Would United States Senator John McCain be a presidential contender if it weren’t for his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, heiress to the Hensley liquor fortune? It’s doubtful. The senator’s wife and — more important — his father-in-law, James Willis Hensley, are very wealthy people. Like his father and grandfather…

Phoenix city officials appear to have improperly spent $527,000 in mid-December to pay vendors and entertainers threatening to cancel their appearances at a downtown New Year’s Eve celebration, records obtained by New Times show. On December 17, Phoenix finance director Kevin Keogh ordered his staff to deposit a half-million-dollar check…

Editor’s note: In October, New Times published the first in a series of stories about gang problems in the neighborhood known as Las Cuatro Milpas (The Four Fields), which is situated southeast of downtown Phoenix. Many residents believed the stories — which focused on a ruthless faction of the Eastside…

The contracts were in the mail. And that was bad news for Phoenix officials and volunteers struggling to organize a massive downtown turn-of-the-century celebration that hopes to attract more than 100,000 revelers into the city’s resurgent central core for an evening of partying, dancing, music and awe beneath an unprecedented…

This summer and fall, Tempe officials hid from the public a serious infestation of encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes that bred in a wetlands immediately west of the $150 million Tempe Town Lake, city records reveal. Records and interviews show that Tempe officials knew encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes were breeding in huge numbers west of…

Now that the November 2 Los Arcos election has passed, will Scottsdale finally make public the crucial Flexer report? City officials have kept the financial analysis from becoming public since this summer, when city-hired private consultant Allen Flexer says he gave it to Scottsdale redevelopment director Gary Roe. Flexer tells…

THE CITY OF SCOTTSDALE AND WOULD-BE BUILDERS OF the $1 billion Los Arcos redevelopment project are suppressing crucial financial information related to the proposed 18,000-seat hockey arena and adjacent commercial development. Voters in Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Guadalupe will decide on November 2 whether to invest about $352 million in…

We do not have gangs here,” a Latino leader said on October 20 during a contentious meeting of about 100 people at a south Phoenix community center. The speaker, Art Luera, chairs the Barrio Unidos Fight Back Committee. Ironically, the City of Phoenix organized the group a few years ago…

Los Arcos developers intend to divert about $541,000 a year in property taxes currently earmarked for public schools to an independent board that would decide how to spend the money on schools. The diversion is part of a property-tax abatement plan Los Arcos developers say they will request as part…

A son’s aspirations 11 p.m., Sunday, June 6 12th Street and Mohave Phoenix police Lieutenant Joe Klima stops his cruiser near 12th Street and Mohave, in the heart of the Eastside Los Cuatro Milpas gang turf. A 14-year-old we’ll call David is sitting on the curb, answering questions from two…

FOR TWO YEARS, FELIX MEDINA AND HIS BAND OF THUGS FROM THE EASTSIDE LOS CUATRO MILPAS GANG HAD A STRANGLEHOLD ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD SOUTHEAST OF DOWNTOWN PHOENIX. RESIDENTS LITERALLY HAD TO SEEK MEDINA’S PERMISSION TO WALK DOWN THE STREET. “IT WAS PATHETIC,” SAYS EVELYN SANCHEZ, PRINCIPAL OF THE NEARBY HERRERA…

Felix Medina sat in the corner of a filthy room, inhaled another hit of crack cocaine and kicked back, savoring his success. There were feces smeared on the walls and used condoms scattered across the floor of the dilapidated shack, but the then-23-year-old Medina basked in decadent adulation during the…

Phoenix police officer John Meche stops his cruiser and approaches Eastside Los Cuatro Milpas gang member Noe “Chiquito” Rosales, who is sitting in the bed of a white pickup truck. It is the early evening of Friday, October 8. “All right, it’s time,” Meche tells Rosales, an indication the officer…

As the Arizona Diamondbacks inch closer to the National League West pennant, questions are swirling about the financial health of the franchise. According to a front-page story in Sunday’s Arizona Republic, the Diamondbacks face a “cash crunch” caused by skyrocketing payroll and a dropoff of 9,000 in 1999 season ticket…

A jumble of “chaos” — a narcoleptic judge, bitter staff infighting, political rivalries, an exiled constable and apparent forgery — is creating turmoil in the courtroom of Phoenix Justice of the Peace John M. Carpenter. The bizarre environment at East Phoenix No. 1 Justice Court has triggered at least one…

The developer of the $500 million Collier Center in downtown Phoenix guaranteed a partner in the Crowne Plaza Hotel that the city would provide a $10 million subsidy if the owners of Crowne Plaza agreed to sell the facility. The offer was made by Tom Roberts, president and chief executive…

The Victim Sheriff Joe Arpaio stood on the front porch of his home, grinning, patiently waiting for a television news team to begin yet another interview. The 67-year-old sheriff rehearsed the lines he uses to buff his image as the self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” He reminisced about his federal Drug…

One by one, they have been forced out of downtown Tempe in the name of progress: John’s Shoe Repair. Long Island Pizza. Rundle’s Liquor & Market. The Q N Brew. All were knocked off Tempe’s main street more than a decade ago to make way for the Centerpoint project, which…

As Fife Symington dons his scuba gear this week and descends beneath Hawaiian island waves as a felony-free man, one must wonder what the former governor is thinking. More than a week has passed since the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his September 3, 1997, conviction on six…

Vicente Gurrola’s shattered body lay by the roadside on 35th Avenue as a white Toyota pickup sped away shortly after 1 a.m. on Sunday, May 16. His back broken, the 33-year-old landscaper died on the street before rescue workers arrived. His body was sent to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s…

Tom Sands is poised to open the floodgates. On June 2, the Salt River Project engineer will begin diverting water from a canal in Papago Park into Tempe’s Town Lake, the centerpiece of the city’s Rio Salado project. About 100 million gallons of water a day will cascade into the…

Tribune Newspapers Publisher Karen Wittmer and Mesa Mayor Wayne Brown are continuing to squelch key information related to the Arizona Cardinals’ efforts to build a domed stadium in west Mesa. Their behind-the-scenes strategy, launched last summer, has resulted in the Tribune using its editorial pages to strongly support a plan…