Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (April 30

Skinny THE PERFECT MELDING OF ART AND COMMERCE: At last! Someone has finally figured out a good use for all those unsightly billboards still blighting our town. Until recently a huge Pantene billboard loomed over Broadway Boulevard near Cherry. It featured a silhouetted, silken-haired, anorexic freak of female model. And guess what suddenly graced her shoulder? Gangland graffiti! We just love it--after all these years of moronic teenage assholes defacing fences, buildings and other valuable architecture, a lad of true genius has arisen from the taggers' lowly ranks. What a brilliant move! Defacing those crappy billboards is a major public service in our book. The gigantic ad vanished within days of the tagger's hit.
Yo, homeboy! You deserve a grant from the NEA! And, please, keep up the damn fine work--we're rootin' for ya.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: Seems the staff of the city's Development Services Department has once again been stalling efforts to enforce billboard laws. Only five cases, out of more than 100 potential ones, were going to be taken to court in the next round of enforcement action.
But a group of concerned citizens met with members of the City Council and--surprise!--now more than 20 cases loom, including 19 against billboards alleged to be located within the wrong land-use zones.
Development Services' failure to act is nothing new. For years the department hasn't seemed much interested in enforcing the law. Whether it involves the sign code, the building code, or abandoned housing, if a citizen doesn't complain, the department doesn't do anything.
DAY BREAK: Ted Schlinkert has taken out petitions to challenge Sen. Ann Day in the GOP September primary.
Schlinkert may be best known for his efforts to lead a referendum against Marana's massive rezoning of developer's David Mehl's proposed Dove Mountain (formerly RedHawk) master-planned community. Marana officials threw out the petitions with the kind of dirty trick that's the town's specialty--in this disgraceful case, because the group hadn't attached a two-inch-thick specific plan for the voters to read before signing.
Schlinkert has also been active in the incorporation movement in Casas Adobes, which Day has opposed this year. Schlinkert's candidacy will be one way for voters who support self-determination to register their disappointment with Day.
SHILL ZONE: The Federation of Northwest Home Owners recently formed, primarily to oppose the incorporation of the new Town of Tortolita. Because the media can't tell the difference between real outfits and a pack of shills, the "federation" has garnered some sporadic attention.
Their chairman is Chuck Cowles, an Oro Valley resident. Cowles is a leader of the Church of the Apostles, and wants the church's proposed new site at the corner of Tangerine Road and La Cholla Boulevard to be in Oro Valley. Why? Because the title company missed the deed restrictions on the new church site and neighboring property when the church made the purchase. To cover its butt, the title company then sued all of the neighbors affected by those deed restrictions to get them declared illegal. The judge ruled in the title company's favor.
While the church wasn't directly responsible for the lawsuit, the neighbors hardly looked upon it as an act of Christian charity. Cowles and others from the church are concerned that Tortolita will be inclined to support the neighbors when rezoning for the new church is needed, so they're now trying to drag some of the neighbors along into Oro Valley--where you can rezone just about anything.
Others in the group, which claims to represent a large anti-incorporation faction in Tortolita, consist of a handful of local residents who would like major development on their own land. another faction consists of absentee land owners. One of the most vociferous antagonists to the new town is Joel Abrams, who has papered both dailies with vitriolic letters to the editor. It should be remembered that this is the same Joel Abrams whose real estate broker's license was suspended. He was also fined for illegally splitting lots, so he's not exactly a poster boy for clean government.
If there's any sizable anti-incorporation movement in Tortolita, no one else can find it. Nobody expressing that sentiment surfaced in the recent town election, where the seven incumbents ran unopposed and were re-elected with an incredibly high 26 percent turnout. And more than 1,000 people attended the recent town party and raised another $16,000 to pay legal and lobbying costs to keep Tortolita alive.
So next time some talking airhead does "he said, she said" with this bunch of shills, please note that they're not really grassroots, but just more manufactured Astroturf.
PORK CHOPS: The Pima County Supervisors have discussed whether to buy the Miller-Pitt Building at the corner of Broadway and Church Street. Discussion of the item was hidden on Pima County's Executive Session agenda, under the cover story "legal negotiations." What a surprise: More bullshit and lawyers covering up self-serving business we should all see transacted out in the open.
