THE TUCSON CHAMBER OF CRAPOLA: The tiny cadre of pro-uncontrolled-growth developer toadies who run the 3,200-member Tucson Chamber of Commerce have decreed that spending $36 million in bond money to preserve open spaces around this exploding burg--a proposal which goes to voters next month--is a bad idea. Although they apparently can't come up with a good example, the Chamber chumps claim government land trades with private parties (read: developers and copper mines) are a better deal. The Arizona Daily Star quotes Chief Chamber Chump Jack Camper as saying spending bond money to preserve the land is not terribly necessary because "home builders and developers have a history of using open space in their developments." Well, gag us with a bulldozer. That utterance is just breathtakingly stupid, even for Camper: "Hey, kids! The golf courses are wide open! We don't need no stinkin' desert!" And we laughed out loud at the Chamber elite's reported "concern" that using bond money to acquire parcels within the city limits would hurt infill development efforts--like they really give a rat's ass. Yes, if we keep a few properties in their natural state, or even build parks, that land won't be available to big developers who want to excrete acres and acres of look-alike condos and tract homes. What a tragedy. Never mind that in-town open spaces would hike the values of existing homes. Guess the rest of us don't count in the Chamber elite's big plans. Someday, perhaps, the vast majority of Chamber members, who are small-business people with normal incomes, will wake up and smell the asphalt--the people who control their Chamber are big-business suck-ups. And what's good for big business is not necessarily good for small business and the ordinary citizens they employ and serve. That's the fiscal fault line running through the Tucson Chamber of Commerce. Pray for a quake. OF COURSE, CITIZEN PUBLISHER C. DONALD HATFIELD PROBABLY FLIES BACK TO MARTHA'S VINEYARD EVERY YEAR: Those free-wheelin' free-traders at the Tucson Citizen recently scolded the Clinton Administration for delaying a NAFTA provision which would allow Mexican trucks to drive freely in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. Currently, the trucks can drive north only within a 20-mile free zone, although under NAFTA they were supposed to have access to the four border states by December 1995. The Citizen accused the White House of caving to pressure from unions, who fear competition from Mexican trucks. The paper argued it's time to allow the trucks to roll farther afield. The paper went as far as to say all safety concerns have been "completely addressed" by the four states. While we doubt the Teamsters are eagerly awaiting competition from Mexico, we're not buying the notion that the handful of customs agents at the border have anywhere near the manpower to inspect the flood of trucks coming our way--or that all those brakes are in good working order. To buttress its position, the Citizen editorial pointed out that our favorite indicted deadbeat, Gov. J. Fife Whiteguy III, had come out in favor of scrapping the trucking ban. Well, we wonder why--could it have anything to do with the fact that the Governor's wife and son own an interest in Melones Internacional, a company importing produce from Mexico? As investigative reporter John Dougherty of the Phoenix New Times has revealed, Fife's family is developing quite the partnership with the Canelos family, which owns one of Mexico's largest farming opportunities. Of course, the Citizen skipped over that little detail in its effort to accelerate the NAFTA deal. We're not all that surprised, given that the mainstream media continue to ignore the Symingtons' curious dealings south of the border--and the way the Governor continues to use his office to boost his family's Mexican business interests. EXCLUSIONARY SLEAZEBALLS: The town of Marana wants to keep voter participation at a minimum, so its Town Council is passing an ordinance to prohibit anybody who isn't a resident from passing initiative or referendum petitions. Sounds reasonable on the surface--until you notice this shabby little town has been designed around existing residents on the northwest side. The Town Council simply expanded the borders right up to the property lines of people who live miles away from what most folks think of as Marana. So a member of the Marana Town Council who lives 10 miles away from a rezoning can participate, but the neighbor abutting the affected property can't. This has been the way the sleazeballs and developers have run this crummy little burg for years. There's a small problem with their proposal, however: The courts have pretty much ruled residency is a state of mind. So anybody wanting to pass petitions in Dogpatch