MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN NEEDS GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT Convict groupie Donna Hamm was arrested for obstruction June 12 outside Tucson during a staged media event. Hamm had bellowed into a bullhorn for an hour in a clumsy attempt to incite a chain gang of 20 men from the Arizona State Prison complex. Not…
Yellow Journalism E.J. Montini’s writing style can be trying. You know what we mean. Or perhaps you don’t. In any case, Montini and Steve Benson are the only Arizona Republic commentators whose names should appear in the same sentence with the words courage and imagination. (Memo to management: While you’re…
A dove settles on Loreen Bustardi’s head. Happens all the time, says Bustardi, not to worry. The bird figures Bustardi is its mate. Sometimes, it lays eggs in her hair. Bustardi usually doesn’t know about the eggs until she changes position. The eggs aren’t fertile, so it’s not a loss…
They played one song at Phil Girardin’s memorial service last week. “Everybody hurts,” the R.E.M. vocalist droned over and over in the small chapel at a Peoria funeral home. Girardin committed suicide by drug overdose June 8, one week after New Times told his story in a special report (“Mental…
After six months of nausea and pain, and a battery of tests, Sherrian Beagle was finally on her way to the hospital to have her gallbladder removed. Then she learned that her insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arizona, had decided she didn’t need the surgery and wouldn’t…
In 1952, Ron and Carolyn Warner pulled together $1,400 and bought a burned-out grocery store at 26th Street and Osborn Road. Together the young 20-somethings shoveled out the soot and the trash, and in its place opened Warner’s Furniture and Interiors. In the early days, they sold just about everything…
Will Jerry Colangelo and the Arizona Diamondbacks struggle to make a buck in their new, taxpayer-financed stadium? Or will they turn a huge profit right out of the gate? The answer from Colangelo is both. It all depends on whom he’s telling. When he was convincing the Maricopa County Board…
Don’t Tread on Us Jerry Colangelo isn’t the only one gorging himself at the public trough that will fund the downtown baseball stadium. Private property owners are chowing down, too. Most landowners in the 22-acre stadium site have agreed to sell to the county–after putting up a good fight. One…
James Jorquez has been caught up in the gusts of his wife’s passion for historic homes. They’ve lived in some of Phoenix’s older houses in some of the city’s older neighborhoods, places like Willo and Story and now Roosevelt, a spring afternoon’s walk from the original downtown core. About eight…
Bob Hirschfeld, fathers’-rights custody lawyer, keeps the door of his Phoenix office locked during business hours. Unexpected visitors are vigorously questioned by Hirschfeld’s staff, and he seems almost proud of two bullet holes in the windows of the reception area. Hirschfeld is convinced he is a good lawyer. But now…
Gambling on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which borders Scottsdale, could generate $450 million annually, projections show. At this point, however, projections are all anyone can make. No casinos have been approved or built. The tribe hasn’t decided whether to run the casinos itself or to hire an outside…
In March, archaeologists under contract with the Arizona Department of Transportation, inching along with trowels and brushes, exhumed 57 skeletons alongside a lonesome two-lane road in the Tonto National Forest. The bodies dated to the 13th or 14th century, the earthly remains of prehistoric Native Americans, laid to rest with…
Q: When is a dead bird in the hand worth considerably more than two in the bush? A: When that bird is a protected species–and possession and public display of any portion of its corpse is punishable by a six-figure fine. Or so Valley sculptor Paul Stout discovered the hard…
Boy, Is Fife’s Face Red Governor J. Fife Symington III occasionally loosens his tie and invites the Capitol press corps up to his office for an informal audience. A Fifester-side chat, if you will. The Flash wasn’t invited to the May 26 confab, but was told it went like this:…
For thousands of Arizonans, the court case known as Arnold v. Sarn was a godsend. The landmark lawsuit grew from a sensitive subject that few people voluntarily broach: how society cares for its seriously mentally ill. Superior Court Judge Bernard Dougherty forced the issue with a ruling in 1985. Maricopa…
Faced with an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, pressure from the federal Health Care Finance Administration and inquiries from state legislators, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System officials announced last week that all contractors in the program’s Information Services Division will be let go. Employees present at the meeting…
Land owners inside the downtown stadium site say their properties can’t be condemned because the facility is being built to benefit private interests. They say the state constitution requires that property condemned under eminent domain must be for a public use, and that the stadium project doesn’t meet that standard…
Cheryl Burgess, a member of the Wickenburg Town Council, said she had documents and information about the explosion in Oklahoma City. A self-described Arizona patriot, Burgess is a faithful trooper in the militia culture that President Bill Clinton has blamed for the bombing of the federal building. Today, Cheryl Burgess…
June Is Caveat Emptor Month Last week, John Hays, director of the Arizona Weights and Measures department, issued a memo informing his employees that the department had run out of money for the fiscal year, which ends June 30. Weights and Measures sleuths are supposed to check the veracity of…
“It’s a new day,” Phoenix Police Department 911 operator Tracy Lorenzano tells millions of people listening to National Public Radio’s popular, magazine-style news show, All Things Considered. In a five-minute piece that aired last month, Lorenzano is giving a day-in-the-life account of an emergency police dispatcher’s work in the Valley…
Jerry Millison was overcome with anguish on the afternoon of May 12. “He wondered for a second just how screwed up he had to be before someone would help him,” a friend of Millison’s recalls. Millison, 41, had a history of mental illness, substance abuse and three suicide attempts. The…
By now, everyone knows that Governor J. Fife Symington III has legislative approval to remodel his offices, which inhabit the top two floors of the state’s Executive Tower. The $1.7 million project has drawn criticism from the usual suspects–particularly the media–who are complaining that the rehab is far too lavish,…
