Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Inside skinny on the Lowe's engineering?

One thing I love about open commenting is that sometimes someone who really knows something tells all. In a long comment under "the real truth," someone claiming to have worked inside City bureaucracy when the Lowe's deal was going through describes a series of shortcuts in the plan-approval process clearly designed to duck under the red tape and ram approval through quickly. Read it all.

It's unfortunate that there's no way to verify this story, since the commenter remains anonymous, but I got the impression s/he doesn't have that job anymore, and I think it would be a great public service if s/he were to stand up in a Council meeting and tell the story to the TV cameras. If this is true, it's explosive and it should get the City Manager (at least) relieved of duty.

I suppose it's too much to ask that the Courier assign a reporter to do the homework outlined by the commenter, check out those stamps and dates and verify this. It's work, but it'd be worthwhile.

Senate president taps Prescott rancher Pierce as president pro tem

This is interesting. I'd heard that leadership changes were coming because of the budget process collapse, but I didn't imagine that Burns might tap the utterly experience-free Pierce for anything like this. While there's not much real power in this position, it's an important statement in that it demotes Verschoor, who's been counted among the anointed for several sessions. Given the radical credentials of Gorman and Verschoor, this feels like a slight drift toward the middle, but it also might just be flailing. Burns has lost many allies over his handling of the session.

Keep an eye out, I have a feeling other important changes could be coming for the Legislature before the budget is in the bag.

Nice that the Courier continues to tag bigtime developer Pierce as a "rancher." I'm so fooled.

Verde News: Jerome declares urgent water shortage

Seems like Courier readers might like to know about this too. Maybe work it into an update on water conditions all over the area.

Hump day open thread

Now this is funny. And scary.

Council takes Lowe's to task

I can just see Cindy Barks struggling to keep a straight face while taking the notes for this. She was there when these same people were rushing through the infrastructure and engineering on the Lowe's boondoggle, so watching their ass-covering faux outrage now must have been pretty funny.

Editorial: Lion had a long life in 'big city'

So it appears I was wrong -- not one comment about the risk of the lion living in neighborhoods. Instead we see more criticism of Game and Fish for killing big predators around people, even this one, which was apparently already maimed beyond saving. I'm a little confused by those commenters who would have liked to see the bear caught, relocated and released so that amateur hunters would have a shot at it. Like stocking a fish pond, I guess. Brrr, it's weird out there sometimes.

The unnamed Courier editor hopes another cat moves into the vacated territory, lives long and prospers. He gets a cookie today.

Letter: How would lawmakers like RIF letters?

Steve Harbeck takes legislators to task, wondering rhetorically how they'd like to work without pay or knowing whether they'll have a job in the coming season.

Um, Mr H, that's exactly how it works for your state representatives every two years, when they have to go through the election process from scratch, putting their lives on hold again to work for you for a pittance. In this particular week the letter is particularly ironic because our supposedly part-time legislators have been working for over two months for nothing while a few power-crazed radicals have held up the process and left everyone else sitting on their hands.

Letter: Rodeo ceremony snubs non-Christians

I read John Lorant's letter and said, well, duh, you knew that was gonna happen when you bought the ticket. But I also knew at once that this would bring a hail of stones from hard-ass Xtians, and from the looks of the comments -- four pages so far, more than I've ever seen -- we can expect to see letters on this for at least a month. Now that's entertainment!