A popular notion during construction of the Bank One Ballpark was that Jerry Colangelo and his Diamondbacks were hosing Maricopa County taxpayers for millions of dollars while fattening their bank accounts. The unpopular quarter-cent sales tax to raise $238 million was approved by three of the five county supervisors who…
En Garde, Bundgaard State Senator Scott Bundgaard–convicted felon, Freon fan and free-market freak–has apparently misplaced his copy of Emily Post’s Guide to Etiquette. The Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee has been taking shots for introducing a bill tailor-made to plunder the public coffers for the Ellman Companies, employer…
It’s small consolation to Debbie Knight that Pietr Hitzig, the self-proclaimed “father of Fen-Phen,” surrendered his license to practice medicine in Maryland last week. The Phoenix native is convinced that, had Maryland authorities acted sooner, her brother, Alvin Chernov, might still be alive. Chernov committed suicide at his father’s Glendale…
Legendary as it is, the Sunday brunch at El Chorro Lodge has never come close to the culinary excess of the Valley’s more sumptuous spreads. Gluttonous brunchers looking for piles of boiled shrimp, roast beef carving stations and elaborate dessert buffets lavishly displayed around six-foot ice swans have always had…
The New Mexican Mafia put a price on Steve Benitez’s head, but it’s the taxpayers who will have to pay for the Arizona Department of Corrections’ failure to protect him. Benitez’s family has settled its wrongful-death claim with the State of Arizona for $900,000. Benitez, a gang member turned informant,…
Race Cards I am a student at Thunderbird High School and I am writing in regard to Paul Rubin’s article “Pride and Prejudice” in the February 4 issue of New Times. The article shocked and angered not only me, but the staff and students of Thunderbird High School. I believe…
Nobody shows you America up close like Greyhound. –company slogan Glory flashes a yellow, gap-toothed grin and says, “What you need, brother, I got. I got it all.” Glory’s gums are swollen and purple from disregard. He has with him a mangled suitcase that looks as if it contains his…
“What’s in the mountain preserve now?” asked Ruth Hamilton, the octogenarian stalwart of the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council (PMPC), a citizens’ watchdog group that guards the city’s mountain preserves. She was directing her question at Jim Burke, deputy director of the Phoenix Parks, Recreation and Library Department, who was just…
A few years ago, a pal of mine pointed out a tall, pale man leaning on his walker in front of the Luhrs Building in downtown Phoenix. That’s Neal Roberts, he told me, the guy from the Bolles case. I knew very well who Roberts was, though I hadn’t recognized…
While the state board that regulates medical doctors is still going easy on its own, the board that oversees osteopaths continues to crack down on its doctors. The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX) last week angered Governor Jane Hull when it refused to reconsider its mild treatment of a…
Diary of a Mad House How did you guys get a hold of my real “secret diary” of the impeachment proceedings (Flashes, January 28)? Questioningly, Jon Kyl United States Senator Thanks for your recent satire of Jon Kyl’s “impeachment diary.” I wish you would expose it for what it is,…
Big Red is MIA. We last glimpsed our superheroine–Governor Jane Dee Hull’s tough-talking, get-the-job-done alter ego–in early January, when she gave her State of the State address. Dressed in her favorite color, with every fiery strand of hair sprayed into submission, Big Red vowed to fight for public education, at-risk…
“I’m workin’ tonight,” says the lanky, 30ish man who looks like he hasn’t slept for 60 hours. We are waiting outside the men’s room at Cruisin’ Central, waiting because the door is held shut from the inside, and both of us have to piss. “I can always get some cash…
Jon’s On You’ve got to hand it to U.S. Senator Jon Kyl. With the exception of the impeachment torch-bearers in the House of Representatives, perhaps no other politician has hogged more of the limelight than Kyl. Kyl–who has long grunted in the shadow of eastcoastmediaelite darling John McCain–suddenly is ubiquitous…
This mystery begins with the five known, credible witnesses to a car crash. The scene was north Phoenix. The time was 1:43 in the morning. Robert Nettles was on his back patio, facing Cactus Road, when he heard the chilling scream of tires on pavement. Nettles told police he looked…
At the swap meet on 35th Avenue and Buckeye, the smell of duros fritos blends with car exhaust and dust stirred up from the parking lot. Festive banda music pumps through the outdoor mall where vendors hawking pony rides, discounted window tinting, kitchenware, boots, toys and velvet tapestries vie for…
The child had apparently been eaten, his skull cracked open ear to ear, his brain scooped out, his bones scattered as trash. All that remains of him is the plate of bone that gave form to his face. It had lain for centuries beneath Southwest soil, sat decades more on…
When you are young, you need your father. When you are old, you need your sons. –Vietnamese proverb This much about Loi Nguyen’s last hours may be recounted with reasonable certainty: The 17-year-old awoke on September 24 at his parents’ home near 19th Avenue and Dunlap in Phoenix. It was…
Rockin’ at the Open The Flash hauled a friend from San Francisco to the Phoenix Open. This pal had never been to a golf tournament and scoffed at the notion of watching wealthy men smack little balls around a manicured lawn. The visitor’s disdain for the game sounded remarkably like…
Mad Scientology About the only thing your reporter did right in the article about the Church of Scientology (“Picket Fencing,” Tony Ortega, January 21) was correctly position himself and New Times amongst the shameful ranks of yellow journalism. Your vicious article against my church is simply another clustering of lies…
‘Twas I, row 12, seat 12, surrounded by 12-, 4- and 14-year-olds, their overanimated parents, and the occasional beery-eyed guerrilla who–while handling some comparatively waifish girlfriend–took to crowing things like “Stone Cold sucks, so sit your candy asses down,” and “Blow me, Bad-Ass Billy Gunn.” Banners and signs posting quick…
Hear the snarling and snapping and growling coming from the normally tranquil town of Fountain Hills? Get ready. The great dog-park debate has hit the Valley. So far, the dogs of Fountain Hills have exhibited model behavior. It’s the people who are foaming at the mouth, turning a simple concept…
