Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 27

Wtdnetday, March 18, 1W8 The ArUoe Republic BS MS Wealthy few cloud i i -1 for all Adobe said, 'Hillary, he had insomnia. He couldn 't sleep, so he went for a She started screaming and cussing and slammed down the phone. I got on the phone and called him, and I said, 'Governor, Hillary And he said, 'Oh, my God. Oh, God. Oh, And he 1 came back in the back gate probably five to JO minutes later.

Roger Perry arkansas state trooper, recalling under oath a late-night call from hillary cunton Pmvate acts, PUBLIC SHAME By Alfredo Gutierrez Ihe March 2 editorial about the refer-. endum led by the Committee Against Unconstitutional Takings regarding i Clinton's affairs are our affair GEORGE WILL Washington Post Writers Group CBS Kathleen Willey appeared Sunday on 60 Minutes to say that President Clinton made an unwelcome sexual advance to her in the White House in 1 993. With Kathleen Willey's 60 Minutes appearance, the crisis of Clinton's presidency reached an adult moment, and the mental mechanics of agnosticism became yet more difficult. What kind of person can continue the intellectual contortions necessary to sustain doubt about who is lying, Bill Clinton or the dozens of people that he, through his helpmate and hirelings, implies are engaged in a vast, orchestrated campaign of lying? Willey's painful for her, and for civilized viewers appearance, drew dignity from her patent reluctance, and her grownup's incredulity about Clinton's crudity at the time and his continuing mendacity. The measured words spoken Sunday night were by someone whom not even Clinton's taxpayer-funded smear squads will characterize as a "Clinton hater" from the bowels of the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Willey's words cannot be dismissed as "rumors" (as Clinton's lawyer Bob Bennett dismissed much of the testimony taken by Paula Jones' lawyers, including the words of trooper Perry, above).

Willey's words moved the focus of the crisis beyond Clinton, who apparently is a developmental arrested adolescent, and beyond the taxpayer-funded chest-thumping White House boys sent forth to profess belief in their stonewalling employer. And it moved the focus beyond Monica Lewinsky and her age-appropriate attorney-consort, William Ginsburg, desperately seeking airtime and adulthood together. The focus is now on the American public. Of course, Clinton must decide whether to continue casting himself as First Victim, against whom an amazingly disparate and growing group of people are risking prosecution by telling the darndest lies under oath. However, the public has a more important decision to make: whether it still thinks that Clinton's "private" behavior but probably discussed by Eskimos; "private," but germane to Paula Jones' civil rights lawsuit) and lies he tells about that behavior are irrelevant to his public stature.

One judgment can no longer be evaded: If Willey is truthful, Clinton is a perjurer. So if she is truthful, he is probably not the sort who would flinch from suborning'per-jury and obstructing justice. Thus a backward-rolling tide a tentative presumption of truthfulness washes over an enormous and expanding mound of testimony. Some of it, such as trooper Perry's sky say that it is as hard to doubt the truth of Lewinsky's words as it is to doubt the truth of Willey's. The scandal's momentum will grow with the pursuit of such questions as: Did Nathan Landow, a large contributor to the Democratic Party, send a plane, as Newsweek reports, to bring Willey to see him? If so, why and with whose knowledge? Cleansing the White House of Clinton the lamest duck in the history of the presidential aviary is less important than expunging two anodyne assumptions held by many Americans: That there can be merely trivial public consequences from presidential corruptions, particularly if they pertain to behavior the public chooses to call private; and that the duty of a president to obey the law varies inversely with the Dow Jones average.

words above, are perhaps pertinent primarily to an aesthetic judgment about the Clintons' vulgarity. But grave judgments about possible abuses of power should be colored by knowledge of the kind of people at issue, people who for more than five years have been saying such things as: Trust us, it really was an innocent bureaucratic mistake that caused 900 FBI files all concerning Republicans; what a coincidence to wind up in the hands of some people exceptionally unsavory even by Clinton White House standards. Sunday night the nation received another lesson in the power of sight and sound to magnify the power of printed words. Reading her deposition and seeing her recapitulation of it are quite different experiences. Some who have heard the tapes Linda Tripp made of Monica Lewin Governance, not sex life, is what matters the Adobe Golf Course was entitled "A tainted referendum." We agree.

It is tainted. It has been tainted by the embarrassingly squalid and manipulative actions of some of Arizona's wealthiest homeowners who live near the Adobe Golf Course, the Arizona Biltmore, one of Arizona's most luxurious and expensive resorts, and their unfortunate incestuous relationship with the City of Phoenix. Together, those parties have conspired and acted to seize the private property of Kabuto Arizona Properties, L.L.C. Together, these parties have consistently misrepresented the intentions of Kabuto Arizona. The Republic's editorial continues the practice of spreading these falsehoods.

It states, for example, that "Kabuto's i threat to rip out the Adobe course has caused the nearby homeowners (to) have a cloud on the titles of their homes." At another point you reference that the successful referendum would "give the green light to Kabuto to bulldoze the golf course." Kabuto has never threatened or proposed to bulldoze the Adobe course. If there is a cloud on anyone's property, 1 including Kabuto's property, it was caused by an inordinately influential and wealthy who chose to settle a private property dispute by abusing the powers of the Phoe-J nix City Council and seeking an illegal sei-' zure of private property. If the mayor and City Council had not been enticed into illegal meddling, the dispute may have long ago been settled. Recently, press reports indicate that the owner of the Arizona Biltmore received $188.5 million for an ownership interest in the hotel. We think the owners of the hotel 1 and the surrounding homeowners can well afford to look after their own interests.

The taxpayers of Phoenix shouldn't be forced to I subsidize them and their private business in-." terests. We have consistently taken the posi-v tion that the best way to resolve this issue is to let it remain a private dispute. Kabuto could have immediately sued the city of Phdenix and its citizens, forcing the taxpayers of Phoenix to pay for the million-t dollar legal defense of some of its most economically blessed private parties. If Kabuto then prevailed, and we are certain of that re-r, suit, the taxpayers of Phoenix would have to pay up to $40 million or more to settle the claims of what is, and absolutely should be, a private dispute. In our opinion, it is un- conscionable that the citizens of this entire city would be put at risk to protect the prof-' itability of a private luxury hotel and to pro-tect the land values of some of Phoenix's wealthiest homeowners.

'X The most blatant falsehood in The Repub-: lie editorial is your statement that petition gatherings (sic) told signers that to sign the petition would save the Adobe. This is a falsehood." It is only a falsehood if you do not believe in the free enterprise system, private property and capitalism. As a matter of fact, your newspaper published a full-', page ad by Kabuto while the dispute was still before the City Council, entitled "PLEASE. Save The Adobe Golf Course 0 and Your Tax Dollars." The text of the ad read, in part: "Our intentions are to protect our property rights, prevent a long and ex-- pensive court battle that the city would wage with taxpayer money and preserve the Adobe." Those. were our intentions then, and those are our intentions now.

The best way to save the Adobe is to keep the politicians out of it. Private property disputes should be set- tied privately. To most citizens of Phoenix and, indeed, of America, the seizure of private property by government to settle pri- vate disputes is abhorrent. And now, the final insult The same wealthy interests who persuaded the city to hypocritically and illegally seize private property are now, with the help of your newspaper, persuading the politicians to squander $750,000 of taxpayer money on an unnecessary special election. Their motives are blatant and obvious.

They hope that a special election will ensure a low voter turnout, thus giving them their only chance of having their shamefully greedy acts go unnoticed. Our referendum petition asked that the question be placed before the voters "for their approval or rejection at the next regu-, lar city election." The next general election is scheduled for the fall of 1999. Were this referendum to be placed on that election it would take place at no additional cost to the taxpayers of the city of Phoenix. We ask for no special privileges and no secret deals. We have not ever asked that the City Council abuse its discretion for a I wealthy few and squander almost a million dollars to please those wealthy few.

We believe, notwithstanding The Repub- lie's wrongheaded editorial, that the citizens of Phoenix will ultimately reject this crass and unconstitutional taking of private property. Alfredo Guberrez chairman at Ire Committee Agajnst UreonsMurjonaJ Uungs. Kathleen Willey is of interest to the world today only because of Jones' lawsuit against the president for supposed sexual harassment. Jones' lawyers on Friday filed 700 pages of accusations and rumors designed to prove the following: In 1991, Jones says, she met then-Gov. Clinton, and, soon after the introductions, he dropped his pants and asked her to perform a sex act.

By exposing himself in this manner, she said, he traumatized her to the point that her life was forever ruined. While Clinton may be eligible for the Men Behaving Badly Club, are his qualifying features worthy of this national obsession? Is groping, kissing, dropping his pants or even asking for, snail we say, "favors," a high crime or a misdemeanor as envisioned by Founding Fathers who knew a thing or two about philandering? My fellow citizens, get a life. Governance, not gonads, is what matters. Forget prurience; let's focus on policies. E.R.

Shipp is a columnist for the New York Daily News. She won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1996. and placed her hand on his genitals. "I thought, 'Well, maybe I ought to just give him a good slap across the she said on 60 Minutes. Kathleen, sister-girl, next time go with your instincts: Slap him rather than tell the world about what every woman I know has encountered and figured out how to deal with.

Trust me, a slap, a push, a condemnatory word or phrase is usually enough to put the guy in his place and make the world safer for other women. For his part, Clinton says he was, in essence, just feeling her pain. One day, Willey met with him after requesting to see him several times. She was, he said, "quite upset" and "obviously agitated" about her family's financial difficulties. Indeed, on that very day unknown to either Willey or the president at the time her husband killed himself.

"I did to her what I have done to scores and scores of men and women who have worked for me or been my friends over the years," Clinton said in a deposition in the Paula Jones case. "I embraced her. I put my arms around her. I may have even kissed her on the forehead." By E.R. Shipp Seven hundred pages of Paula Jones' lawsuit and 60 Minutes later, I am convinced that Bill Clinton may have an overheated sex drive.

But I am even more convinced that the details of his sex life real or imagined are not my business. Nor are they yours. On 60 Minutes on Sunday night, a former FOB (Friend of Bill, as the glitterati, groupies and deep pockets in his camp are called) went before millions on television to tell her story about life with Bill. Even as she said that she had refused this public airing until now because "I did not think it was my place to make it public knowledge," Kathleen Willey said: fl During the 1992 presidential campaign, when she joked with a hoarse candidate Clinton that the best thing for him was chicken soup, he supposedly said in a suggestive manner. "Well, would you bring me some?" She did not, she told 60 Minutes, "because my instincts told me he wasn't interested in chicken soup." Ruth FremsonAssociated Press President Clinton on Monday repeated his denial of Kathleen Willey's accusations.

In 1993, she said, she went to Clinton to seek a paying job rather than continue in the volunteer position she held at the White House. Clinton, she said, groped her, kissed her in more than a casual way School-funding plan hits average districts hardest that continued bonding is non-negotiable because they claim the Supreme Court ruling prohibits use of school district bonding for school capital needs. Despite this assertion, there is nothing in the Arizona Supreme Court decision that prohibited the use of bonds as long as those bonds were subsidized to guarantee substantially equal funding for all schools up to an adequate standard. Not only is it constitutional to use bonds, it's cheaper. With bonds, state funds could be used only as a targeted subsidy for prop-; erty-poor school districts.

This would be far less expensive to the state than attempting to pay for the entire cost of Arizona's school capital needs with only state dollars. Maintaining bonds would also preserve the ability of parents in local school districts to make decisions about when to build new schools and how much to spend on them. There is no need to do harm to school districts to accomplish the goal of providing for a more equitable and adequate school capital funding system. The Legislature could pass a plan that is fair to all districts if it wanted to. We think it should.

The authors, a Democrats, are Arizona state senators. Mary Hartley iwumsonts District 20 in Phoeraq Ruth Sotomon represents District 14 in Tucson; Joe Eddie Lopez represents District 22 in Proem and George Curwngham represents District 13 Tucson. the goal of keeping the state's cost down by limiting access to funds for school construction. Districts that have been able to provide for their own capital needs under the existing bond-financing system would not, for the most part, be eligible for the new state funding program. In the FIRST plan, school districts that fall below certain standards for building conditions or below a certain amount of square footage of space per child ill become eligible automatically for funding.

The vast majority of school districts, however, already exceed these building, condition and space standards, so they would not be eligible for the automatic funds. If the schools do not qualify for automatic funding, parents and school districts that want to build new schools or want to refurbish old ones will be required to stand in line and convince the unelected School i Facilities Board that they need the dollars. The board will decide whether or not the requests are granted. With limited state funding available and great demand for those dollars, there's a good chance the board will say no. This problem could be remedied if the governor, state superintendent of public instruction and Republican legislative leadership would agree to allow school districts to continue passing bonds to meet their capital needs.

However, they say time and again We think it is a bad idea to trap all school districts in a newapital financing system that will depend on the political will of the Legislature when the Legislature has such a poor record of meeting the other funding needs of schools. In fact, the initial amount of funds allocated by the Legislature in the Students FIRST proposal won't even come close to meeting the building and renovation or "capital needs" of schools. The Students FIRST plan would reduce the amount of funds for school capitai needs by 40 percent, or $200 Currently, school districts spend an average of $497 million a year on capital projects, according to the Arizona Department of Education, but the Students FIRST plan would only allocate $300 million a year for capital needs once basic deficiencies are addressed. It is easy to see how the Students FIRST plan does not add up. and this is not just a concern to wealthy districts.

Average, middle-income neighborhoods like yours and ours are hardest-hit by the Students FIRST plan because the only way the state can afford to take over the funding responsibility for all school capital needs is to do it cheaply. The result is an inability to raise funding to build and renovate schools in districts of moderate property wealth. The Students FIRST plan accomplishes By Mary Hartley, Ruth Solomon, Joe Eddie Lopez and George Cunningham In the next few days, the state Legislature may pass a bill that would dramatically change your community school district Under the Students FIRST school capital funding proposal, your community may not have the funds to build a new school building or to do major renovation of existing schools for more than a decade. This proposal would take away the ability of local communities to build schools through passage of bonds and instead; would create a state School Facilities Board to make decisions regarding when your neighborhood needs a school and how much money it would get to build that school. Without the ability to make local decisions about building schools, school districts would have to crowd more students into existing facilities or bus children to un-derenrolled schools in the district until the state decided the district was eligible for state money.

This new capital funding system will be funded by the state Legislature the same state Legislature that has denied the schools inflation funding for years. Currently, the state funds the maintenance and operation of schools, and the result is a reduction in real dollars per student of 9.2 percent in the past eight years..