Records withheld by the city of Tempe and obtained by New Times reveal that Tempe was planning to submit the Papago Park Center site to the Tourism and Sports Authority for the Arizona Cardinals football stadium before the November 7, 2000, election, but withheld those plans from the public until…

It’s hide the records time in Tempe.With Mayor Neil Giuliano facing an unprecedented recall election on Tuesday, September 11, city officials are taking extraordinary measures to keep the public in the dark about Tempe’s chaotic and costly negotiations with the Tourism and Sports Authority and the Arizona Cardinals to build…

Delay of game during a football contest is a minor penalty — merely a five-yard infraction. Further delay in building the Arizona Cardinals’ proposed $331 million “multipurpose facility” is far more serious. And that’s what looms on the horizon. Weeks and possibly months of delay. If construction doesn’t begin by…

Native American runners will set off Saturday on a grueling 200-mile course from the Hopi mesas to downtown Phoenix to protest more than three decades of groundwater pumping by the world’s largest private coal company.Marathon runners from Hopi, Acoma, Zuni and Navajo tribes will participate in the run that will…

The recovery of the Eastern Pacific gray whale from the brink of extinction is the single greatest turnaround of a marine mammal population, and the whale’s myriad connections to human cultural conflicts are no less impressive in their scope. In New Times’ special project “Shades of Gray,” reporters from several…

The operator of a boot camp for troubled teenagers where a 14-year-old boy died Sunday has a long history of violence, deception and shady financial dealings that sparked a state Attorney General’s Office investigation in the mid-1990s.Charles “Chuck” Long has left a trail of angry investors who claim they are…

Shades of Gray Second in a series New Times continues this week with its series on the gray whale — its questionable health, its environmental symbolism and the cultural conflicts it is generating from the Siberian Arctic to the warm lagoons of Mexico. On March 29 (“Dying Breeds,” David Holthouse),…

They said it would never happen.The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Arizona Diamondbacks managing general partner Jerry Colangelo have said for years that taxpayers’ share of construction of Bank One Ballpark would be capped at $238 million. All stadium-related costs over that, they said, would be the team’s responsibility…

A long-simmering bitterness surrounding one of the nation’s most successful college baseball programs at Arizona State University is erupting into full-scale warfare as the university prepares to name its baseball field on March 3 after legendary coach Bobby Winkles. No one is saying Winkles is not worthy of the honor;…

Last Friday’s ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge George B. Nielsen is a devastating one for former governor J. Fife Symington III. More than five years after Symington filed bankruptcy seeking dismissal of $25 million in debts, Nielsen ruled that a $10 million loan from a consortium of union pension…

Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox appears to have violated state conflict-of-interest laws by repeatedly voting in favor of construction expenditures for Bank One Ballpark that benefited her brother-in-law’s business, county records reveal.ATL Incorporated, which is owned by Wilcox’s brother-in-law Frank Rivera, won at least four subcontracts from primary contractors…

“URGENT NEW INFORMATION!! PLEASE FORWARD TO RESPONSIBLE PARTIES OF THE BANK ONE BALLPARK SAFE OPERATION AND MANAGEMENT!!” So began a stark, and somewhat bizarre, letter that was faxed on May 16 to Arizona Diamondbacks attorney Brad Holm. Ramon J. Cook, a construction engineer from Texas, had been hired to review…

House Speaker Jeff Groscost threatened in early August to take the alternative-fuel-vehicle program away from the state energy office unless its director — Amanda Ormond — more forcefully promoted the program even as its cost was skyrocketing. Groscost made the threat in an August 8 voice-mail message to Ormond. Groscost…

The cost of Arizona’s alternative-fuel vehicle rebate bonanza has topped $220 million. And, despite questionable efforts by Governor Jane Hull to stymie the wildly popular program, the cost will continue to soar far beyond what the state expected when Hull signed the bill into law last April.Two weeks ago, Hull…

Rarely does the state offer cash incentives worth $22,000 to the average guy on the street. And rarely have state budget analysts so badly misread the public’s reaction to a new state law. But thanks to a bill crafted by Speaker of the House Jeff Groscost, a legislative spending boondoggle…

Assistant head football coach Sanford Lee Rodgers didn’t like what he was seeing during practice on the hot afternoon of August 14 at Scottsdale Community College. Running back Jamie Warren and defensive lineman Curtis Robinson were arguing and fighting, disrupting the practice. Rodgers already had a beef with Warren –…

Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley sits at the table with his attorney, his chief of staff and a reporter. He is asked some troubling questions. Why is Stapley listing his 7,251-square-foot Arcadia residence for $2.5 million at the same time he is seeking lower property taxes by telling the Maricopa…

“Places!” yells Susan Bendix to a room full of young dancers. “Become centered and connected.” A dozen of Bendix’s Herrera Elementary and Middle School boys and girls drift and fidget their way to their spots. Among the youngsters are an equal number of dancers from Arizona State University. The dancers…

Federal prosecutors are expected to retry former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III on multiple bank and wire fraud charges, sources tell New Times. The charges are expected to include the six counts on which Symington was convicted in September 1997. Those convictions were overturned in June by the Ninth…

A grinning J. Fife Symington III steps into the 10th-floor elevator at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, joining three reporters who are covering his civil fraud trial. Three union pension funds seek to block the bankruptcy and win an $18 million judgment against him. “A few years ago, this is the…

Silver City, New Mexico Dave Parsons approached the microphone, silencing the raucous crowd jammed into an auditorium at Western New Mexico State University. Parsons’ turn came more than an hour into a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hearing that saw one speaker after another use their allotted two minutes to…

If you build a stadium, people will come,” says William Garrard, former owner of Coyote Springs Brewing Company. But he adds, “It’s a quickie effect.” And when Bank One Ballpark opened its roof in downtown Phoenix, people did come — more than 3.6 million fans in 1998 and 3 million…