Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

I had dinner last night with a friend from Phoenix. It was a beautiful night in downtown Seattle and our table had a great view of Elliott Bay with the ferries coming and going. But the news from home was uniformly bleak, from the ongoing housing depression to the normality of crazy politics. Neither of us think there's a chance that the odious Russell Pearce will be recalled. It makes me wonder for the thousandth time: Why did the East Valley get stuck with the nihilist Mormons? By contrast, Salt Lake just opened yet another light-rail line, along with its commuter rail service. None of that would have happened without support from the church.

A story in the paper about the real-estate situation quoted Elliott Pollack as an authoritative "Arizona economist." Pollack is a developer and a relentless shill for the Real Estate Industrial Complex. He's a pleasant guy and our relations were cordial. But why does he have any cred left, having completely missed or dismissed the state and metro's dangerous dependency on housing and usually sugar-coating the reality after things blew up. Must be a nice gig. As is the case in so much of America, there's no price to be paid, no accountability, as long as you hang with the right crowd and stay on message. And to be fair, this blindness/denial was true of all the "experts" as Arizona ran up to the edge and jumped off.

But everything's really fine, right? We just need more optimism. The boosters are still promoting the so-called Sun Corridor, a "megapolitan" area stretching from Tucson to Prescott and containing 10 million people, or 9 million, or 8 million by 2030 or 2040. Whatever. It's going to be big, and essentially the model that propelled Phoenix during the age of cheap gas and abundant water can go on for ever. The only concession by the boosters now seems to be that this thing will bring in a few less people.

As the polls prepare to close in the mayoral and council elections, I'll open up for comments.

The trajectory of the Phoenix mayor's race is perhaps already locked in. But a few other considerations should be added to my previous two posts on the issue (here and here). Some signs are telling. For example, in a television interview, Michael Bidwill, president of the Arizona Cardinals, was wearing a prominent Wes Gullett button. Gullett's old boss, John McCain, attended a reception for the candidate earlier this summer. And Peggy Neely was endorsed by Gov. Jan Brewer.

This is all you need to know about these two candidates. Bidwill refused to allow the taxpayer-funded stadium to be built in downtown Phoenix, choosing Glendale instead because of the copious opportunities for no-strings-attached adjacent development that could further benefit his family. Why does he care about the city of Phoenix, especially the central city upon which the entire city will rise or fall? As for Brewer, it's highly inappropriate for a governor to take sides in a municipal election. And Brewer is a creature of the suburbs, Phoenix's competitors and, in many cases, saboteurs. What's Neely to her or she to Neely?

Let us count the hidden agendas.

When you wonder why this blog is such a downer to some readers, consider what I must read. For example, The Phoenix Business Journal last week published a story headlined, "Phoenix Cracks Forbes' Top 10 Potential Boom Cities." I am suspicious of these kind of lists, which can be shallow and misleading, although they are wildly popular. And Forbes is not exactly without an agenda. Still, I dutifully followed the link. Imagine my non-surprise when it turned out to be a post by Joel Kotkin, the four-square apologist for Sun Belt suburbia. He claimed to have crunched data to determine which "cities are best positioned to grow and prosper in the coming decade." Austin and Raleigh led the list. He goes on:

Our other two top ten, No. 9 Phoenix, Ariz., and No. 10 Orlando, Fla., have not done well in the recession, but both still have more jobs now than in 2000. Their demographics remain surprisingly robust. Despite some anti-immigrant agitation by local politicians, immigrants still seem to be flocking to both of these states. Known better as retirement havens, their ranks of children and families have surged over the past decade. Warm weather, pro-business environments and, most critically, a large supply of affordable housing should allow these regions to grow, if not in the overheated fashion of the past, at rates both steadier and more sustainable.

Thus enlightened, I set out on the due diligence and critical thinking that should be the basics of good journalism, but are seen as "negative" in booster culture.

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood… — Daniel Burnham

Hard as it is to believe for someone my age, it's been 50 years since construction began on the Space Needle, the iconic symbol of Seattle and the centerpiece of the 1962 World's Fair. Seattle leaders elbowed out much better-known cities, including New York, to gain international accreditation of the event, which was a coming out party to the world for the Emerald City. The site is now Seattle Center, a cultural mecca in the central core right down the monorail from downtown. It was actually Seattle's second world's fair and had initially been developed to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, whose grounds became the University of Washington campus. Another one of my adopted hometowns, San Diego, also held two world's fairs, in 1915 and 1935 — their legacy was magnificent Balboa Park.

My real hometown never did one world's fair, even though it passed the population mark to be a big city more than half a century ago. It may be just as well. Unlike Seattle or San Diego (or even Knoxville, Tenn.), Phoenix would have built something out in the middle of nowhere and, unlike Seattle lucking out with the timeless Space Needle, suffered the worst of modern architecture. Maybe the dusty streets for an empty subdivision would have been left behind. Indeed, I was approached by a group of well-meaning folks in the mid-2000s to promote a world's fair in the former gravel beds of the Salt River. That it was far from downtown never seemed to have occured to them.

