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THE FINAL ANALYSIS: The daily papers scrambled last week
to "analyze" why Democrats Michael Crawford in
Ward 3 and Carol Zimmerman in Ward 6 lost the primary election
despite raising the most money and earning the endorsements of
both daily papers.
The most ludicrous post-mortem appeared last Thursday, September 18, on the editorial page of an almost-daily afternoon paper. Headlined "Council election--cash didn't win, sleaze may have," the commentary made a point of mentioning that two articles from "a weekly newspaper"--who could that have been?--were repackaged as a flyer in the Ward 6 race. While we had nothing to do with mailing copies of our stories to voters in Ward 6, we find nothing wrong with the action beyond the fact that the person--or persons--sent the mailer out anonymously and didn't seek our permission to reprint copyrighted material. So now they owe us a ton of money and had better ask for lots of extra hours at Home Depot to come up with that cash. The afternoon daily's editorial described our stories as "commentaries that also criticized Zimmerman, not for her views, but for her husband's business." In point of fact: One of the articles didn't even mention Pete Zimmerman, but focused on the complaints of Ward 6 Councilwoman Molly McKasson, who told The Weekly in an exclusive interview that many of the accomplishments Zimmerman boasted about in her campaign literature were actually the results of years of hard work by McKasson's office. Last time we checked, the press had an obligation to examine the claims made in campaign ads. Guess that's just not news at some papers in town--which goes a long way to explaining why McKasson called us rather than an afternoon almost-daily. The second article in question did indeed criticize Pete Zimmerman's connections to certain interest groups who were pushing Prop 201, which would gut the Water Consumer Protection Act, passed by 57 percent of the voters less than two years ago. But we're still waiting to see any difference between Carol's view on the CAP water issue and her husband's--in fact, Carol was the sole Democrat to support the initiative and direct delivery of CAP water. And while Carol argued the Prop 201 folks had nothing to do with her campaign, pool builder Chuck Frietas, who sponsored Prop 201 and hired Pete Zimmerman to put the initiative on the ballot, formed an independent campaign committee to work on Carol's behalf in the last days of the campaign. Given Frietas' tight links to the Zimmerman household, this "independent" campaign was about as incestuous as campaigning gets. The bottom line: Carol herself never disavowed Pete's connections, perhaps because some of them were coughing up lots of bucks to her campaign. In fact, considering who was backing her, Zimmerman's "I'm-being-blamed-for-my-husband's-work" stunk of amateurish political spin control, which the shallow daily newspapers were quick to lap up and regurgitate to their apparently increasingly dissatisfied readers. Looks like the voters weren't quite so naive. The afternoon paper's editorial writer reached the height of general incompetence with these words: "The delivery of Central Arizona Project water was a key issue in the election. Zimmerman and Crawford were the only candidates who supported Proposition 200, approved by the voters in 1995, which limited the city's use of CAP water." Wrong--they opposed it (and so did Ward 3 Democrat Alex Kimmelman). BIRD BRAINS: In our last issue, The Skinny reported how the Amphitheater School District was struggling with legal tangles related to the presence of the endangered pygmy owl near a 73-acre parcel where the district was planning to build a new high school. The district has now sunk about $2 million into the site, but they can't break ground for at least six months, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works on a mitigation plan. The parcel, on the corner of Shannon Road and Naranja Boulevard, was purchased for a top-dollar price in 1994 in a deal engineered by real estate broker Bill Arnold, who was working for Genesis Real Estate and Development. Neither Arnold nor Amphi officials bothered to have the land appraised before they made the purchase from Edgar and Irene Romo, the parents of real estate broker Andy Romo. Amphi officials have been evasive when asked how Arnold landed the job as Amphi's exclusive agent, but earlier this year the district canceled its contract with Genesis and began working on new land acquisition guidelines. In the meantime, however, Amphi is still stuck with the pygmy owl problem. Board members are scrambling to frame a "kids vs. owl" debate, although the real issue might be "kids vs. a corrupt school board." Things for Amphi got worse last week, when the newly formed Town of Tortolita adopted the pygmy owl as its official town bird. Earlier this week, attorney Bill Risner, who's representing Tortolita, sent a letter to the Amphi Board regarding Arnold's work for the district. "The contract with Genesis is illegal on its face as it violates Arizona conflict of interest laws," Risner wrote. "The purpose of this letter is to demand that your school district void those illegal contracts." Risner believes that, because of legal problems surrounding the district's contract with Arnold, Amphi can reverse the purchase of the property, requiring the original owner to take the land back and return the money to Amphi. "Your district may simply void the ill-advised and illegal contract for the purchase of 73 acres of prime pygmy owl habitat...as well as the 'white elephant,' Old Cyprus Mine building on Desert Sky Road, loaded with asbestos," Risner wrote. "You are additionally obligated to obtain a disgorgement of all fees earned by Genesis for transactions that violate the conflict of interest statutes." (The Old Cyprus Mine building was another one of Arnold's buys for the district, which paid $1 million for the building only to discover that renovating it to suit Amphi's needs would cost an additional three-quarters of a million bucks. At the moment, the district is doing nothing with the property.) In all likelihood, the Amphi Board will reject Risner's demand. But if it does so, Risner still has a card to play: Under state law, if Amphi refuses to void the contracts, any Amphi taxpayer can file a civil suit to achieve the same goal--and if the suit is successful, Amphi has to pick up the attorney's fees. Whether Risner could successfully reverse a three-year-old sale is a matter for the courts to decide, but he's already won more than one similar case. If nothing else, the legal action will turn up the heat on Amphi at a time when more and more residents are talking about recalling four of the five members of the board (the lone exception being the recently elected Nancy Young Wright, who continues to find herself frozen out of the Board's deliberations).
FRESH PRESS: A warm welcome to the new Oro Valley Times, a monthly tabloid-format journal distributed via mail to residents of Oro Valley, Tortolita and parts of the proposed towns of Casas Adobes and Catalina Foothills. The publication's new management team consists of publisher Richard J. Young and management coordinator Robert Alcala II. The product is reasonably well written and they appear to be well informed about local issues. The first editorial told Oro Valley to lay off Tortolita and let that new little town do its thing.
The Oro Valley Times would appear to have a healthy attitude,
which sets it apart from the numerous roll-over rags for the Growth
Lobby that print recipes and puff pieces for real estate agents.
Glad to have you around.
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