Jan Solomon made two huge mistakes in early 1997. First, the Scottsdale man–then 57–resumed a romance with a woman he had dated when both were in their teens. Trouble was, both were married. Second, he attempted to hire someone to kill his paramour’s husband. Luckily, the would-be hit man contacted…
Mean Streets Two national traffic research groups proclaimed last week that Phoenix is one of the deadliest places in the U.S. to drive, prompting the Flash to shoot the irregular “No Shit, Sherlock, Award” to the boys in D.C. who just figured this out. The Road Information Program–or TRIP, no…
On February 23, Michael Shoemaker, 20, was sentenced to one year in jail and three years probation for his part in a fatal knife fight at Paradise Valley Mall in 1995. His accomplice, Gregory Acevedo, went to trial in 1997, and was sentenced to consecutive sentences of six years in…
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…
Bustin’ Asteroids The article by Tony Ortega (“Eclipsed,” February 25) has a devious distortion of an interview. Our LINEAR colleagues have been reporting on their detectors for the U.S. Air Force for more than a decade, freely and in detail. I told Ortega this, and I told him all of…
Walter Lorimor is the Polluter Extraordinaire of the West Valley. He’s owned three illegal dumps since 1980, according to a very thick file at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). City and state regulators say he’s broken lots of laws, and for three years they’ve tried to get him…
Open since 1953, Durant’s restaurant and lounge on Central evokes a Phoenix that exists today only in the memory. A Phoenix where a freeway out of town was but a dream. Where a crosstown drive at midnight would reveal nary a set of oncoming headlights, and a DUI was as…
The rules of the prize match are simple: No direct strikes to the face. No gloves are worn. Jake Harman stares across the mat at his foe, a jacked-up Marine sergeant who looks like he could vaporize a village by flexing his atomic biceps. The combatants lock eyes, and Harman…
“Talk plain!” 99-year-old Edward Beeler Gamble demands of a visitor to his Sun City home. The subject is Viagra. “Is that for a man who has trouble performing sexually, trouble getting an erection?” the retired Naval commander asks, leaning forward in his wheelchair. Told that it is, Gamble says he…
There’s no longer any question that a book published by the University of Arizona Press has earned a reputation it did not deserve. For more than 20 years, I Married Wyatt Earp has influenced Western history and the popular imagination. Supposedly the memoirs of Earp’s third wife, Josephine, the book…
Discombabulated Excellent article on the BOB (“If You Spend It, Will They Come?” John Dougherty, February 18). As the scandal begins to erupt over the money, let’s not forget the “enablers,” the fat cats and political types on the fringes who aided and abetted the gigantic baseball rip-off. We need…
Paper Tiger, Er, Wolf More than six months after the first of four endangered Mexican gray wolves was illegally shot in eastern Arizona, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s criminal investigation appears to be going nowhere. Which is no surprise, considering the Keystone Kop tactics employed by the agency. In…
Arizona’s legislators are acting like children again. That about sums up the caliber of the legislation our elected officials are proposing this spring. Glendale Representative Linda Gray is in a dither because university professors are talking about vaginas, while Mesa Representative Karen Johnson is hiding provisions in the state’s $12…
Brutal, low-road, Vegasy entertainment plays off the faces of blue-collar, heavy-jowled types who suck light beers and siphon cigars while their eyes trace figures of nubile dancers and waitresses. It would seem the perfect night out, eh? Well . . . As strains of “The Theme From Rocky” die down,…
In Deep Impact and Armageddon, last year’s two Hollywood fantasies about asteroid-caused extinction, it’s Americans who take the lead to save the rest of the planet from catastrophe. In real life, the people who’ve embraced the greatest responsibility for saving Earth hail from a more specific location. Arizona. Arizona scientists…
The old joke about ceramics–that muddy array of things made of clay–is that the difference between a pot and a vase is about 10,000 bucks. Not long into the tour of Anne and Sam Davis’ El Paso home, it’s apparent that the Davises, who recently donated about $400,000 in pots…
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…
Hog Heavy A plot to kill state Department of Corrections director Terry Stewart may have failed, but the prisons chief wound up in the hospital just the same. Last week, charges were dismissed against supposed New Mexican Mafia members suspected of planning an assassination attempt against Stewart. Based on the…
It’s 2 a.m. on Tuesday, and the Saguaro Mobile Home Park across from Tiffany’s Cabaret on 32nd Street is as likely a venue as any for Whitey the repo man. Tonight Whitey is looking to nab a blue Pontiac Grand Am, a car whose owner is weeks behind on payments…
There’s a rumor going around that Jeff Groscost is brilliant. Yes, that Jeff Groscost–Speaker of the House of Representatives, King of the Mouth Breathers. The guy who was once stripped of his leadership role because he couldn’t be bothered to file his campaign-finance reports on time, the one who wanted…
Mean Streets I’ve enjoyed reading your newspaper for a number of years–until now. Since I do have certain firsthand knowledge regarding the accident that killed Dana Wells, I now know that innuendo and fantasy are the stuff of which some stories are made (“For Reasons Unknown,” David Holthouse, February 11)…
Seven years ago, Leo and Raven Mercado grew tired of living in a converted school bus, so they settled down in ranch country near Kearny, a town of 3,000 located about 70 miles southeast of Phoenix. To reach their hideaway, one must cross the Gila River on a rusty suspension…
