He is beginning to act peculiar in public. Governor Fife Symington is now comparing himself to – are you sitting down? – Thomas Jefferson. On Saturday, he made the comparison in a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times, saying that both he and Jefferson were men of great political…
Do you ever wonder what the substantial business people of the Valley think of a bankrupt fakir like Fife Symington? Take some top executive at Intel. Some guy who makes several hundred grand a year and is responsible for a couple of hundred million dollars of business. A guy who’s…
For Crying Out Dowd! Governor Fife Symington’s attorney, John M. Dowd, is the focus of a stinging story in The National Law Journal. Dowd represents Symington in a federal criminal probe of the governor’s finances. He also defended Symington against a federal suit stemming from the failure of Southwest Savings…
With bankruptcy hearings on one side, and a federal criminal indictment looming ever closer on the other, Arizona Governor J. Fife Symington III’s future lies largely in the hands of his Washington, D.C., criminal defense attorney, John M. Dowd. During the next 30 to 45 days, Dowd is expected to…
Joe Dugan’s rarely one to complain, but his life has taken on a crushing monotony. For almost five years, the retired steelworker has spent most of his waking hours tending to his wife of 34 years, Sarah. Sarah Dugan is a virtual vegetable, the result of a November 1990 heart…
This can’t be the place. Even in the darkness of 8 p.m., this is obviously a lovely two-story condo in Mesa, light blue with white trim, all the mod cons. This can’t be the dwelling of a vampire, the home of one of the undead, the digs of a child…
Ticket With a Grain of Salt Hopefully, New Times is getting $2,200 worth of publicity from the purchase of Fife Symington’s ASU tickets. Peter Gilstrap’s column about the retired carpenter using those tickets was a fine piece of journalism (Screed, October 19). The only part missing was the part about…
“This is where that bastard shot my son in the face, tu entendes?” he says.
At 8:30 on the evening of October 4, 1994, Rebecca haro, lead paramedic for Samaritan AmEvac, and her partner were parked in their ambulance near 83rd Avenue and Glendale. . A call came over the radio: A man had been injured in a fight just blocks away. All 911 fire…
They nailed Al Capone on his taxes, and now the feds are taking a hard look at Governor Fife Symington’s tax returns. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Symington cheated those who banked at Southwest Savings and Loan on the $30 million Esplanade investment; he cheated the taxpayers who had to…
Bob Huey looked uncomfortable as he began speaking. He was nervous, and his speech seemed on the verge of falling apart before it could really get going. But then, shifting his weight and taking a deep breath, Huey spoke in a clear, forceful voice the words the small crowd had…
The City of Phoenix turned a blind eye to Governor J. Fife Symington III’s financial troubles by failing for more than two years to demand repayment of a $2.7 million loan the city made to Symington’s Mercado partnership. Rather than meeting its obligations under a federal grant to immediately demand…
As the Fife Turns Yes, loyal Flashes readers, it’s time for another gripping installment of As the Fife Turns. In this episode, we ask the burning question: Have Arizona Republicans had enough of J. Fife Symington III? Are whispers of “Recall Fife” heard across the desert? According to e-mail from…
Arizona Secular Humanists member Randy Jones wanted someone to take Chuck Sloan’s camera so Sloan could get in the photograph. Since Sloan always takes the pictures, he’s seldom in any of them with his fellow nonbelievers. After an October 8 picnic at a Scottsdale park, Jones spotted U.S. Representative J.D…
This Is Your Fife Regarding that Fife Symington fellow (“Paying the Piper,” John Dougherty, October 5). . . . Tro da bum out! Robert H. Stone Phoenix Hey! Just think if the governor ended up in Joe Arpaio’s jail! He would have to eat all that baloney he’s been feeding…
Illegal immigrants have been flocking to the orchards of Chandler Heights for more than a decade. The immigration authorities continue to ignore the crime and suffering there. The man who calls himself “Pedro” inches his white Ford van off Power Road into a littered dirt clearing between two orange groves…
Waiting for the Grapevine.Squaw Peak Parkway is a good place to sell papers because of the shade underneath and all those working people who drive it. The motorists are potential customers who spill into idle formation as they wait to head east on Thomas Road where Chris and Michelle, the…
Le Big MacFor two years, a federal grand jury has investigated Governor Fife Symington’s business dealings. The state’s chief executive is suspected of being the Mac Daddy of phony financial statements. Financial statements are the backbone of all loans, credit lines, investments, partnerships, debt restructuring, write-downs and all the other…
The Mesa Fire Department’s September 26 shutdown of the explosion-riddled TRW air-bag manufacturing plant on East Germann Road ended almost as quickly as it began. Just 48 hours after ordering the plant closed, fire officials announced that all was well, that a 15point plan for safety improvements had been hammered…
On January 11, 1994, Attorney General Grant Woods announced the dramatic culmination of an intense criminal investigation. “We allege that hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen from elderly people who could not care for themselves,” Woods told the media. “They were dependent on Wayne Legg and Webber Mackey to…
Governor J. Fife Symington III apparently prepared conflicting financial statements in 1990–one showing that he personally controlled blue-chip stocks worth nearly $800,000; the other indicating that the stocks were controlled by a family trust. At least one of the sworn statements appears to be inaccurate. It is a crime to…
Flashes Putting on Heirs Some politicos have scratched their heads over the hubris of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s bankruptcy. Why would an ambitious man like the Fifester–anascent nova in the national firmament of states’-rights space cadets–run his political career aground in such a public way? Well, the bean-counters tell…