Still, this is another sign of Phoenix's astounding lack of ambition. It plays in the majors. It just doesn't want to admit it. I recall hearing from someone who moved to Phoenix and tried, within his modest means, to push forward a project of civic betterment. He was taken aside and told, "People move to the Valley to be left alone. That's the way they like it. You either have to live with that or move." He moved.

As the world knows, five people were gunned down last Thursday in and near Yuma before the 73-year-old killer took his own life. Yet another person was left in critical condition. The mainspring of the violence was a nasty divorce, but, even though overall crime is falling, the tendency to reach for a gun is if anything on the rise. Especially in Arizona. This latest bloodbath comes a mere five months after nineteen people were shot, six fatally, during an assassination attempt on Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a suburban Tucson shopping center.

The Arizona Republic wrote the predictable lines about the "killing spree that shocked the tight-knit farming community of Wellton, outside of Yuma" where the ex-husband killed the ex-wife. This, of course, is not true. Wellton, where the onetime northern main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad diverged for Phoenix from the southern main, was indeed once tight-knit and a farming community. The northern main has been out of commission for years because the state wouldn't help upgrade it to ensure continued Amtrak service to Phoenix and Phoenix has so few rail-bound exports now. The farming is mostly large-scale and industrial, much of it moving there after having been pushed out of the Salt River Valley. Wellton is now an extension of the Interstate 8 sprawl that trickles out from Yuma.

Yuma is rich in Arizona history; not just the territorial prison, but the 19th century steamboats that plied the Colorado River, the railhead into the territory from California, and the long political rein of state Sen. Harold Giss, one of the most powerful men in Arizona in the mid-20th century. It is also one of the bleakest locations in America outside of West Texas — near the end of a great river "tamed" to death and so hot it makes Phoenix seem like Seattle by comparison. Yet it has become a retirement magnet, especially for those with less money. Sun, it has. It is also a very poor place, close to Mexico to feed the farm economy with labor, and consistently suffers some of the worst unemployment, income levels, educational attainment and child poverty. It has about 200,000 people in a place with a carrying capacity for one-tenth that number. As elsewhere, sprawl and population growth have annihilated "tight-knit" and "community." Much less civic culture, a "we" society and the brain mechanisms that preserve the always-fragile wall between civilization and nihilism.

So it has come down to this. Arizona will mark the centennial of its statehood in 2012 by leaning on schoolchildren to "shine" the territorial capitol dome (always on the cheap, Arizona never built a real state capitol building). It will do a $7 million "streetscape renovation project" on Washington between downtown and the capitol. "Plans call for that stretch of roadway to be 'transformed' with wider, more-decorative sidewalks and crosswalks, enhanced street and pedestrian lighting, benches, shade canopies, bike lanes and displays that feature historical and cultural information about Arizona's 15 counties," the Arizona Republic reported. Something will honor the indigenous tribes whose land we stole, without putting it that way, of course. I can imagine the outcome: Gravel, concrete and shadeless palo verde trees in a no-man's-land of vacant lots and soulless state office buildings. Too bad the leafy neighborhood of Victorian houses and territorial-era apartments that once stood there couldn't have been saved, and no reinvestment in this precious historic area happened. The truly historic mining museum was kicked out for some nebulous "five Cs" museum. And that's it.

The only silver lining to this cavalcade of underachievement and failure that I can find is that the state avoided some brutal piece of post-modern celebrity architecture in a new capitol building. Otherwise, how sad. And don't blame the Great Recession: Any effort to significantly commemorate Arizona's 100th birthday would have had to be started years ago, during the so-called boom. There was no more appetite for it then, either. Public virtues, community virtues, civilizational aspirations: Don't look for them here. It's not that the state lacks the means; at 6.4 million people it is the third most populous state in the West. It just lacks the interest.

Consider West Virginia, carved out of the Old Dominion by the Civil War. It finally dedicated a classic, lovely state capitol building, designed by Cass Gilbert, in 1932 during the depth of the Great Depression. This is a poor, isolated state. Are you telling me growthgasm Arizona couldn't do as well? Instead, we got the horrendous executive office tower in the mid-1970s, which visually obliterates the copper dome of the old capitol and looks very much like a jail. Perhaps that helps explain the series of legal troubles that ensnared Arizona governors. Or consider Chicago's Millennium Park, a magnificent public space. Conservative Cincinnati marked its bicentennial by beginning to reclaim its riverfront with parks and the Serpentine Wall along the Ohio River. For Arizona and Phoenix — nothing. The city lacks even one heroic or historic statue in a public space downtown (even Oklahoma City, younger than Phoenix, has at least one). This despite all the wealth and capital that poured into the state, decade after decade, going into community-destroying sprawl and little else.

That's the question Matt Taibbi would ask, as he did in his famous diatribe against Wall Street. For the more sober purposes of this blog, the question is, Why is Joe Arpaio still in office? The latest reason is Chief Deputy David Hendershott being forced from office with allegations of misconduct, including using the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office anti-corruption unit to smear foes and featherbedding the jobs of his friends. The deputy chief was ousted, too. (And all this from an investigation by the friendly Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau). As Arpaio adamantly says he will not resign, the question of his lax oversight of his chief deputy/sycophant becomes very much like one that should be directed to the banksters: Were you corrupt or stupid? Which one? There's no other answer, especially for a man who presents himself as so smart, so in charge, so much America's Toughest Sheriff.