need only envision himself living under a sagauro, change his registration, and we suspect the courts will uphold him, as they have elsewhere. WE GET ALL OUR MEDICAL ADVICE FROM TV: So we're sitting there like the lumps that we are, watching KOLD-TV, Channel 13's news last week, when they announced that: 1. Researchers have discovered the sorts of cancer-fighting compounds normally associated with oh-so-healthy fruits and veggies in, of all things, coffee; and, 2. Researchers have discovered that sitting for hours in the cramped economy seats of the cheaper airlines can cause blood clots in your legs, which could migrate to your lungs and kill you. Which leads us to conclude that the next time we're packed into one of those cheapo flights like so many shrink-wrapped frankfurters, we should guzzle cup after cup of coffee--it may help prevent cancer, and we'll have to pee so badly we'll be up and hopping around so much those nasty clots will never form. Here's hoping they'll soon find some healthful reason to eat cheesecake, too. CRAWFORD LOSES AN OPPONENT: Ward 3 City Councilman (and member of the ruling four-vote junta) Michael Crawford won't be getting kicked around by Shedmaster owner Dave Fossdal in September's Demo primary. Fossdal, who ran four years ago and lost to sorry disappointment Tom Saggau--who later flaked off for parts unknown--announced he won't be opposing Crawford this time around. Crawford, of course, has the support of the "business community." (Translation: The pathetic clot of hacks consisting of the remnants of the Tucson Business Coalition, who've been told by the big guys who own them to pull Fossdal's chain in favor of their stooge Crawford.) Now the real question is: When will the so-called neighborhood "leadership" get off its dead ass, quit wasting everybody's time with peripheral crap like Charter Government and bus-stop advertisements, and find a decent candidate to run against Crawford? Or is the Neighborhood Coalition just as politically dead as the TBC? OH, HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: Former Pima County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Fleischman appears to have fallen on hard times since resigning in a huff over all that money he made on the side advising Andre Agassi on the millions he got from his Nike endorsements. Fleischman was the star on a recent, hour-long Jacoby & Myers radio infomercial aired on KTUC-AM. Pardon us, but shilling for the Kmart equivalent of law firms is a big step down, Larry. AS LONG AS WE'RE ACTUALLY CONSIDERING POLITICIANS: While the local media, particularly The Arizona Daily Star, are slobbering over the possibility that former Gov. Bruce Babbitt might be named president of the University of Arizona, the name of another pol has quietly surfaced--former U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini. The Star has some interest in promoting Babbitt--he appointed Star Executive Editor Steve Auslander's wife to the Board of Regents, so it's payback time. Undoubtedly Babbitt would be as miserable, compromising and merely symbolic as head of the UA as he's been as secretary of the interior. But if the regents really want to give the job to a pol, we suggest they hold it open for the dude who appointed most of them, Gov. J. Fife Deadbeat III himself. He's certainly at least as sleazy as most of them, could wire some more land deals through all three universities, and he's probably going to need a job soon. Would being a convicted felon prohibit Fife from becoming a university president? GARY TRIANO IS STILL DEAD: The recent front-page story in The Arizona Daily Star about murdered developer Gary Triano's relationship with one-time associate Gary Fears didn't tell it all. While Triano was suing Fears for $10 million for pulling out of that reported Chinese casino deal, Fears had sent Triano's estranged second ex-wife Pamela an incorrect copy of a tax document. That document purported to show Fears had paid Gary Triano more than $100,000 to put together the China casino deal. This prompted Pamela to haul Triano back to court for more settlement money. She also demanded he prove the $100,000 from Fears hadn't gone into Triano's pocket, but that it actually went for corporate expenses surrounding the ill-fated China deal.. And the Star has yet to discuss the relationship between Triano and Chinese developer Tong Shi Jun, the man Triano was dealing with on the Chinese front. We're told Tong had infuriated Triano by continuously changing the terms of the casino deal. There are some who believe Triano was mad enough to try to sabotage Tong's desperate efforts to acquire a green card and stay in America. Tong has left town since the bombing incident.

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth