Looking back VII
When I started writing this column, I said I wouldn’t get into the politics of Arizona,
but since we’re talking about life here in the ‘80s, that’s hard not do. After many
attempts, car dealer Ev Mecham was elected governor. Now Ev was rather a contentious
man and he marched to a different drummer; he always seemed to say what’s on his
mind regardless of who was offended. While the rest of the country got swept up in
declaring a MLK holiday, Ev decided that it was against the Arizona constitution,
and declared the holiday illegal. Well, this enraged more than just a few and so
some legislatures banded together to find some reason to bring him to trial and impeachment.
They did, seems as if they could charge him with misuse of campaign funds, so the
trial began. After weeks of accusations and testimony, they took a vote. One-by-one
the legislators were polled, until they got to the one that was picked to seal the
deal. “Carolyn” stood up and declared that this no-good, rotten man didn’t deserve
to be Governor and cast the deciding vote for impeachment. That wasn’t the end of
the story though, no sir; several things happened after that. During the next election,
the majority of the voters backed Ev’s position and voted down the holiday, while
voting those legislative leaders out of office. This enraged the sports broadcast
community and they were able to get the NFL to pull our bid for the Super Bowl. The
second thing to happen was that the very righteous “Carolyn,” was caught on camera
taking a rather large bribe. Not the first one it seems, and not the only legislator
to do so. She, of course cried “entrapment,” or did she say that she was doing an
undercover investigation? It didn’t matter; the jury didn’t believe her. She was
removed from office and spent a few years in the state slammer. Rather ironic, I
thought. A few years later, we had another chance to vote on the holiday and this
time it passed. I don’t think anyone really objected to honoring Dr. King, they just
seemed to object to the heavy-handed tactics of how they ousted the Governor, that’s
all.
It seems like sports and politics go hand-in-hand. After all, the politicians control
the purse strings and the sport clubs need to dig into that purse. A major league
basketball club wasn’t happy with their old arena, and as clubs often do, they threatened
to leave town if they didn’t get a new one. The City of Phoenix obliged and built
them a large and very expensive venue downtown. The taxpayers objected to spending
that kind of money without having a say, so they voted to keep the town council from
doing that again without a public vote. Undaunted, the same people that owned the
basketball team, wanted to bring baseball to downtown, so they bypassed the city
council and went to the county supervisors instead. Hey, it’s only taxpayer money
and even if they don’t like it, they went ahead and built a new stadium right next
to the basketball arena, displacing businesses and residents that have been there
for decades. Now the professional hockey team felt slighted; seems as if the basketball
arena was also designed for hockey, so they had to share this venue. As typical,
they threatened to move out of town, and immediately were able to get one town to
build them a dedicated arena, and other town to build them a practice arena. Now
all this jockeying around left the Arizona Cardinals football team with egg on their
face. No new arena for them, that’s why they have had losing seasons year after year.
They had to share their playing grounds with, of all things, Arizona State University.
Yep, a new home will guarantee a winning season. Through the generosity of the state,
they managed to squeak out some $300 million for these poor unfortunate waifs. They
were offered free land on the west side of the valley, but they turned that down,
their first choice for a stadium location was right under the flight path to Sky
Harbor Airport on the east side. No wonder they couldn’t win games, bad strategy.
After years of wrangling with the FAA and different cities, they finally spent millions
in tax dollars for a spot right next to the one that was offered to them years ago
for free. The first losing season in their new stadium, well they blamed that one
on their coach.
It’s warm here, I might take a break from history to describe it next month. Stay
cool!
