. It was 1985, and for months, the Duzys’ broker had been badgering them to put their retirement money into oil and gas. Limited partnerships in energy investments were hot, the Prudential Bache Securities broker said. Double-digit returns were all…
After suffering through ten years of what he calls an “ongoing vendetta” by former Phoenix police chief Ruben Ortega and other powerful law enforcement officials, Pat Cantelme has fired a $1 million countershot. Cantelme, president of the Phoenix Firefighters Union and a frequent political foe of Ortega’s, last week filed…
Freshly returned from a vacation in Mexico two weeks ago, Governor J. Fife Symington III summoned reporters to an airport news conference to confirm that his once-extensive real estate holdings are wiped out. The governor, who had campaigned for office on his business prowess, estimated that he lost between $10…
Officers Ruben Ortega and Ralph Milstead walked into the Bridge Tavern one afternoon to arrest a small-time addict for a burglary he had committed to finance his habit. In years to follow, Ortega and Milstead would become two of the most powerful law enforcement figures in Arizona, heading the Phoenix…
Two days before Christmas, Tom Martinez sat forlornly in his empty restaurant at the downtown Mercado shopping and office complex. Lights strung above the Cafe La Tasca’s bar twinkled for no one but the waiters, who set out silverware and napkins in false hope that someone would come to lunch…
In the six months since it opened, America West Arena has delighted the Valley like a shiny new toy. Sold-out Suns games, arena-football matches, concerts and other events have drawn throngs to the flashy, $87 million hall. Most seem taken by the place. But taxpayers best not ask too many…
Next year, Arizona high school students will hold mock trials and hear law-and-order lectures from police officers, courtesy of a $185,000 legal-education program funded by the Arizona Bar Foundation. At the same time–for want of $31,000 the same foundation will not give him–John Harris will be telling members of the…
Duane Okken is a relatively short, apparently fit man with a boyish face, soft hands and blow-dried hair. Seated at a conference table, he wears tasseled loafers, socks selected with some care and a neatly ironed shirt, its top two buttons open. His pale-blue eyes do not betray the fire…
From his downtown office window, attorney Joe Clees can watch the 20-story building that will be Phoenix’s new City Hall rise one level at a time. At nine stories right now, it is the only significant stirring on the moribund skyline, and the largest construction project going in the city…
A handshake used to be enough for Lou Mastela. During more than 30 years in the restaurant business, Mastela ordered thousands of dollars of groceries and liquor, hired staff, paid bills and built his businesses on a foundation of good intentions. Legal niceties–things like contracts, leases and other paperwork–he left…
An old college textbook seemed inconsequential when Doug Combs happened upon it about two years ago. Nonetheless, he thumbed through the book on economics before throwing it away. By chance the veteran America West pilot’s eye alighted upon one sentence that gave him pause. Buying stock in a company, it…
As wars go, it started quietly. And although the Battle of the Placards didn’t make the evening news or draw much notice from the newspapers, it left a legion of veterans with tales to tell. It began shortly before Vice President Dan Quayle delivered the only public speech of his…
Christine Walker had already enraged many of those she governed. For more than two years, the secretive leader of the Chemehuevi Indians had used the unique powers and autonomy of her tribal government’s semisovereign status to undertake what many describe as a systematic course of despotism and corruption. Allegations of…
To everyone else who sees it, the campaign logo that Tucson Republican Patricia Coleman is using in her first bid for the state legislature looks familiar. It is virtually a replica of the trademark Coleman nameplate found on lanterns and cookstoves at most any campsite in America. And one of…
The little creatures were enough to sell Ray Griswold and his wife on Union Foothills Estates six years ago. The 200-acre plot of desert just beyond Phoenix’s northern border struck them as a tranquil outpost with ample spacing between neighbors. “People want to live in the desert that hasn’t been…
Tall and slightly heavy, Don Jones is every pound a salesman, and a logo-crazy one at that. The emblem of his independent DRJ & Associates insurance agency–run out of Jones’ southwest Phoenix house, where there are no apparent associates–adorns brochures, business cards, posters, his tee shirt and even hangs from…
Lena Goldtooth Canyon sits on a sturdy dinette chair, rubbing worn thumbs together and watching her feet tap on the linoleum kitchen floor. Below her long skirt, she is wearing white socks and black sneakers, laced but not tied. Canyon is 76 years old, a heavyset Navajo woman whose life…
Michael McNally, a slight, 48-year-old cabinetmaker of independent stock, was in a disconnected mood four months ago when he decided to attempt a recall of Governor J. Fife Symington III. McNally’d had a bad week, made worse by surgery on his mouth. When he turned on the radio and read…
SEVEN DAYS INTO 1987, James Simmons needed to look a few people in the eye. The 62-year-old president and board chairman had spent a quarter-century building United Bank of Arizona into the state’s fourth largest bank. Now, the payoff was at hand. A new law had made it possible for…
SLOUCHING toward adjournment, the 40th Arizona Legislature is a dispirited beast. Many of the 90 men and women sitting in yet another marathon session hate their jobs, and it shows. Republicans war among themselves, and a Republican House clashes with a Democratic Senate. Both chambers have given up hope that…
Amid the orgy of publicity last week following the made-for-television police raids of the Aldabbagh family’s topless- and nude-club empire, the arrest of Phoenix attorney Joe Romley was barely a footnote. But while time will tell if police have unearthed the massive money-laundering and racketeering operation they claim, Romley’s arrest…
For $75,000 a year, 31-year-old attorney and former journalist Jay Heiler has been hired to help Governor Fife Symington shape the policies that will benefit all Arizonans.” But his appointment last month as Special Assistant to the Governor for Policy Development has sent ripples of uneasiness among some who remember…
