DOGGED POLICE WORK: So your dog is sick. You take him to the vet, and if the vet prescribes some pill or other, you: a) Get it from the vet; b) Get it from a local pharmacy, or; c) Put two well-paid UA cops in a car, send them down to Nogales, Sonora, where the drug is a little cheaper than it is here, make them spend about four hours total on this important task, and then have the medication sent to you by courier because you're UA Police Chief Mike Thomas and you're staying up on Mt. Graham with your highly trained cop dog Yos, apparently because it's a hell of a lot cooler up there, and besides, you can never tell when some fire-breathing red squirrel might try to zap a frigging telescope. And the correct answer is... FIZZLIN' FOURTH: Tucson boosters are fond of pointing out that our annual Fiesta de los Vaqueros shindig sports the world's longest nonmechanized parade. Well, the 4th of July may have given birth to another superlative--a mechanized parade so short that you could comfortably throw a pebble from one end to the other. Downtown streets were blocked off for hours so the mighty assembly could pass: Our intrepid correspondent on the scene counted a four-person color guard and perhaps 20 other assorted marchers, including two carrying a sign promoting some pol running for county attorney and the handsome candidate himself, bearing a bag of hard candies for the children in the crowd. (The mechanized elements were a single surrey bicycle and three city streetsweepers.) Trouble was, there was no crowd. At the parade's hub on the corner of Congress and Stone, only a dozen people, counting two police officers, had gathered to watch. Note to the powers that be: Try a little publicity before next year's big event. SALLY'S PREMATURE ERECTION: Republican Sally Slosser, who's challenging District 1 Supervisor Mike Boyd in the September 10 GOP primary, got off to a bit of a false start in the race earlier this month when she started throwing up giant campaign signs all over central and northwest Tucson. A county ordinance prevents candidates from posting their signs more than 30 days before election day. Peggy Sutherland, a community relations flack in the county's transportation department, tells The Skinny a letter has gone out to the Dems, Republicans, Greens and Libertarians reminding them of the law. "We will be contacting folks who have a sign that is not adhering to these regulations," Sutherland says. "We will give them the opportunity to remove them themselves, and if they aren't removed within three days, we will remove them. We'd prefer they removed them, because it's at taxpayer expense for us to remove them." Sounds like Sally has some work ahead of her. But what we're really wondering is why she put the signs up so early in the first place. After all, the ordinance is no secret. We suspect Slosser may have realized the airheads at the TV stations might wake up if there was hint of a scandal, so she put the signs up hoping to get some air time. Lord knows the tube boobs aren't going to cover the primary if they don't have a similar stupid angle. THE CHAMELEON HATCHES? Pima County Supervisor Raul Grijalva's opponent in the September 10 Democratic primary, Susan Chambers Casteloes, came virtually out of nowhere to gather about 300 signatures from District 5 Democrats just a few weeks before the June 27 deadline. Actually, Casteloes came out of the Republican Party. She switched to a Democrat less than two months ago, on May 31. Casteloes says she's switched back and forth between parties. "I was a Democrat for about 20-odd years," Casteloes says. "When we moved to south Georgia (in the early 1980s), I said I am not going to claim the Democratic Party. I will switch to Republican." When Casteloes returned to Tucson, she decided she wanted to do some campaign work for Republican Ray Fontaine, who lost to José Ibarra in the Ward 1 City Council race last year. "I changed (to a Democrat) because of the election and I like the social issues of the Democrats more than the Republican Party," Casteloes says. "I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am a Tucsonan and an American and I want to do what's best for this community." In this case, becoming a Democrat was certainly the best thing for Casteloes, given the fact that District 5 has an overwhelming Democratic edge, leaving Republicans virtually without a chance in the November general election. So does that make Casteloes another cynical pol? Well, check this out: During her work on Fontaine's losing campaign, Casteloes made two contributions. On July 31, under the name Susan C. Casteloes, she gave $10. On October 2, she gave another $10, this time as Susan Chambers. Hey, it's only $20, and it could have been a simple bookkeeping error. True, but consider: At the time of the second contribution, Fontaine was trying to achieve matching-fund status with the city clerk's office, which would have doubled his campaign coffers with taxpayer dollars. To do so, he needed at least 200 contributions of at least $10 from city residents--which Susan Chambers Casteloes was. At the time, every contribution brought Fontaine closer to a big pay-off (which, incidentally, he never did collect). Casteloes denies having conspired to help Fontaine pass the matching-fund threshold. "That never even entered my mind," she says. "People in this town have not known my last name was Casteloes. They know me as Susan Chambers. I'm not trying to fool anybody...." It's no secret the developers in this town would love to do away with Grijalva, who has been their most vocal critic on the board. If it hadn't been for Grijalva, we probably still wouldn't have even the absurdly low impact fee the board passed this year. (Come to think of it, we still don't have that impact fee--but that's a whole 'nother rant.) Will the cementheads pour their support--and dollars--into the Casteloes campaign? "I want to represent no special interest groups," Casteloes insists. "There will be no strings attached whatsoever to anyone who gives me any money. All that does is let them come into my office and let me hear them." Unfortunately, we won't know who's been funding the Casteloes campaign for nearly two more months. The next deadline for filing a finance report is August 29, less than two weeks before the September 10 primary. We eagerly await the filing.

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth