Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (May 7

Skinny WESTWARD HO! Skinny sources tell us that the Imperial City of Tucson's latest large annexation plan consists of moving west, basically down both sides of Ajo Way all the way to the borders of Tucson Estates. We haven't seen the exact annexation maps, but the target area appears to encompass at least 15 square miles.
Once again, this major policy decision was not made in public by those we elect, but behind closed doors by city staffers. Adding this turf to Tucson will cost existing residents more to provide services over a widely scattered and currently low-density area, but these drawbacks are submerged in the usual book-cooking dogma adhered to by the city bureaucracy and endorsed by Mayor George "Go-Go" Miller.
The question of who benefits from these mass annexations is long overdue for real debate and some genuine coverage by the establishment media.
SLOPPY PROP: The Growth Lobby was scared to death when a group of environmentalists announced an initiative drive to place urban growth boundaries (UGB) on the 1998 November ballot. Reacting to this move, developers and their running dogs got Governor Jane Dee Hull to make a counter-proposal more friendly to their position--and to confuse voters when the time came to pick between ballot propositions.
The Growth Lobby can rest easy. It is now May, with two months to go until signatures are due for the initiative, and the urban growth measure needs 126,000 signatures. Any realistic appraisal deems the initiative dead. Its supporters, sadly, have not put enough time into the effort and they've failed to raise enough money to pay pro-UGB petition passers to get this sucker on the ballot. Without an instant and massive influx of cash--about $150,000--the UGB will remain just a gleam in a tree-hugger's eye.
To do a statewide initiative with volunteers takes more than a few months. Ask the anti-cockfighting folks--they've been at it for almost two years. It's about to get very hot and the cost of professional signature-gatherers goes up in direct competition with all the petitions for other issues that are on the street right now.
We don't know who botched the UBG gig. There should have been real fund-raising going on while the lawyers at the Center for Law in the Public Interest were finalizing the initiative's wording. Those lawyers should have grasped that you can't get a continuance on an election.
It's a pity, really. Most Arizonans would support urban growth boundaries. But the current widespread dissatisfaction with uncontrolled growth never got translated into a realistic scut-work game plan.
Those laboring in the environmental vineyards on this project should have a real good talk with their leadership--and maybe let somebody else call the shots next time.
HERE COMES DA NEW JUDGE: The Board of Supervisors created Justice Court Precinct 8 almost a year ago. And eight months later, the supes hadn't gotten around to filling the position. This abdication pissed off Superior Court Presiding Judge Mike Brown, so he made the appointment himself--something he clearly didn't have the legal power to do. But Brown has discovered that he can usurp power with impunity.
We kinda sympathize with him. Once upon a time the supes weren't as dysfunctional as they are today. Even hearing a rumor that a high-paid slot like JP was coming vacant would've had them cutting a deal to insert one of their political cronies at the earliest possible moment. The current Board, however, ignored that option and allowed Brown to insert his own candidate.
That cheeky move apparently got the supes' attention. They began taking applications for the post and a leading candidate emerged--soon-to-retire Superior Court Clerk and former Tucson Mayor Jim Corbett. Corbett proceeded to line up support from just about everybody who owed him a favor, which is most of this valley and most of the judicial bench. Unfortunately, he blew it when he candidly told the press that he wanted the job not because he was qualified for it, but because it would jack up his pension about 20 grand a year.
The Board placed a March deadline on applications and then proceeded to ignore the issue--none of the applicants could garner three votes. Supervisor Sharon Bronson brought matters to a head by placing the item on the agenda for action. Bronson wanted somebody--anybody--the Board chose in the slot instead of Brown's guy, who would have remained until the November election.
But considering her feminist constituency, there was no way Bronson could support Corbett, so she nominated highly respected civil rights lawyer W. Edward Morgan. And she couldn't get the motion seconded.
Supervisors Raul Grijalva and Dan Eckstrom backed Corbett. Supervisor Ray Carroll, acting like a Republican, nominated former JP Walt Weber. Supervisors Chairman Mike Boyd, following his standard inclination, wanted to do nothing.
When it was apparent that none of the candidates would make it, Eckstrom nominated the last applicant, Susan Bacal, daughter of long-time Democrat National Committeeman Martin Bacal and former TUSD Board member Eva Bacal. Grijalva seconded, and Bronson eventually went along, placing a legitimate judge chosen by elected officials on the bench in JP8.