The item was on the agenda because the Miller-Pitt law firm was brazen enough to forward a proposal to Pima County asking between $1.3 million and $1.6 million for the building, based on their own appraisal. A few weeks back, we reported that Supreme Court Justice Stanley Feldman, a former Miller-Pitt partner, had been working the back halls of Pima County and his judicial ally, Pima County Presiding Judge Mike Brown, to peddle this sucker.
But there were several problems with this deal, which the supes turned down:
• The county has no money in the budget to buy it;
• The county really doesn't need it;
• The building is frame-stucco and rumored to be loaded with asbestos;
• And the asking price is too high.
But it does illustrate the arrogance of the judiciary and the attempt by favored law firms to score at taxpayer expense. We believe that's called pork.
CRIME DOES PAY: Michael J. Brown, his majesty of Pima County's Superior Court system, wants to be a benevolent king--to some. He recently blessed two more raises for courthouse hacks.
Donald H. Shaw, director of court services at the Juvenile Court Center, got his annual pay bumped by more than nine bones to $99,535. Assistant Director of Court Services Judy Holgate now gets $80,000 a year, up from $71,064.
Both increases were approved by Juvi Presiding Judge John F. Kelly, but it's Brown who controls the court kingdom. He already pays Superior Court 's top bureaucrat, Don Stiles, $108,810, and Brown's computer gal, Sally Nagy gets $105,000.
The Board of Supervisors should note these raises when Brown comes in whining for mo' money next month. In his budget requests, submitted two weeks past the deadline, Brown asks for $8 million more than the 1997-98 Superior Court budget of $17.6 million. Juvi bosses want nearly $2 million more than the 1997-98 budget of $11.7 million.
TEMPS RISING: Part of the new bottom-line mentality of America is seen in the new policy of Tucson Electric Power to dump some folks with decent jobs with benefits and hire temps to replace them.
Once upon a time, working for a public utility was a pretty good deal--a safe, secure job. And so was buying their stock.
But in the '80s that changed. Outfits like TEP took advantage of their privileged monopoly status and squandered much of their capital jacking around in areas they knew nothing about. The net result was TEP stock went into the crapper. And they've figured out how to massage it back--not by providing a better product, but by cutting services and shafting workers.
Your meter reader is--guess what--a temp, provided by an outside company. Remember that next time you get a $740 electric bill. And note that the person who'll take your complaint call is another temp in a telephone boiler room somewhere.
BLOCK HEAD: The residents of the Richland Heights West Neighborhood live in as rural a neighborhood as you can get here in the Naked Pueblo. Bounded by Campbell Avenue, Fort Lowell Road, Tucson Boulevard and Prince Road, the neighborhood features low-density homes set along dirt roads and surrounded by native vegetation. We could have used more neighborhoods like this scattered throughout our sprawlopolis.
But the residents now fear their cozy 'hood is about to be disrupted by Olga Block, who has announced plans to open a charter school on a quiet cul-de-sac. Despite the complaints of her new neighbors, Olga plans to go ahead with the school--and she says there's nothing they can do to stop her.
Olga is the wife of Michael Block, a UA economics professor who was a close crony of white-collar criminal J. Fife Symington III. Block was a member of the convicted felon's three-member Constitutional Defense Council, which blew hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in idiotic legal fights. Although the CDC was designed to battle the federal government, it ended up spending a lot of time and money fighting Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods over its right to exist--a splendid use of taxpayer dollars.
Olga's plan to open her school is certainly an eye-opener in conservative philosophy to the residents of Richland Heights, who are now seeing their state tax dollars supporting an enterprise which is going to screw their lifestyle. And, because just about anyone can start up a charter school just about anywhere, there's probably little they can do about it.
We can't wait to see Olga's civics curriculum.
CAVE MEN: You'd think at least one of those arrogant boneheads at the Tucson Weakly would have some idea of how to spell "Kartchner," as in Kartchner Caverns. But last week, the paper managed to misspell the name of the caves about 6,748 times in a cover story on the budding state park. Hey, bozos, lay off the ether for awhile, OK?

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