You’d have thought Keith Turley was defending the town’s virgins from cowboys hungry after a long stint on the range. How dare these rustlers from Oregon come to Arizona and try to despoil our biggest company. He blustered what an “insult” this was; how these interlopers were just “opportunistic.” From…
Governor Rose Mofford’s decision not to seek re-election this year leaves only one important question for Phoenix residents, and it’s not, “Gee, will our beloved Mayor Terry be leaving us?” Governor Goddard, as his friends like to call him, is such a sure bet to jump ship that his colleagues…
The destruction of earth’s protective ozone cocoon is one of those global pollution problems that leaves the average couch potato thinking, “What the hell am I supposed to do about it?” Improbable as it may seem, four local guys have come up with a no-nonsense answer to that question. The…
Phoenix’s dead real estate market and slowed freeway-construction schedule are, taken separately, bad enough for anyone directly affected. But when the two converge, as residents of one small north-central Phoenix neighborhood are finding out, the effect is like a hurricane sweeping in at high tide. The focal point of these…
Five years ago Maricopa County residents momentarily set aside their hatred of taxes to finance a spectacular network of freeways. Terminally disgusted with the Valley’s podunk street system, voters approved a half-cent sales tax intended to raise $3 billion with which to build the 231- mile system. And thereby made…
The Salt River Project, besieged by state and federal regulators over pollution problems at its Navajo Generating Station near Page, is facing yet another public-relations blow. Federal wildlife biologists suspect emissions from the power plant may be causing toxic contamination in the fish of nearby Lake Powell. Recent samples of…
Think “Arizona Public Service” and what comes to mind? Bloated electricity rates, incompetent management, gross callousness toward public concerns about nuclear safety? Whether the topic is overpriced skyboxes or plummeting dividends, APS is the company we all love to hate. Its cross-town counterpart, however, is another matter entirely. The Salt…
Where is Joy Johnson? The little “Wednesday’s Child,” whose thwarted adoption was profiled in last week’s New Times, has been moved to Oklahoma by her current foster parents. The couple who had wanted to adopt her are now asking, is this the “stability” the Arizona Department of Economic Security promised…
Wednesday’s Child feature Pauline Johnson was transfixed by the beautiful three-year-old on the television screen. The child had a smile that could steal your heart. Her luminous face was framed by dark, wavy hair caught up in pigtails. She was captured playing and laughing as Channel 12’s Kent Dana implored…
Nine Easy Steps to Filling in the Empty Spots Where Our City Is Supposed to Be. With nearly half the land within the city still vacant–much of it in single lots or small hunks skipped over by developers–the council needs to get serious about encouraging infill. 1) Require developers to…
“What a dump!” How many times has the phrase crossed your mind as you passed vacant lots, a ratty back yard, derelict strips of commercial buildings? Virtually no neighborhood between South Mountain and Squaw Peak is without a share of blight, as the Phoenix City Council finally acknowledged last year…
Bad schools are a sure way to drive families out of the city. And every available statistic says the city’s social problems–economic instability, drugs, unaffordable housing–are on a collision course with its educational system. Student turnover rates of 50 percent or more are no longer uncommon among Phoenix’s 28 elementary…
Phoenix, while frantically trying to lure a giant semiconductor plant to Arizona, has levied a quarter of a million dollars in fines against ten polluting companies–among them an existing giant semiconductor plant–in an unprecedented crackdown. The crackdown on industries that discharge hazardous wastes to city sewers was prompted by pressure…
Got no place to show off your crucifixes-in-a-jar-of-urine and your photos of nekkid perverts? Bring ’em to Phoenix; we’re into weird art. Our city council, for instance, has such a weird sense of art it’s got the downtown art zone confused with the Dead Zone. Strange but true, the next…
The newest member of the Phoenix Environmental Quality Commission, cited by a backer for his “expertise” on environmental matters, is an attorney for one of the city’s most conspicuous corporate polluters. Doug Jorden was named to the commission last week upon the recommendation of Councilmember Bill Parks and Mayor Terry…
Opponents of the for-profit adoption industry invariably single out Southwest Adoption Center, Inc., the largest for-profit agency in the state, for criticism. But the less-visible Birth Hope Adoption Agency, Inc., which last year sent 28 babies out of state for adoption, has the worst history of legal and regulatory problems…
Pat’s baby was, like the child of Hester Prynne, a pearl of great price. Pat chose to bring life out of an unwanted pregnancy, and for it suffered serious illness, destitution and fear. Unable to call on her parents or the baby’s father for help, with neither education nor a…
Phoenix is in the clutches of the worst epidemic of backyard drownings since recordkeeping began, but even that’s not enough, apparently, to overcome City Hall’s reluctance to adopt mandatory safety regulations. In fact, anti-regulatory sentiment is adamant inside City Hall, judging from the bureaucrats’ reaction to proposals to require pool…
Looks as though the honeymoon is over between Phoenix politicians and the citizens who helped them win last year’s hugely successful bond election. The love affair ended with the Phoenix City Council’s rejection last week of a citizen-backed spending plan for $18 million from those bonds. The city chose instead…
The battle over fundamentalism in Valley schools has claimed another casualty with the forced resignation of a Phoenix principal who spoke out against ultraconservative pressure on his school. New Times has learned that Richard Boyer, a 31-year veteran of the Washington Elementary School District, was forced to resign midsemester after…
Phoenix’s effort to revamp its thirty-year-old zoning code, an undertaking aimed at weaving the city’s haphazard growth into the patterns laid out by the city’s general plan, is running into a not-so-slight obstacle: developers. No group has demonstrated more interest in the code’s revision, and the developers trumpet their enthusiasm…
Sun Valley could well be the most flamboyant development scheme ever hatched in a Phoenix high-rise, a 48,000-acre fantasy of limitless possibilities and easy millions just fifty fast minutes west on I-10. Ever since the land was hustled out of public ownership and into private hands in a complicated series…
