Tucson Weekly: Paper Tigers (July 31

Santa Cruz County Press Wars Heat Up.
By Jeff Smith
CASH IS KING, even in the newspaper business.
And even here in that Elysian Field of virtue and innocence, Santa Cruz County.
For the past several years, the county has let a lucrative annual contract to publish legal public notices to The Nogales International, one of four newspapers in Santa Cruz County. (The other three being The Nogales Herald, the Arizonian in Tubac, and The Weekly Bulletin in Sonoita.) Until this year, the recent history of the contract was an uncontested slam-dunk for the International, a member of the Wick chain of papers, which includes the Sierra Vista rag, among others. As semi-podunk semi-newspapers go, Wick Communications is something of a 900-pound gorilla.
Smith So it came as something of a surprise, late last fiscal year, when the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted to award this fiscal year's contract to the now-Weekly Arizonian. In light of the earlier-alluded-to mote that has been removed from mine eye, it came as less surprising when, on July 1, the board reversed itself and gave the contract to the Wick paper. After all, we're talking 30 to 50 large per annum here, at the rate of $1.50 a column-inch under the Wick's bid, versus $1.10 an inch as bid by the Arizonian. The legal/political machinations that precipitated the skin-back by the supervisors makes an interesting case-study in the uses of power and wealth.
No sooner had the contract been awarded to the Arizonian than The International filed a protest, alleging the winner did not qualify as a legitimate bidder, under the Arizonan statute, to wit: that a qualified bidder must not be "designed primarily for advertising, free circulation, or circulation at nominal rates, but shall have a bona fide list of paying subscribers." The International alleged a number of other violations, of arguable legal pertinence, and a long laundry list of political and ad hominem sniveling, but the crux of the matter comes down to whether the Arizonian is a freebie or the sort of newspaper people pay actual money for.
Faced with a protest from the biggest, richest (and most hostile) newspaper in its constituency, the supervisors handed off to County Attorney Marty Chase, who drop-kicked it to the Tucson law firm of DeConcini, McDonald & Yetwin, who lateralled to attorney Spencer Smith, who looked it up in the Arizona Revised Statutes (not statues, as in Statue of Liberty play, which would have added a nice fillip to this overwrought gridiron metaphor) and opined that the Arizonian did not qualify under statute at the time its bid was submitted.
Thus provided a convenient legal out, the Board of Supervisors, acting on the advice of counsel (acting in turn on the advice of a guy with a law degree and a sheepskin on his wall), let the big dog eat. Mark Maiorana, co-owner of the Arizonian (his wife, Marcia, is publisher of the paper and co-owner, and Mark is publisher of the Weekly Bulletin in Sonoita), was pissed. He hired a lawyer and a snarly letter to Martha S. Chase, Esq., the county attorney, resulted. The International and Wick Communications responded with more mail to Santa Cruz County from its lawyers, just so nobody would make the mistake of thinking this matter couldn't still get real expensive. If I may be pardoned one more crack at the football metaphor, let's take a peek at the program, without which you can't tell the players:
At lawyer for the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors we've got Holly Hawn and her boss, Martha Chase. I don't know what they weigh. At lawyer for these lawyers, Spencer Smith of the powerhouse law firm of DeConcini, McDonald & Yetwin. At lawyer for the Nogales International and Wick Communications, there's Sally Simmons, of the all-pro firm of Brown & Bain (with offices in Tucson, Phoenix and God knows where else) and at lawyer for the Weekly Arizonian, Ivan Abrams. Of Bisbee.
Draw what conclusions you will.
My conclusions are these:

Wick Communications is going to keep the public notices contract for at least another year. Why? Check the lawyer roster. Wick has the horses, and the deep pockets to pay them.

Legally and morally, the Weekly Arizonian should have the contract right now. Why? Check the Arizona Revised Statutes: while they say a qualifying bidder should be a paid-circulation newspaper, they don't say when. At the time the Arizonian submitted its bid, the paper was switching from advertiser-supported free circulation with paid mail subscriptions, to 25-cent-per-copy, point-of-sale circulation, with paid mail subscriptions. That critical move was completed before the commencement of the term of contract. Even according to Spencer Smith, who rendered his opinion for the Santa Cruz County Attorney, the ARS nowhere has anything to say about when these technicalities are to be met. Smith told me that his opinion was based upon his subjective interpretation of the statutes. He further told me that in his opinion, the Arizonian could and would have performed the service of informing Santa Cruz County voters as to the required legal notices, in a satisfactory manner, and that it would have saved the taxpayers money (an estimated $10,000).

Next year, the Weekly Arizonian will be back bidding again, and then there will be no question, in Spencer Smith's mind, in Marty Chase's and Holly Hawn's minds, in the minds of the Board of Supervisors, that the Weekly Arizonian is a legit applicant for the contract.

All of the above will be moot, unless Santa Cruz County officials find the cajones to stand up to the threat of Wick Communications and their lawyers.

The Arizona Revised Statutes, as they apply to this situation, are unconstitutional and out-of-date. Free circulation, advertiser-supported newspapers are the wave of the present and the future in print journalism. Newspapers like the Tucson Weekly, New Times in Phoenix, the Weekly Arizonian and the Weekly Bulletin have simply recognized that paid subscriptions, home delivery, point-of-sales marketing are costly and unnecessary overhead. Advertising pays the bills and allows a newer style of journalism that is currently doing the best job of printing the truth and raising hell.

The Nogales International ought to be ashamed of itself. Why? In a shameless pretense at covering this issue as news, Managing Editor Harold Kitching, under a byline that failed to identify him as such, wrote what we in the biz call a "whore's dream"--meaning a real long thing that did everything but call Mark Maiorana's mom dirty names. Seldom have I read anything in a newspaper that was so full of unattributed allegations, half-truths, untruths, irrelevance and self-serving fabrication. Unless I wrote it myself.

Plus, by actual count, he misspelled Maiorana's name 34 times.

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