Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (September 10

Skinny PRIMARY LESSONS: There weren't many surprises, but there were a few encouraging signs in Tuesday's primary election.
For starters, Ray Carroll won the race for the Pima County Board of Supervisors. District 4 has always been a Growth Lobby stronghold. Carroll's strong finish in a GOP primary--with more than 40 percent of the vote against challengers Ken Marcus and Brenda Even--reinforces the notion that our community really has undergone a paradigm shift toward restraining the rampant development that's steadily eroding Pima County's quality of life. Now if the Supes can work out their dysfunctional personality differences, maybe we can get some real work done in the next two years.
We were also happy to see Tom McGovern crush John Kaites by more than a 2-to-1 margin. Kaites' truly repulsive assault on McGovern showed that Kaites had absolutely no sense of prosecutorial discretion--which is vital in an attorney general. It was also a major repudiation of the tactics of his handlers, Wes Gullett and Chuck Coughlin of Phoenix-based HighGround. Gullett and Coughlin were convicted felon J. Fife Symington III's bully boys back when the Whiteguy was governor. Nice work, guys--be sure to include that McGovern-behind-bars ad in any video pitches to future clients.
Arizona voters also rejected the two wealthy candidates who financed their own races for statewide offices. In the Treasurer's Race, state Sen. Carol Springer defeated former car dealer D.L. Culliver, who dumped more than $150,000 of his own money into his race. Meanwhile, in the Corporation Commission race, outgoing state Treasurer Tony West defeated Gary Carnicle, who likewise put up six figures to fund his campaign. We'd love to believe it means you can't buy public office in Arizona, but we figure they both lost mostly because their money was poorly spent on lousy consultants who did a miserable job on promoting their candidacies. Culliver never managed to develop much name recognition, while Carnicle dropped a crummy last-minute hit on West that backfired.
CRIMINAL PRIORITIES: Over the holiday weekend, a 57-year-old man was assaulted by street punks at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Sixth Street. Diners from a nearby restaurant witnessed the attack, dropped their forks and ran over to point out the perpetrators, who were less than a block away. The Tucson cops on the scene seemed dazed and confused, however, and just stood around while the delinquets sauntered off.
Meanwhile, the victim was bleeding like a stuck pig. He ended up with a broken nose and a couple of broken ribs. And it was obvious that if the punks hadn't been interrupted by passersby, the guy might have been pushing the deep-six.
The cops were able to catch two of the muggers--who were apparently after the guy's to-go chow--and proceeded to ticket them for misdemeanor assault and let them go.
Maybe there just wasn't a cell available. The cops rounded up more than 100 hookers last week and, since most couldn't make bail, they ended up overcrowding the Pima County Jail.
So which idiot in charge at Tucson Police Department scores hooker misdemeanants as more dangerous to the public than violent muggers?
ABOVE THE LAW: Celestino Fernández's well-established hypocrisy evolved into disdain for election law recently when he filed his financial statement for his campaign for the Tucson Unified School District board. Fernández, who most recently was provost of the University of Arizona's money-pit, Arizona International Campus, never bothered to sign his statement of organization that all public office candidates must submit within 10 days of raising or spending campaign money. Fernández filed that two-sided paper on May 4, according to records in the Pima County Elections Division. A signature is required, by state law, to make such documents effective and to clear the way for the campaign to raise and spend money on the candidate's behalf. Fernández then raised $3,785 and spent $456 through August 19.
He could have been fined $11,355--three times the amount raised--according to state law. But County Elections Director Mitch Etter let Fernández slide by simply allowing the candidate to sign on August 28 what he defectively filed nearly three months earlier.
CADDYSHACK'S POLICE STATE: A Tortolita resident driving through a school zone on La Cholla Boulevard happened to notice an Oro Valley cop on his town's side of the line. This is the disputed turf between the two towns--Oro Valley's annexation of the area is currently in court, with the legality of Oro Valley's land grab being disputed.
After the Tortolita resident told the Oro Valley cop, "This is Tortolita," he was pulled over a quarter-mile later by the same officer. When he asked why, the cop told him, "I thought you might have been creating an incident."
He did, Officer Krumpke, he did. That's the kind of blatant police-state crap too may otherwise pro law-enforcement folks are getting fed up with. The Tortolita resident called Oro Valley's Chief of Police, who told him they were patrolling the area under the direction of their City Attorney. Wolff said he was sorry that his officer had acted that way, but added that Oro Valley wanted the residents in the disputed area to "get used to" Oro Valley police being around.
We wonder if that means harassment of the residents who don't want to be part of their police-state town.

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