The whole process leaves us wondering about Grijalva's behavior. Eckstrom is an old-school pol, so we can grasp why he'd favor a guy like Corbett, who's from the same mold. But Grijalva refused to even second the nomination of Morgan, a guy his father marched with in the '60s. Likewise, it was Eckstrom who led the final move for Bacal, the daughter of Grijalva's old school board colleague. We can make sense of everybody else's motives, but Grijalva's adherence to Corbett contrasts vividly with Grijalva's well-constructed image as a supporter of liberals, feminists and civil rights.
CULTURAL CLASH: For having the guts to speak out about how her multicultural class is being undermined, Rincon High teacher Mia Phillips is being shafted by her principal, Suzanne Ashby, TUSD Superintendent George Garcia and his goons, and the "mother" of the multicultural class, TUSD Board Member Gloria Copeland. Desperately clinging to her vanishing hope for re-election, Copeland is squirming about the latest problem about the class: the sexed-up text books of Native American legends and myths in the mostly ninth-grade class.
Copeland sought friendly turf last week to respond to The Weekly's story about the text. On John C. Scott's radio show, Copeland lied that the books were pulled before the students saw them. She lied about a reporter's relationship with a rival reporter. She lied about how the books got into the class.
Further, she believes that because the class is a "pilot" that anything goes because the "bugs need to be worked out." What's next--Hustler and white-trash pornography?
Copeland and the TUSD administration also found a new stooge to attack Phillips. Garett Holm, a resource and curriculum specialist whom Phillips had relied upon and praised, took chunks of at least two mornings last week to listen to Scott's show. He hopped into the mix Friday and misled listeners by saying the lurid tales were confined to one section of the book. It was a poor performance for the man who supposedly wrote the curriculum and supplied the reading list for the class.
Phillips was right when she complained several weeks ago that the class was designed to fail. Parents and taxpayers should listen to her students, who give Phillips high marks.
FORUM FOLLY: You've got to hand it to the shadowy coalition called the Partnership for Responsible Government. Last week, the group sponsored a forum for Tucson Unified School District Board race on a Tuesday, when the school board was meeting. That meant Gloria Copeland, who is seeking re-election to the board, had a pretty good excuse for not attending the forum.
This deprived the public of a chance to see just how bad Copeland is. Repeat candidate Judy Burns did a credible job before leaving early. Rosalie Lopez, the lawyer and educator, won over some skeptics. Carolyn Kemmeries, a former TUSD principal, was prone to cheap shots. After 32 years in TUSD, isn't she part of the problem?
Celestino Fernández, who is abandoning his Arizona International Campus provost job, was a no-show. Reportedly on University of Arizona business, Fernandez sent understudy Macario Saldate, former director of the UA Mexican-American studies center. Great choice. We remember when Mac the Knife was a leading candidate to be appointed to fill AZScam victim Chuy Higuera's District 10 state Senate seat in 1990. That appointment went down the drain, however, because Mac had failed to pay his property taxes in 1989 and 1990.
Snoops, spin docs and partisans in the audience last week included Supervisor Raul Grijalva, City Councilman José Ibarra, City Councilman Steve Leal, as well as veteran educators Hank Oyama, Pepe Barron and Frank Felix.
The sponsoring Partnership is off to a shaky start. The forum began in early April as a product of the League of United Latin American Citizens. It was then expanded to include representatives of the Hispanic Professional Action Committee, the Pima County Interfaith Council, and the UA Hispanic Alumni Association. Not all candidates responded to the group's three-page questionnaire and some had questions of their own. Jesus Zapata, for example, complained that the group shut out other Hispanic organizations. Candidates were never given the same answer about just who the Partnership is: a coalition of groups or just a list of big-shot Hispanics (Marty Cortez, Martha Elias, Frank Felix, Richard Fimbres, Louis Hollingsworth, Ernest Portillo and Mercy Valencia) acting individually.
Moreover, as Lopez pointed out, the Partnership failed to register within the required 10 days of its start as a political organization seeking to influence the election. Cortez, a member of the Pima Community College Board, should know better.
WATER LOG: Look for city officials to trumpet the Pima Mine Road pilot CAP recharge project being dedicated on May 8 as an example of how Tucson is complying with the provisions of the Water Consumer Protection Act.
Of course, what they won't mention is that this project was planned years before Prop 200 was approved by the voters in 1995. It only further demonstrates how unwilling the majority of the City Council has been to obey the law.
Pima County government has taken the lead in implementing the act. Their work on pushing recharge in the Santa Cruz River is one bright note in this whole sorry saga. Meanwhile, George Miller, Janet Marcus, Shirley Scott and Fred Ronstadt drag their feet, hoping the law will somehow just evaporate.
NEW WRINKLE IN CITY SUIT: Apparently unable to accept defeat gracefully, the Tucson City Attorney's Office has appealed an earlier court decision which requires the city to pay local attorney Bill Risner almost $5,200 in legal expenses. Risner represented good citizens John Kromko and Leo Pilachowski, who had pointed out all the snafus in last year's city election.
We wonder how much staff time and money the city is willing to blow before it gives up in this case. Just pay the bill and move on. Or could Risner's ties to the Town of Tortolita have something to do with the city's shamefully petty stalling action?
DEATH, WHERE IS THY CERTIFICATE? The recent flap over the death of Linda McCartney exposed the conflict between two divergent concepts--the right to privacy versus the right of the people to have access to their government's records.
On the surface, the right to privacy would seem paramount. But consider: Civilized society has for years decreed certain fundamental records should be available to all--births, deaths, lawsuits, voter rolls. Unfortunately, the occasional misuse of these public records, by everyone from stalkers to commercial list builders, has prompted a flurry of attempts to restrict more and more of what the public and the media can see.
The problem with this approach should be obvious. It allows a small group of bureaucrats to control a massive amount of information--and it increases the possibility that information can be altered by corrupt or tyrannical officials.
To allow only the select few to know certain things is an invitation to abuse of that exclusive knowledge. The opportunity for corruption increases in direct proportion to how few have access to the records.
Death certificates contain information about how people die. Corrupt or intimidated medical examiners have been known to decree suicides even though the corpses in question have had several slugs in the back. Allowing only the family or law enforcement access to these records is insufficient--what if there is no family, or what if they've also been intimidated? What if they're the murderers? What if the police are in on the fix?
Furthermore, there are legitimate statistical uses for those death certificates, such as revealing an inordinate number of cancer deaths in a given area. Tucsonans know from first-hand experience that a corporation might want to conceal evidence that it has helped boost cancer rates.
In today's courtrooms, such cases are often sealed, denying others access to key testimony. A wealthy defendant covers his--or its--ass by buying off the other side and burying information that could lead to further liability.
And today's voter records are only partially open. Much information is restricted in an effort to protect people from possible abuses. While such precautions may hinder the rare stalker, it's a situation that practically invites widespread vote fraud.
The trend toward privacy is admirable, but there's no real privacy when the state holds the records and others are not able to verify them. And much of the motivation to further restrict public access comes not from an altruistic bureaucracy wishing to guard citizens from unwanted intrusions, but from the lazy bureaucrat's simple-minded desire to monopolize data and lessen his workload. Filling information requests is often time consuming.
In the long run, Americans are far better off sacrificing a little privacy in public records access and full disclosure than to risk what could--and has been--a far worse situation.
Just ask yourself: How would Josef Stalin have dealt with this little problem?
SEE NEWT RUN: A spy for The Skinny was among the 6,000 folks who showed up to see Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on his recent visit to Phoenix.
Newt appeared very much the presidential candidate, entering and exiting to the Indiana Jones' theme music. (No, we're not kidding.) Wonder if he's trying to create an subconscious connection to Harrison Ford, who played a terrorist-battlin' chief executive in Air Force One a couple months back.
A gaggle of Fife agitators booed Gov. Jane Dee Hull, who has evidently betrayed everything the blood-sucking, baby-kicking right wing of the GOP believes by supporting the idea of providing health insurance to poor children.
BISBEE'S BRICK WALL: Last week, the Arizona Press Club presented outgoing Bisbee Mayor Tom Wheeler with this year's First Amendment Disservice Award for his repeated efforts to block public-records requests from the Bisbee News, a small weekly paper serving southern Arizona.
Mary Ellen Corbett, editor and publisher of the Bisbee News, earned Wheeler's enmity by investigating a rumored deal that would have allowed a bankrupt corporation to deed its building to the City of Bisbee and then lease the facility back. In the process, Cochise County and Bisbee Unified School District would have swallowed a six-figure bill for back taxes. (The plan was ultimately rejected by the federal bankruptcy court.) When Corbett and her staff requested records related to the deal, Wheeler repeatedly insisted no such records existed.
Public officials these days seem to have a real contempt for Arizona's public records law, which plainly states that any state records must be open for examination within 24 hours of a request. Everyone should worry when a putz like Wheeler decides the public's business should be happening behind closed doors.

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