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How pervasive is racism in the business world today?

A local entrepreneur and Mayor Phil Gordon offered their takes on the topic today at a minority business conference at the Phoenix Convention Center.

Lam Bui, a Vietnamese immigrant who came to the United States in 1975, gave the keynote speech in which he talked about the challenges he encountered in starting his printing business. Racism, he said, was a common obstacle in landing new customers in the early years.

However, he said, times have changed and today it's hardly an issue.

"We don't see the color any more," said Bui, owner of Complete Print Shop, which celebrates 30 years of business this year.

Gordon, who spoke after Bui, made a point during his speech to correct Bui, saying racism is still very alive in the business community with Hispanic businesses being "targeted" in the recent immigration debates.

Gordon urged the audience to do what they can to prevent individuals from taking advantage of different minority groups.

Local business owners: Have you been discriminated against because of your ethnicity?

In addition to speeches by Bui, Gordon and several other community leaders, the Arizona Minority Enterprise Center honored several minority business owners today at the Phoenix Convention Center.

The winners were recognized as part of the 15th Annual Minority Enterprise Development Week, which highlights the contribution of minority businesses.

The Arizona Minority Enterprise Center is a federal agency that is run locally by the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It provides counseling and education for local business owners.

The businesses and owners honored this year were:

'  Andale Construction Inc., Minority Construction Firm of the Year

' STG Industrial Maintenance LLC., Minority Service Firm of the Year

' El Charro Cafe, Minority Retail Firm of the Year

' Johnnie Funderburg, Minority Business Advocate of the Year

' Rosiland C. Moore, Minority Business Advocate of the Year

' Innova Environmental Engineering LLC., Minority Technology Firm of the Year

' Cascade Springs LLC., Minority Manufacturing Firm of the Year

The Arizona Department of Financial Institutions has revoked Mesa-based  Freedom Financial & Mortgages Services license. The company has also been ordered to pay a $25,000 fine.

The regulatory move comes after the Superior Court dismissed Freedom Financial’s appeal of the Department of Financial Institution's original revocation of  Freedom's license in October 2007.

Department of Financial Institutions' Superintendent Felecia Rotellini said the court ruling “sends a clear message that a mortgage company is not excused from submitting misleading loan applications because the borrower cooperates in the deception. In Arizona it is against the law for a mortgage banker or broker to misrepresent or conceal facts from a borrower or a lender."

The case started in 2006 with an investigation into Freedom Financial business after the Department of Financial Institutions received complaints about fraudulent loans. The regulator issued a Cease and Desist Order on March 7, 2007 ordering the company to discontinue violating Arizona laws regulating mortgage bankers. Following the company’s request for a hearing the Department filed a notice of hearing to revoke the license on April 13, 2007.

At and administrative hearing over its license, Freedom Financial admitted it had used false advertising, failed to conduct proper investigations before hiring loan officers, employed people "whose business conduct it could not control," and allowed borrowers to sign documents containing blank spaces, according to the regulator.

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A story in this morning's East Valley Tribune says no charges will be forthcoming in two high-profile cases last year in which two kids died after their parents left them inside hot cars.

Amberlee Elizabeth Brown of Chandler died last June 28 when police say her father left the 3 month old inside a car for nearly two hours after doing errands. Then on Oct. 31, 17-month-old Ryan Gallagher of Phoenix was left to swelter all day when his mother forgot to drop him off at daycare before working a seven-hour waitressing shift.

Such cases have always left me conflicted in that there's no doubt that these children suffered terribly before they gave it up. But there is also this: the parents didn't mean for it to happen.  Then again, I've always rejected the old "they've suffered enough" argument because they haven't suffered nearly as much as the children they've killed through their negligence or inattention or error or whatever you want to call it.

But is that really want we want to do? Punish them?

Then again, wouldn't we punish them if it was somebody's else's child they'd left to die?

It's a tough call.

So should such people be prosecuted or not? Now, not one but two juries of our peers has answered the question. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office put each case to a separate grand jury, asking that they be charged, not with manslaughter or negligent homicide but with the lesser charge of child abuse.

In each case, the grand jury said no.

Score one for the little guy.

