Rogue Columnist

Flake out

Amid all the orgasms about the "heroism" of Jeff Flake's speech on the floor of the Senate is this fact: He stuck around to vote with the Republican majority to deprive customers of the right to sue the banksters.

The soon-to-be-former junior Senator from Arizona is a right-wing Republican. He has a lifetime rating of 93.07 from the American Conservative Union, one of the highest in the Senate (wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III scored 81.62. This gold-standard score rates members on their votes for "conservative causes." He's higher than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

While he said some laudable things, what's he's actually done is quite different. He voted for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would have deprived between 23 million and 26 million of his fellow Americans of health insurance. He voted for every one of Trump's deplorably unqualified and corrupt cabinet members. He opposed sanctions on Russia.

The light-rail divide

Glendale's city council killed an extension of light rail into the suburb, even though a majority of voters want it. Even though We Built It, You Bastards (WBIYB) — the epithet referring to the hysterical, thuggish opposition to the starter line, metropolitan Phoenix remains divided over mobility. The city, Tempe, and Mesa have embraced light rail. The other suburbs remain against it, crazy-so in the case of Scottsdale.

Phoenix did not benefit from the "Dallas effect." There the suburbs wanted nothing to do with light rail — until they saw the first line in action. Then they were clamoring to be included. Today, Dallas has the largest light-rail system in the United States.  Similar success stories are found in Denver, San Diego, Portland, and Los Angeles. The closest we came was Mesa. There, then-Mayor Keno Hawker convinced a skeptical council to pay for the starter line to go to Sycamore Street. Otherwise, Mesa would have been cut off — Tempe was only going to build to McClintock — and facing a costly future connection. Instead, Mesa saw the benefit and has extended the line to Mesa Drive with plans to go beyond.

Otherwise, the divide remains solid. It is driven in no small measure by racism and classism. The suburbs don't want "those people" coming on trains. And it's true that the poor and minorities heavily use transit in Phoenix. The criminal element of "those people" drive cars, but the white-right apartheid that defines metro Phoenix decisively defines the light-rail resistance. Another problem is the Republican fetish against rail of all kinds. It keeps us stuck with a 1971 transportation system when other advanced urbanized nations have high-speed rail and subways abuilding. Considering that the Republican Party began as the advocate of transcontinental railroads, this is an astounding but not surprising turnabout. It goes along with denying settled science on climate change. Anything, anything, to keep happy motoring going. Anything to keep the tax-cut scam going.

Light rail succeeded in Phoenix differently than in most cities. For example, in Seattle, where a majority of people use transit, light rail connects people to the major employment, retail and entertainment center of downtown, as well as the airport, sports venues, and the University of Washington. It's packed all the time and more lines are under construction despite efforts by Republicans in the Legislature and the suburbs to kill it. Most jobs in Phoenix are out on the freeways, especially in the East Valley. Instead, Phoenix's light rail found the sweet spot connecting the downtown and Tempe ASU campuses, as well as hauling people to Suns and (for now) Diamondbacks games. It helped reestablish downtown as a center of activity.

The water Ponzi scheme

Arizona has a sordid history of fraud, predating the predations of Ned Warren, whose land frauds in the 1960s and 1970s bilked hundreds of millions of dollars from gullible Americans. It continued through with the East Valley mafia's "alt fuels" scandal of the early 2000s and the big blowup with the Ponzi scheme of the housing bubble.

The relatively new racket, on a trajectory for crisis, concerns water. Last month, Arizona Republic reporter Rebekah L. Sanders produced a blockbuster about "water haulers" apparently stealing city of Phoenix water from hydrants for delivery to hundreds of residents in New River. Meanwhile, this entire area is seeing the ground water in its meager aquifers diminish as more people move in. New River grew by more than 40 percent, to 15,000, from 2010 to 2015.

Earlier this month, the Republic's Dustin Gardiner reported a fascinating story about Pinal County's complex but unsettling water situation:

So far, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, 15 proposed projects in the Pinal County area have received letters from the state notifying them that groundwater necessary for their projects could be in short supply.

It's likely the first time the state has sent such letters, but state officials say there is no reason to panic.

Of course officials would say that. And they're right, after their fashion. Panic isn't enough. 

The West Wingnut

While i'm finishing up the next David Mapstone Mystery, talented friend of the blog Carl Muecke has been commenting on the administration in his wonderful way. Until World War III engulfs us, enjoy a laugh:

 

The Chinese Cultural Center

In the late 1990s, a couple of years before my fateful and in retrospect foolish decision to come home and write a column for the Arizona Republic, I noticed a freeway sign for the "Chinese Cultural Center" and took the exit.

The location, on 44th Street, was strange. It was far from the original locations of Phoenix's Chinatown in downtown. The central core was dead then and the only memory of Chinatown was the Sing Hi Cafe, relocated to west Madison Street from its original site in the Deuce. There was also the Sun Mercantile building, a former warehouse, beside the basketball arena. Land was plentiful and more of the warehouse district was intact. Why not put a Chinese Cultural Center here?

But, no. And although the sign was one of the brown historic markers that usually went with something public such as the Desert Botanical Gardens, the Cultural Center appeared to be a private, mixed-use real-estate development. Yes, it had some Chinese-influenced architectural features, garden, restaurants, and Asian market, but it wasn't really a museum or cultural center. Wikipedia says it was developed by the Chinese state-owned COFCO group, but I don't know if this is accurate.

Lately, the center has been in the news because of the building's purchase by a Scottsdale private-equity outfit which intends to redo it as a corporate headquarters. Most of the center is emptied out and it's surrounded by a chain-link fence. Protests from the Chinese community brought a temporary restraining order protecting the garden statues and roof — but it runs out Nov. 3rd. Then a new hearing will be held and demolition could begin. The Republic and New Times have slightly different takes on the state of play.

In all, it is so Phoenix: Disregard for history, car-dependent far from light rail (WBIYB) or the central core, and ultimately just another a real-estate play.