Every year, famed chef Nick Ligidakis’ efforts to feed the Valley’s needy on Thanksgiving are gobbled up by holiday-drunk newspapers and TV stations. Owner of Nick’s Cuisine of Southern Europe and its offspring, Nick’s on Central, Ligidakis creates an annual mass-feeding machine that is large and well-meaning and swaddled in…
It all started five years ago. This guy, whom we shall call Bob, took a job that entailed sitting in a small cubicle with a computer and a telephone in a large office building in downtown Phoenix. About 40 times a day, that phone would ring and on the other…
Bite the Bullet John Dougherty’s article “Sentence: 90 Days of Pain” about an inmate receiving “inadequate” medical care in Maricopa County jails is inaccurate and misleading (December 7). Confidentiality rules preclude discussing a patient’s medical condition without his written consent; but, had the reporter contacted me, I would have told…
When Olivia Birchett donated a prime piece of Mill Avenue real estate to the City of Tempe back in 1979, nobody seemed to mind that the philanthropic widow’s generous gift carried a few strings. The property was to be developed for use as a public park in perpetuity, a proviso…
Last March, Eve Edwards took advantage of what she sensed was a grand opportunity. She knew her ex-boyfriend, Jerry Ingalls, was immersed in a legal battle with his ex-wife–a top Dial Corporation executive named Joan Potter. Edwards also knew Ingalls had been talking about suing Dial for allegedly conspiring with…
First Interstate Bank cut Governor J.Fife Symington III two generous deals on more than $3 million in overdue loans, despite having evidence that Symington had submitted false financial statements to the bank, court documents reveal. First Interstate officials slashed the amount of interest and principal owed by the governor when…
A special review by the Arizona auditor general raises questions about how the Attorney General’s Office spends millions of dollars each year in representing state agencies. In the review, ordered by the Legislature, auditors criticized the Attorney General’s Office for failing to standardize agreements with state agencies it represents, and…
Despite his bankruptcy troubles, Governor J. Fife Symington III still has friends he can rely on. Friends who owe him their jobs, for example, such as the people at the Arizona Department of Real Estate. When Symington applied to renew his real estate broker’s license last month, his application should…
I suppose you would have to be on foot, or very bored, or have a sense of observation verging on desperate to notice it. It is another hunk of American refuse–a great, big, ugly, dead thing sitting there at 12th Street and McDowell, as relevant and as fascinating as a…
Water Whirl I was concerned about the recent article about groups objecting to the water use andthe city’s efforts at the new Sumitomo plant(“Sumitomo Wrestling,” Dave Plank, December 7). First, the information was highly exaggerated and wrong. The groups contend that the plant will “devour 2.4 million gallons per day…
Election night, 1995. Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza is beaming. Though it is the lowest-turnout municipal election anyone could remember, voters have given Rimsza a sizable victory over three challengers. In his victory speech, flanked by supporters, His Honor chalks it up to the confidence and sense of good stewardship he…
PATTY: Let’s go, Snoopy, up and at ’em. It’s a magnificent day for chasing rabbits. The air is clear, the sun is shining, the fields and woodlands lie open and inviting. SNOOPY: If it’s such a magnificent day, why spoil it for the rabbits? –from You’re a Good Man, Charlie…
Say Cheeseball! The pension funds that Governor J. Fife Symington III stiffed for $11.4 million are turning up the heat in his federal bankruptcy case. Attorneys for the union pension fund managers, San Francisco-based McMorgan & Company, have mailed more than 15 deposition notices. Formal subpoenas will follow. Pension fund…
The .38-caliber “snake shot” ripped into the back of Bayard Horton’s left hand on that night in August, leaving more than 50 metallic pellets embedded in his fingers, hand, wrist and lower arm. The close-range gunshot blast tore away skin and exposed tendons and ligaments on the hand that Horton…
In three weeks, the law firm that provides most of the free legal aid to Arizona’s poor people will quit filing class-action lawsuits and slash other legal-aid services. Two of the state’s most politically powerless groups of poor people–farmworkers and urban Indians–will be especially hurt by the cuts. Community Legal…
If you’ve walked down the ever-expanding boulevard of bland that is Mill Avenue in Tempe, you’ve probably seen them. They stand out in sharp contrast to the tourists, retirees and well-groomed, jolly ASU students; they don’t blend in with the giggling packs of teens or white-coated security forces. Their look…
Pet Peeve Was there a purpose to Amy Silverman’s article about the evils of PetsMart finding homes for unwanted animals (“Who Pooped on the Scoop?” November 30)? I could not tell what point, if any, the writer was trying to make. Conflicting phrases such as “possibly unsanitary conditions (kennels are…
There is nothing terribly offbeat about Becky Ruffner Tyler. She drives a Volvo. She’s fashionably slim, and her thick blond hair is stylishly coifed. She wears tailored clothes. She is the founder of a school popular with parents who are lawyers and doctors and architects. She serves on important statewide…
When Suzanne Ellis was awakened by the phone at 2 a.m. on July 7, she knew her son Tommy was in trouble. The voice at the other end of the line was her ex-husband, who had taken Tommy into his home two months earlier. “I can’t keep him here,” she…
Here’s a tip about Arizona for visiting Deadheads: Local authorities are very uncool about pot smoking at big rock concerts. Here’s another tip: Don’t plan on enacting your usual tailgate-Woodstock ritual this weekend. The preceding public-service announcements were brought to you because the Grateful Dead, one of the world’s oldest…
A great deal has already been said about Arizona’s failure to pass a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and most of it has taken the form of pronouncements. On some days since the election, the Arizona Republic has contained little but the wallowing and finger-pointing of every self-impressed columnist from…
Patrols of cheery individuals in bright blazers will soon leaflet downtown Phoenix announcing that the homeless are no longer with us. These civic boosters will be hired from a security agency and their primary purpose will be to tell potential shoppers that there is no longer a threat downtown from…