It's been a rough time for regular folk. You know what I mean. Nobody listens. (Think about the last time you reached an actual person who could do anything when calling a government office…I know. Me neither.)

These days, you can't afford to buy gas, you dare not buy tomatoes and you're worried about whether you'll have a job next month. That's assuming you still have a job this month.

Now in the midst of all that gloom and doom comes one small sliver of sunshine for the unheard, the unheralded, the uninitiated in the ways of the rich and powerful.

Yes, we can challenge a $100 million government giveaway to a shopping mall developer without being punished for it.

A judge on Monday declined to order a conservative think tank to pay close to $700,000 to the city of Phoenix and the Thomas J. Klutznick Co., for having the temerity to suggest that what they are doing is unconstitutional.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Miles understood that this was about so much more than whether the Goldwater Institute – having taken the city to court and lost (so far) -- should have to reimburse Team Phoenix/Klutznick for their ridiculously expensive time in having to defend the giveaway.

You know the story. How cities for years have been throwing obscene subsidies at developers to get them to build stores they would build anyway. How Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon was against such giveaways until he was suddenly for them last year.

Thus came forth the largest known retail subsidy in state history: Phoenix agreeing to give half of the sales taxes it collects at CityNorth for 11 years -- up to $97.4 million – to Klutzick, the developer.

It was enough of an outrage to spur the Legislature to outlaw the practice and the Goldwater Institute to round up some small business owners to challenge it in court, on grounds that when the framers of the state constitution wrote that our leaders can't give away our money, they meant even to powerful, well-connected developers.

Goldwater lost, of course. Miles in April ruled that the $100 million isn't a gift but an opportunity to lease parking spaces, a chance to ace out Scottsdale and scoop up all the tax revenues from northeast Valley shoppers. An opening to build an “urban core” at 56th Street and Loop 101.

The case is on appeal, in the hope that the Supreme Court will return us once more to the days when cities had to follow the constitution. Hey, it could happen A few years ago, the high court did just that when Mesa tried to condemn Randy Bailey's Brake Shop so a pal could have the corner for his hardware store.

Meanwhile, within weeks of winning in Superior Court, Phoenix and Kluznick returned fire. The city asked that the Goldwater Institute be ordered to pay its legal fees so taxpayers aren't unfairly burdened – a point it might have considered when deciding to hire a $450-an-hour attorney rather than using one of the 100 or so on the city's payroll.

Klutznick – who wasn't even a party to the lawsuit until asking to join in – wanted Goldwater to pay its fees, too, and for remarkable reasons. Among them: because Goldwater reps publicly mocked, demeaned and otherwise made fun of CityNorth, dubbing it the “Taj-Ma Mall”

“A straight-up challenge to the continued validity (of case law) could have been brought without painting CityNorth as a ‘heinous villain' and without depicting this massive, multi-use project as just a ‘luxury shopping mall',” Klutznick's attorney, Lisa Hauser, wrote in her request that Goldwater hand over $381,000. “These gimmicks were used in a carefully scripted public opinion campaign to raise the center's public profile and fill its coffers.”

Fortunately, the judge correctly understood the concept of the First Amendment and the inevitable effect of imposing huge financial penalties on people who legitimately question what our leaders are doing.

Noted the judge: “If I have to … pay the other guy's fees if I lose, even though I think I've got a legitimate claim here I just can't do it. And so that government action goes unchallenged.”

Actually, I think that's what the city and the developer had in mind.

(Column published June 12, 2008, Scottsdale Republic.)

Interesting story in the Washington Times, by longtime Phoenix New Times reporter, John Dougherty, who writes today that John McCain now expects to have to battle it out to win his home state. 

Dougherty reports that the McCain campaign has added Arizona to its list of “battleground states”.

That's not terribly surprising, when you consider the rise of independents in this state coupled with the rise of conservative distrust of the senior senator since his immigration amnesty plan last year.

I imagine he'll pull it out in the end, but it can't look too good elsewhere, having to acknowledge that you'll be forced to fight it out to win the state you've represented for a quarter century.

You knew it was just a matter of time…a Gilbert parent has filed a claim with the Gilbert school district, signaling his intent to sue. It seems it rained during his son’s graduation last month and now he wants the school district to give him $400 -- money to cover the air fare for his daughter to fly in for the festivities and to replace a jacket ruined by the downpour.

 "What's the old Boy Scout rule?" Kirk Gossett asked reporters. "Be prepared."

 This from the man who wants the school district to pay for a jacket ruined by the rain.

You go, because a 69-year-old woman ought to be able to make it to church and back on a Sunday morning.

You go, because you can't understand how anyone could open fire on women and children. Because it's an outrage that it could happen here, in our city, on our streets. Because the silence, since then, has been a stunner.

And so you go to 21st Avenue, to the place where Elvina LeGarde's life ended Sunday.

It's an ordinary street, with a park and ball fields on one side and a neighborhood of modest homes on the other. The sort of place where a family should feel safe on a Sunday afternoon.

“Nobody can believe what happened,” said a neighbor who, like everyone in this city, is struggling to make sense of it. “It's crazy. It just makes you wonder. It could have been my mother or my kids. I don't understand it.”

That makes about four million of us.

LeGarde, her daughter and three of her grandchildren had attended services Sunday morning at All Tribes Assembly of God on 17th Avenue south of Camelback. They were in a maroon SUV headed north through the light-rail construction on 19th Avenue when LeGarde's daughter, Marie, noticed what looked like a white Ford Escort behind her, honking at her.

Phoenix police said she was waiting to turn left onto Bethany Home when the Escort rear-ended her. When she got out to check the damage, the passenger in the Escort started yelling and cursing while the driver said something to the effect of, “just let me by, I'm pregnant.” LeGarde's daughter, by now scared, got back in her SUV and continued north rather than waiting to turn. She then cut over on a side street to 21st Avenue and again headed north.

She never made it to Glendale. Within a few blocks, the Escort pulled up behind her, the male passenger leaned out the window and fired.

It was 16 minutes past noon.

LeGarde was shot in the back of head. She died at 5 p.m. at John C. Lincoln Hospital. Her 4-year-old granddaughter was shot in the right arm. The driver, her 7-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, were uninjured. Physically, at least.

On Tuesday, the family was cleaning out LeGarde's Glendale apartment. Her son-in-law, Andrew, whose wife and children were in the SUV Sunday, wonders if they were targeted because they're Native American. He says his wife didn't do anything that she knows of to prompt such rage. “It's just one of those things you don't expect to happen,” he said.

Elvina LeGarde was a San Carlos Apache, a widow who worked as a mail clerk at Phoenix Indian Medical Center for more than 30 years.

Within hours of her death, her family hit the streets, posting fliers that plead for help in identifying the killer. The driver was a Hispanic woman, believed to be around 21 and pregnant. The shooter was a Hispanic man, in his mid to late 20s, who spoke English well. The car, a white Escort or similar car, had gray interior and a necklace hanging from the mirror.

That's not much to go on but it should be enough for someone to call Silent Witness (480-WITNESS). Because it's an outrage that this could happen here, in our city, on our streets.

Ziek Kemp works in the area where Elvina LeGarde was killed Sunday. On Tuesday, he stood on 21st Avenue, shaking his head as he scanned the flier, looking at pictures of a grandmother gone now and a little girl shot.

“It's shocking,” he said. “But I hear a lot of crazy (stuff) on the news every day that don't make sense. The sad thing is when you hear gunshots regularly and it don't even faze you and you don't even get up. There's always somebody being a fool. I mean, this is a city that has more than four million people in it. It only takes one to start a war.”

Or, to make a call.

(Column published June 11, 2008, Arizona Republic.)

...and it's Waterworld?

After five months of waiting, I'm glad to see that we're finally cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

That was the idea, right?  To go after the resorts and the restaurants and the homebuilders and such who we all know are hiring illegal immigrants?

Today's big bust, courtesy of the sheriff's office, netted six arrests of suspected illegal immigrants who  work at Waterworld. They also served subpoenas there and at Golfland and Big Surf.  Yet strangely not a single employer was hauled off in handcuffs.

Hopefully, that will come if these places are indeed thumbing their nose at the law.

Waterworld is a start, I suppose, but just barely.  Me? I'm waiting for some of the power players in town to get a visit from our local sheriff.