“This is 911 Emergency. If you are a resident of Guadalupe, thank you for holding while the Sheriff pouts.”
Posted by: Donna
Unbelievable. I was at the Maricopa County Supervisor’s meeting yesterday, when the board members in attendence voted 3 to 1 to cut off police services to Guadalupe. I didn’t witness the vote because I was stuck outside, as Sheriff’s deputies blocked the entrance to the public meeting due to the safety concerns of the Cowardly Stooges County Supervisors within. I hadn’t gone there to participate in the protest but I did end up walking out with Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability, while singing My Country Tis of Thee. Several members of the press went outside too, to cover the protest that formed in the square in front of the Supervisor’s chambers. Some people were allowed back in, who were deemed as not being part of the rabble-rousers (though I wouldn’t say that singing rouses much rabble, relatively speaking), as were non-Hispanic news station reporters. You read that right. Only the Anglo media got back in.
Honestly, the whole thing could have been avoided by putting the MCSA on the agenda, as they’ve been asking for weeks. MCSA even submitted a petition to the Board with several hundred signatures. What was so difficult about that to the Board? That they are able to get away with snubbing them so blatantly, as elected officials operating under explicit open meeting laws, speaks to the need to replace them with legitimate representatives. This appears to be a case of small town authoritarians asserting dominance over recalcitrant yokels. But this isn’t Wasilla, Alaska, boys. Maricopa County is the fourth largest county in the nation and has a diverse population. Your job is to exercise oversight over the Sheriff and to address the issues of your constituents, not to play Roscoe P. Coltrane to Sheriff Joe’s Boss Hogg*.
So what are the people of Guadalupe to do now? Mayor Frankie Montiel implored the Board to reconsider severing police services. He has demonstrated a willingness to capitulate to Arpaio’s petulance well beyond what former Mayor Rebecca Jimenez was willing to display. Still, it wasn’t enough. Guadalupe has six months to find other arrangements with Phoenix or Tempe, or give in to the demands of a 76 year old spoiled baby.
Stephen Lemons has done excellent work cataloging the outrages of Joe Arpaio’s treatment of the town of Guadalupe. Here is his post on the Board of Supervisor’s meeting: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2008/09/day_of_outrage_the_supes_lockd.php
*An accurate Dukes of Hazzard analogy would, of course, feature the Board of Supervisors playing Boss Hogg to Joe’s Roscoe but it clearly works better with Arpaio playing the role of the cigar-chomping Machiavellian backwater potentate and the Board as the bumbling incompetent sycophantic Sheriff. Which just goes to show how backwards things are here. Maricopa County can’t even get the details of corruption right!
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment