Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (March 11

Skinny SAINT RALPH, FAST TRACK: Pity Mother Teresa. Although Pope John Paul II waived the five-year waiting period for the sainthood process to begin for her, she obviously does not enjoy the fast track The Arizona Daily Star granted Pima County Supervisor Raul Manuel Grijalva. At least Mother Teresa, who died in 1997, won't have to wait until 2002.
The Star's Pope Joe (Burchell) elevated Grijalva, a fellow Sunnyside High School alumnus, in an ordinary story that became extraordinary when explaining how Grijalva resisted the temptation to abandon his Pima County office to run for mayor of Tucson. Grijalva has too many county issues to confront and people to protect to leave now or later, sayeth Raul and La Estrella.
Indeed, Grijalva pronounced his plans to seek an unprecedented fourth term in 2000 in District 5, covering the Tucson Mountains, the westside, West University, Sam Hughes and part of the southside. Grijalva, Pope Joe proclaimed, "has been something of a patron saint for the county's indigent and elderly healthcare system (and) said he needs to remain on the board to protect it."
Is that the same system that has rung up a debt of $38 million? Grijalva acknowledged his run for mayor would also be seen as a run from that huge debt.
Grijalva really wanted to be mayor. And it was shaping up nicely for him with neighborhood and environmental diehard Molly McKasson, a former two-term council member, running against the pretentious, elitist three-term Councilwoman Janet Marcus in the Democratic primary. Still, those with the smart money were scarcely surprised. He can't exist--even temporarily--without his excellent, completely dedicated and determined staff.
AMPHI ABSURDITY: The fight to return an open call-to-the-audience segment to Amphitheater School Board meetings took another twist last week, when Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano shot down the school district's recently acquired legal opinion that call to the audience was against Open Meeting Law.
Not surprisingly, Napolitano said the opinion, written by Amphi outside counsel Barry Corey, was simply wrong.
"You reached this conclusion by relying upon an exceptionally expansive interpretation of one word: 'consider,' " Napolitano wrote in her opinion. "That interpretation is wrong. Accordingly, that portion of your opinion is revised to conclude that a properly conducted open call to the audience will not violate the (Open Meeting Law)."
In fact, Napolitano went as far to call Corey's reasoning absurd: "Interpreting 'consider' to mean 'listen,' 'think about,' or 'hear' would result in an absurdity because it would mean that members of public bodies would violate the (Open Meeting Law) when they attend the same conferences or seminars, read the same correspondence from constituents, or watch the same television news programs. Such a result is obviously untenable."
And how much did Corey's worthless opinion cost Amphi taxpayers? Try $6,687, which would have been better spent on students' needs.
Amphi has been under pressure to reinstate a call-to-the-audience segment for about two years, but the Board has scrambled to avoid the issue. Corey's discredited opinion was the latest dodge.
Following the slap from the Attorney General, the Amphi Board met earlier this week in executive session--i.e., behind closed doors, once again--to discuss the district's "legal options" regarding call to the audience. Near as we can figure, legal options are pretty much exhausted at this point. It would seem the Board only has political options left.
Barring a radical change in thinking, however, three members of the Amphi Board--Richard Scott, Gary Woodard and Virginia Houston--remain opposed to having an open call to the audience, while two members--Nancy Young Wright and newly elected Ken Smith--support the proposal. And while Amphi is running out of excuses, the majority could still decide to block any change in current policy of shutting out the taxpaying peasants.
A FAN WRITES: The Skinny was delighted to receive this missive from an anonymous reader earlier this week, to wit:
"Congrats on your item on the inner workings of the Star newsroom. Caliente sounds like the greatest Steve Auslander idea since Grafitti!
"And: It appears that the excessive coverage of the Gem & Mineral Show by both dalies was someone's bright idea of how to boost single-copy sales for three or four weeks to halt the Citizen's downward slide and, perhaps, to lay a foundation for the next advertising rate increase. (Do you ever wonder what covering local news would do for circulation? It hasn't been done for so long that it almost qualifies as a new idea.)"
Keep those cards and letters coming in, Star fans!
GRASS CRISIS: Pima County has blown another $200,000 fixing the turf at the taxpayer-built Tucson Electric Park.
Either those in charge of maintaining the turf screwed up, or the county was screwed by the contractor and county officials are too wimpy to do anything about it. Either way, guess how the county plans to keep this expense from occurring again?
Yep, less use of the park for public events other than spring-training games. You know, stuff like concerts, gatherings, little league--all the good things stadium proponents listed as reasons for building the park in the first place. Oooops, sorry, those apparently weren't a compatible use with spring training after all! But then, we never thought those events were going to happen, anyway--they just padded the county's projections on revenues to pay back the bonds used to finance the ballpark's construction.
DIAMONDWATCH: One guy you can never accuse of not having a plan is legendary land speculator Don Diamond. The Big D can usually figure out where the government money is going and pounce in front of it.
You might recall Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt credited Diamond with tweaking his interest in the Desert Protection Plan currently working its way through the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
Local officials have already begun to identify critical habitat. And we've been told Diamond is in the process of picking up ranch land that will be so identified, including the property of the late, murderous bastard Kemper Marley south of town, plus one more ranch in the same vicinity.
That's why we call him "land speculator." Diamond builds nothing, and he doesn't care if anybody else does after they buy his property at a profit to him. Check out his Rocking K Ranch development southeast of town--there's been virtually no construction, eight years after a massive rezoning. Profit to Diamond from the sale and trade of land to the federal government after the local rezoning massively increased its value: several million bucks and climbing.
COUNTIN' BEANS AT TUSD: Ken Marcus, onetime candidate for the Board of Supervisors and a budget watchdog for the Pima Association of Taxpayers, has begun work in the finance department of the Tucson Unified School District.
It's uncertain whether his pocket protector and sharpened pencils will be enough to ward off vipers in the 1010 E. 10th St. pit. The laconic Marcus is the sixth person in six years to attempt survival as TUSD's executive finance director. He's a straight shooter who doesn't tolerate the type of budget chicanery that has prompted five of his predecessors to flee. Along with the taxpayers' doyenne Mary Schuh, Marcus has been doing a good job highlighting many of Pima County's budget screw-ups.
That work was a positive extension of his failed bid to oust Sugar Ray Carroll from the eastside and Green Valley District 4 seat. Marcus' run in last year's special Republican primary was far more credible and creditable than that of Brenda B. Even, the two-term TUSD Board member who had best hope she covered her tracks well enough to keep Marcus from finding more than her sweetheart deal to operate the wellness centers at schools in TUSD and other districts, not to mention the district's questionable--and on-going--effort to raise funds for Even's company as a way to "honor" her time on the TUSD Board.
Marcus, who has an MBA from the University of Arizona, was the finance manager for the Tucson division of Bell & Howell Cope until consolidation forced closure of the local operations last year.
EARLY LINE-UP: Heavily Republican Legislative District 9 will lose both GOP state representatives in 2000, Bill McGibbon and Lou Ann Preble, as term limits kick in. (Look for McGibbon to go for the D9 Senate seat that will be vacated by Keith Bee.) Jonathan Paton, who was defeated in the D9 GOP primary in 1998, is expected to try for one of those House seats, as is former Pima County Supervisor Paul Marsh. Marsh served one term on the county board and was defeated in the 1996 GOP primary by the late John Even. His bumbling cluelessness about almost everything led us to dub him "Dim Bulb."
Perhaps as part of his legislative campaign Marsh could explain to the voters how he and his two GOP colleagues, Ed Moore and Mike Boyd, managed to piss away Pima County's budget surplus and set county taxpayers up for the current horrendous budget crisis. Most of the original blunders were made on their watch.
We also hear that Joe Scott, husband of Councilwoman--er, that is, Vice-Mayor Shirley Scott, is telling people he's considering a run for the D9 seat on the Democratic ticket. Good luck, Joe--your mighty intellectual skills will prove invaluable in overcoming the Republican registration advantage.
Meanwhile, in District 13, Galen Paton, brother of the aforementioned Jonathan Paton, is also considering a run for the House seat that will be opened when term limits force out Rep. Andy Nichols.
Nichols is expected to run for the D13 state Senate seat now held by Sen. George Cunningham, who is gearing up a run against Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe.
Elsewhere in District 13, Republican Scott Kirtley, who was defeated in his bid for a House seat in 1994, is also pondering a House or Senate run.

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