Forget the Super Bowl. The Arizona Cardinals’ biggest victory for decades to come will arrive May 18, if Mesa voters approve a $385 million sales-tax hike that will help finance a 67,400-seat football stadium. For the first time since arriving in the Valley 11 years ago, the Cardinals are displaying…
A major contractor for Bank One Ballpark has gone to court to obtain construction records for the $360 million stadium. Perini/McCarthy contends that the Maricopa County Stadium District is refusing to release monthly construction reports prepared by the ballpark’s construction manager, Huber, Hunt & Nichols Inc. Perini filed suit against…
Every month, about 2,300 Arizonans pay $25 surcharges to buy decorative auto license plates that depict a desert landscape and declare their intent to “Protect Our Environment.” The green message is misleading. A more appropriate logo might be “Protect Our Way of Life.” Environmental license plates sales have generated nearly…
A popular notion during construction of the Bank One Ballpark was that Jerry Colangelo and his Diamondbacks were hosing Maricopa County taxpayers for millions of dollars while fattening their bank accounts. The unpopular quarter-cent sales tax to raise $238 million was approved by three of the five county supervisors who…
It was a short honeymoon, far more fleeting than Jerry Colangelo and the Arizona Diamondbacks expected. The lovefest was supposed to last for years–just like it has in Colorado, where fans still fill the stadium every game to watch their beloved Rockies, a team that drew 4 million fans last…
Gasp! The state budget for fiscal 2000, which begins July 1, 1999, is projected to be $282 million in the red. That is the dire warning sent to the Legislature in November by numbers crunchers at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC). This would appear to be stunning news. After…
Paul Morey had been waiting, hoping, to see something like this. “As we’re driving down a dirt road, we saw this elk calf bedded down,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife technician says. “It suddenly jumped up when it saw two wolves coming.” The calf got up and ran across a…
Nearly 300 rank-and-file Department of Public Safety officers have won a major court victory in a bitter, three-year struggle with DPS managers over overtime pay. In a decision that likely will cost the state millions of dollars, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey S. Cates ruled last month that DPS…
Former governor J. Fife Symington III, who once lambasted the courts for protecting “all manner of antisocial behavior,” now awaits his own ruling from a trio of federal judges. Last week, the panel heard his appeal to overturn his September 1997 conviction on six counts of bank fraud. As Symington…
The primary contractor for Bank One Ballpark is expected to file a lawsuit this week seeking $34 million in damages from the Maricopa County Stadium District, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the stadium’s architects and construction manager. The suit, which is to be filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, culminates months…
Each day, a squadron of earthmoving machines tears through rolling Sonoran desert 30 miles north of downtown Phoenix, ripping out native plants, destroying wildlife habitat and preparing open space for development. The planned residential community dubbed the Villages at Desert Hills is bisected by Interstate 17 and is being reshaped…
Public-address announcer Jeff Munn skitters down the stairs to his press-box seat high above Sun Devil Stadium. His heart still pounds after his frenzied drive from downtown Phoenix, where 30 minutes earlier he finished announcing the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game that had gone 12 innings. Munn slips out of his…
Ensenada, Baja California The road to Ensenada is a jewel. The four-lane tollway cuts free of the industrial labyrinth of Tijuana and turns west toward the Pacific Ocean, where it clings to cliffs jagging into the surf. Snaking its way down Mexico’s northernmost coast, every turn reveals another expansive, soft…
Empalme, Sonora Does a work force content to live in pallet houses while earning $1 an hour sound like the ultimate boost to your company’s bottom line? But are you concerned about dealing with the red tape, cultural differences and logistical maze of moving production to a Third World country?…
San Luis Rio de Colorado, Sonora There’s a weathered wooden sign across the street from an industrial park where maquila workers toil, making clothes, toys and expensive stereo speakers. Through peeling paint, the sign proclaims this as the future site of 550 dwellings for the maquila workers. But there are…
Shift change, San Ramon Industrial Park. Nogales, Sonora. Tuesday, 4:59 p.m. She wants out, the short, pretty girl in the short, pretty sundress. Out of this factory, out of this city, out of this grind her life has become. Right now, though, just out of this factory will do. Forty…
Nogales, Sonora Virginia’s a bad girl, and she’s good at it. Eighteen years old, with a nightclub walk that purrs. Long, auburn hair. Tall and sleek, with cinnamon-sprinkled skin. She could be a model if she weren’t a factory worker. It’s Friday night. Party time. Virginia clocked out two hours…
Spring hasn’t been kind to Jerry Colangelo. His Arizona Diamondbacks (20-43 as of June 8) are off to one of the worst starts in baseball. His Phoenix Suns exited the National Basketball Association playoffs with barely a whimper while collecting only a pittance in the playoff revenue gravy train. Looming…
Economic development. Downtown revitalization. A big league city. The Bank One Ballpark was rammed down the public’s gagging throats with the promise of this and much more. Everyone would benefit from the rain of dollars created by the $356 million stadium, from the sole proprietor to the corporate titans, promoters…
The euphoria sweeping through 50,000 fans cheering as the Bank One Ballpark’s roof retracted on opening day to unveil a crisp night sky splattered with fireworks came only after a $300,000 last-minute modification to the sensitive roof mechanism. No one with the massive construction project knows whether the latest fix…
He was supposed to be a temp, try to win a few games and keep the players out of the police blotter. Then move along. That was the script handed to 40-year-old Don Newman last September 22 when Arizona State University made him coach of the Sun Devils men’s basketball…
Swoosh. Arizona State University interim basketball coach Don Newman is swept out of Tempe as suddenly as he arrived, blown to points unknown by a dust devil of dollars, courtesy of sports-apparel marketing mogul Phil Knight, chairman of Nike Incorporated. Swoosh. In comes Rick Majerus, plucked from the University of…
