Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (September 4

Skinny THE BREWING STORM IN DISTRICT 4: It's no secret that Brenda Even, widow of the late GOP County Supervisor John Even, will seek the District 4 seat briefly held by her husband. Brenda was outraged when the Supes chose Ray Carroll instead of her as John's replacement after his death last spring. She seems, in fact, to have become obsessed with the Board of Supes seat.
Rumors persist that another local politician is interested in the seat: state Sen. Keith Bee, who has, for the last eight years, represented Legislative District 9, which overlaps much of the supervisorial district, including the high-turnout Green Valley region.
Our spies tell us Brenda recently met with Bee to talk about running for the seat and informed him he'd better get out of her way because she'd be running as John Even's widow. Apparently, Brenda considers one election won by her husband a bigger mandate than the four won by the state senator.
Bee has as much right to seek this seat as anyone, and the arrogance displayed by Even from the beginning of her quest to replace her husband is showing. So is the simple fact that voters don't like being told they "owe" any candidate for public office anything. We shit-canned that concept along with George III.
AND ANOTHER CLOUD ON THE HORIZON: Remember former GOP state Rep. Larry Hawke, who served from 1976 to 1988, retired, went to law school, and then landed a great job with the Nevada State Mining Association?
We hear Hawke may be coming home--to run for that District 4 Pima County Board of Supervisors seat that Brenda Even and Keith Bee want to knock Ray Carroll out of.
That's gotta be good news for Carroll. Even will inherit her late husband's "legacy," Bee hasn't established himself as an tree-hugger in the Legislature and and Hawke worked for mining interests. Given Asarco's hideous plans for the beautiful Santa Rita Mountains south of town--plans the supervisors, including Carroll, have opposed--Carroll could slide right up the middle as a restrained-growth Republican.
If, of course, Carroll can mend those GOP fences he keeps knocking down.
DOGPATCH NEVER SLEEPS, BUT ITS VOTERS MAY BE WAKING UP: Last week, Arizona Daily Star real estate reporter Ernie Heltsley mentioned that some folks had taken to disparagingly referring to the Town of Marana as Dogpatch, "for the rural nature of some parts of the former cotton farming town, perhaps."
Well, we like Ernie's work (an admission we hope that doesn't get him into trouble over there at the mothership), but we'd like to clarify why we call the town Dogpatch.
It has nothing to do with the town's rural nature. Hell, we like "old Marana." We call the place Dogpatch because they do business in such a sleazy way.
Want an example? Just last week, the Marana Town Council passed several more annexations on their "consent" agenda without a public hearing. Some real people showed up to complain about the plans of one developer and the council actually let the protestors talk a little, but then passed the item with all the others.
The callous and cavalier manner in which these rubes roll over for every land speculator has not gone unnoticed by many of the folks who live there. The decent folks in that town are again starting to clean it up by themselves. A recent referendum drive to overturn the 1,200-acre annexation at Tangerine and Thornydale roads is doing well, according to the angry Marana residents we spoke to.
In the meantime, the town council's reaction to the negative press generated by all that sleazy dealing hasn't been to clean up their act, but to pay a public relations firm $20,000 to improve the town's wretched image.
Considering the total lack of credibility Marana officials have with citizens throughout this valley, they could slap a couple of zeros on that $20,000 and everybody would still know Dogpatch is a town run by slimebags and bozos. The only way Marana can improve its image is to improve the way it does business. Till then, it'll be Dogpatch on our maps.
A FINE ARGUMENT FOR MINIMAL GOVERNMENT: U.S. Customs agents in Lukeville, Arizona, on the U.S./Mexican border did themselves proud this past weekend.
They needlessly held up about 10,000 American taxpayers returning to the U.S. from Rocky Point--for two full hours, in most cases--while they grilled everyone about whether they were bringing in Mexican fruits and veggies, or--gasp!--certain proscribed meat products.
Excuse us, but don't we get much of our produce from Mexico? And why do we need the federal government to protect us from Mexican meat we choose to buy in Mexico for our own personal consumption?
In fact, why do we need the U.S. Customs Service at all? It's not like they're protecting us from illegal drugs, which are easily obtainable in just about any schoolyard or neighborhood bar in America. And it's not like they're preventing shoddy, foreign-made goods from entering the country, as any visit to Wal-Mart will amply demonstrate.
Nope, in these days of nearly unrestrained free trade, the U.S. Customs Service is fast becoming an immense waste of tax dollars.
At the very least, the moronic bureaucrats who pretend to control what amounts to the national sieve, should order their overpaid, dim-witted clerks to take Labor Day weekend off next year--it's ridiculous for them even to pretend to be doing their worthless jobs in the face of that many Americans returning from a three-day weekend. All they managed to accomplish, besides no doubt finding the occasional joint, is to give a helluva lot of people one very bad impression of the U.S. government.
By contrast, entering Mexico three days earlier, we were treated courteously and efficiently by Mexican customs agents, who also were dealing with thousands of Coolio fans heading down to Rocky Point for the big concert. But then Mexico is not a particularly racist nation. We doubt this past weekend's inexcusable border back-up would be tolerated on the nearly lily white U.S./Canadian border.
The Coolio fans, by the way, were extremely well behaved as they waited for their turn at the U.S. Customs station. Too bad. In the '60s, we'd like to think their parents would have staged a big, honking riot in the face of such shabby Big Brother bullshit.
OVERPAID THUGS WITH COFFEE MUGS: And speaking of Big Brother, the black-shirted, donut-munching DPS dorks--sans badges and badge numbers, by the way--who were farting around the Lukeville Customs station this past Monday as the Coolio crowd returned, should be prosecuted for petty thievery of state tax dollars. These lazy, arrogant bozos didn't even attempt to guide traffic at the nearby Chevron station as it was besieged by hundreds of motorists looking for good old American gas.
Aside from a dynamite crime lab and some pretty savvy special investigations units, what good are DPS officers anyway? They generally don't stop to help when your car breaks down on the interstate, and they sure as hell weren't out along the highway as the Coolio crowd flowed through the Tohono O'odham Nation. That task was left to the Pima County Sheriff's Department, which did an admirable job.
But then, unlike the U.S. Customs slobs and the DPS dorks, the sheriff's deputies work for an elected official who actually gives a damn what the voters think. DPS officers, on the other hand, work for the--and pardon us while we barf--Governor.

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