Everything in the central Phoenix office building could vanish in a matter of minutes, leaving behind no signs of life. No family photos sit on the desks. All the furniture could easily be stacked up and rolled away. At 9 a.m., the people arrive, find name tags, and file into…
Yesenia Patino sits primly on the edge of her chair in a Mexican prison. Serving a 35-year sentence for murder, she looks good. Dressed in a long-sleeved gray dress with a black collar, she appears carefully groomed. Her shoulder-length brown hair is neat; her makeup is applied to accentuate her…
The reputation of Arizona’s private fiduciary industry has taken another blow, with revelations that Andrea McShane mishandled several of her clients’ assets before splitting for parts unknown.Whether McShane engaged in thievery or simply was derelict in her duties as fiduciary remains uncertain, as attorneys and others continue to sift through…
Crossing the Line Border patrol: The Amy Silverman article on Proposition 106, the independent redistricting commission initiative (“What’s My Line?” October 5), beautifully made the point that incumbent members of the Legislature are so conflicted by their own desires to be reelected that they cannot create fair district lines. In…
It’s after midnight when we scramble over the rock wall and onto the grounds of Tovrea Castle. Gravel crunches beneath our feet as we creep over undulating ground and through fragrant creosote toward the glittering edifice on the hill. Though we are trespassing, there is little trepidation. We mean no…
Cop Prep The Flash hears rumblings that the City of Phoenix is considering establishing a charter school charged with creating worthy candidates for the police department. Aspiring badge toters would be properly matriculated, indoctrinated and, of course, hazed to nubs. The Flash doesn’t necessarily think this school is a bad…
Call it a “Really Stupid Undomesticated Animal Trick.” While roughing it in a northern Arizona campsite south of the Village of Oak Creek last month, a group of unidentified campers discovered a bat lying on the ground. Rather than simply steering clear of the obviously disabled creature — a healthy…
In his 1999 State of the Neighborhoods address, Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza touted the growing number of neighborhood organizations, the groups gaining strength with the city’s explosive growth. In the previous decade, associations led by grassroots activists had jumped from a meager 28 to a robust 676. “That’s remarkable,” he…
Lawyer Steve Silver has spent two decades in the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, but he’s better known in some Phoenix legal circles for his white chocolate chip cookies. Silver’s wife, U.S. District Court Judge Roz Silver, brings a batch of her husband’s baked goods each week to a regular meeting…
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…
La Vittles Loca Vendor bender: Taco Hell? Hell’s bells! Your piece on mobile food vendors (“Taco Hell,” Edward Lebow, September 28) covered a lot of complicated territory, much of it more related to the city’s inadequate methods of dealing with neighborhood problems than with the proposed City of Phoenix mobile…
Kneel, GiulianoThe Flash has always seen Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano as a pretty slick politician. Glib, marginally informed, a relatively progressive Republican. He doesn’t end sentences with prepositions. His political future looked rosy.Then he started a slap fight with the United Way and the Boy Scouts. He might as well…
Jim Pederson has a dream. He wants to make the Arizona Legislature safe for democracy. That’s a lofty goal for a man who’s spent his career building shopping centers rather than political agendas. Then again, this is the guy who’s bringing the In-N-Out Burger to Arizona. Pederson is chairing the…
Neal Pollack — iconic journeyman! The globe-gallivanting literary godsend has not only redefined journalism, but rephrased and restructured it as well. Readers adore his swaggering, two-fisted prose. Nymphets lust for his swaggering, two-fisted body. And if you’ve never even heard of him . . . well, so much the better…
It’s nerve-racking to write about Dave Eggers. His magazine Might was a carnival of media satire and clever think pieces before it folded in 1997. His book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius has received so many accolades that one hesitates to add another. His Web site and quarterly magazine…
After a dark summer of illness and hospital stays and medical bills they cannot afford to pay, Ed and Janyce Dawson took heart last week when the state announced it will fight to recover some of the couple’s life savings from Arthur Andersen LLP, a Big Five accounting firm.The Securities…
String Being Name dropper: Thanks for Gilbert Garcia’s exposé on the Valley’s most famous guitarist (“The Tao of Estéban,” September 21). I studied guitar in Spain for a couple of years back in the mid-1980s under one of Andrés Segovia’s former students. I am aware of the respect and high…
Stuck on Buck Now the Diamondbanks know how Spinal Tap felt.That’s a riff on the introduction to a September 27, 1999, front-page story in the Pre-Millennial Arizona Republic. That article, which chronicled a euphoric celebration for the newly crowned National League West champs, began, “Now the Diamondba[n]ks know how the…
Hernan Rivera unpuckers a bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola from his lips and nods in the direction of a family finishing a late-night meal at his mobile hot dog stand on McDowell Road, just west of 35th Avenue. “Tourists from Mexico,” he says, as they stroll into a dimly lighted corner…
Vic Kramer, who turned 79 this week, sits in the living room of his home and recalls his earliest memory. He was being held in someone’s arms, he says, and he was looking at a light fixture. “It was one of these,” he says, pointing to an antique sconce on…
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…
A hint of nervous excitement creeps into Ana Issa’s voice. Her words slip seamlessly from English to Spanish and back again as she explains her anxiety.”It’s not in our nature to do things like this,” she says. Issa has just been notified that she will be interviewed by the Phoenix…