The abuses of Arpaio go back many years. No wonder his office is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and a federal grand jury. Real police officers have no use for Arpaio, referring to him as the "Badged Ego." He co-opted most of the media years ago, including the Arizona Republic, where crusading is not part of the Gannett business model. Eugene C. Pulliam would have run him out of office and out of the state long ago. Still, the Republic has done a creditable job on the Hendershott investigation, if not exactly jumping on allegations that those in the law enforcement community had known about for years. Most of the media were played like a cheap fiddle with the chain gang, the tent jail, pink underwear and the "sweeps." One exception is New Times, which has fearlessly investigated Arpaio for more than 15 years. The casual violations of civil rights, cronyism, lack of attention to actually doing the job and high costs to taxpayers are not in question.

Why is Joe Arpaio still in office, particularly when voters twice had the choice of a lawman beyond reproach, Dan Sabin? It says much about the condition of today's Phoenix and Maricopa County.

In the history of Arizona corruption, the Fiesta Bowl affair seems like small ball. There was the bribe-fest AzScam, which rocked the Legislature in the early 1990s, part of a once-a-generation such skeleton to be kicked out of the closet on 17th Avenue. Around the same time, Phoenix was an epicenter of the savings-and-loan scandal. Don't forget all that slithered out from under rocks kicked over after the assassination of Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles in 1976. He wasn't the first or last to die as a result of Arizona's dark deeds, some leading to the most powerful men in the state before the trail was quickly erased. Bolles was a master of probing the massive land frauds that saturated Arizona, often with Mafia involvement. The Phoenix Police Department's organized-crime unit claimed many scalps, including that of a city manager, until it got too close to big power for comfort and was defanged. Old-timers remember the circa 1960 Arizona Savings collapse and scandal, which again led to the corridors of power. More recently, right-wing darling Rick Renzi lost his U.S. House seat after becoming embroiled in allegations of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering extortion and insurance fraud — the Bush administration fired the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix for pursuing the investigation of one of Tom DeLay's boyz.

Compared with this, some goodies for John Junker, the once lionized and now forced-out-and-shunned Fiesta Bowl boss, along with allegedly funnelling bowl money to politicians, etc., seems almost petty crime. A charge of $1,241 for a visit to a "high-end Phoenix strip club"? Junker's 50th birthday party at Pebble Beach, $33,188? This was just another day at the office, or bar, back in the day of real Phoenix scandal. That's why I can't stop wondering whether it is the tip of a desert iceberg, something beyond the high dudgeon of Sports Illustrated as something confined to policing the BCS. The question is whether the Arizona Republic, in particular, will let some fine reporters continue to follow this slimy string and pull out some others.

Corruption is supposed to go along with gritty eastern cities, Democratic pols greasing the palms of mobbed up union bosses, waterfronts and Rust Belt decay. But don't be fooled by your new house on a clean street in Anthem. The underworld runs deep here, right into your very street. No place is clean, of course. It's rather like the news stories that tell of the lurid exurban multiple homicide with the mandatory "things like this don't happen here" quote (when sub- and exurbia are actually quite prone to them). The question is why Phoenix remains such a mecca for hustles, dirty dealings and wrongdoing that reaches the top?

Editor's Note: I especially urge you to check out the comments thread on this post. It veers a bit off-topic, to our beloved, ill-starred central Phoenix, but it's some of the best stuff our fine contributors have done.

The narrative surrounding the defeat of five anti-illegal immigrant bills in the Arizona State Senate goes like this: "Business leaders" finally weighed in to stop the worst excesses of Russell Pearce & Co., worried about their effect on the economy. As the New York Times put it, "In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state’s tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry."

It's nothing of the kind. When Evan Mecham was forced from the governor's office in 1988, it was indeed driven by the business leadership — because there was one. Valley National Bank and Dial, for example, were still independent, major corporate headquarters, located in the central city, carrying the role of civic stewardship one expects from giants in their hometown. In addition, the Real Estate Industrial Complex saw that Mecham's brand of craziness and racism were badly damaging the state's reputation and ability to draw capital. The Arizona Republic was still locally owned, the flagship of a major newspaper chain headquartered in downtown Phoenix, and it both thundered and investigated, bringing questionable campaign contributions to light. The Legislature still had a Republican Party with a brain, as well as a robust Democratic competition.

Mecham, in some ways a tragic figure, was always an accidental governor, a product of the circular firing squad of the Democrats Bill Schultz and my mother's dear friend Carolyn Warner, and complacency by mainstream GOP candidate Burton Barr. Mecham was proudly ignorant, hostile to education, drunk on all manner of Bircher propaganda. He was, however, a warning of what was coming: The Big Sort bringing reactionary Midwesterners to Arizona who, allied with much of the LDS, promised a new kind of Arizona politics embodied by Pearce and today's state Republican Party. In any event, his undoing was a real example where Arizona came to its senses, led by a business leadership that still saw its interests twined with those of the broader state.