Secretary Of State After Latest Homeless Death In The Zone: ‘Not Great,’ ‘Go Buy A Sandwich’

Secretary Of State After Latest Homeless Death In The Zone: ‘Not Great,’ ‘Go Buy A Sandwich’

By Corinne Murdock |

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes weighed in after the latest tragedy to hit The Zone, a dead man burned in a dumpster, by calling the area “not great” and recommending his favorite lunch order from a local sandwich shop. 

“I had lunch at the Old Station today with a couple people from the office. Things are not great nearby, but the restaurant itself was pretty good,” said Fontes. “#6 Double meat. Diet Coke. Chips. Give them some love. Go buy a sandwich!”

The homeless encampment, nicknamed “The Zone,” covers an area spanning several miles in downtown Phoenix that has made headlines nationwide over the past year.

The sandwich shop, Old Station, resides in the heart of The Zone. Fontes retweeted an interview snippet from “The Gaydos and Chad Show” featuring the shop owner, Joe Faillace, discussing the dire state of the community due to the ongoing homeless crisis. Hours before Fontes sent that tweet, and likely around the same time Fontes was eating his sandwich, first responders were handling the latest dead body to be discovered in The Zone — a man thrown into a dumpster and burned. 

The business owner whose property abutted the dumpster, Angie Ojile, told AZ Free News that she doesn’t know why the city or county isn’t taking a different approach with The Zone, considering the daily patterns of crime and death.

“It’s hard to imagine: a man found in this dumpster, burned,” said Ojile. “It’s like — are we invisible? They say they care, but what I see is indifference.”

Where a memorial may have been laid for the life lost, the city brought another dumpster instead. Ojile said that the residents almost mistook it for the same dumpster where the man was found. 

“Instead of any kind of memorial — being that there was a burned body thrown in there — the city’s display of compassion is to replace it with another beat up, burnt-out dumpster with similar graffiti that most swear was the same. I can’t imagine that it was,” said Ojile.

As AZ Free News reported earlier this month, The Zone has become so overridden with crime that residents and business owners say that their calls to police go unanswered or unheeded. The Zone lies only around three blocks from the Phoenix Police Department headquarters: just over half a mile. 

In the last year, there were over 700 homeless deaths in The Zone. One of those deaths was that of a premature baby, approximately 20 to 24 weeks old, whose remains were discovered burned by a dumpster just weeks before Thanksgiving. Several locals told AZ Free News they believed that the dumpster from that tragedy was the same one in which this most recent death occurred. Whether they were the same dumpster is unclear.

“If they put a memorial up for every person that’s died in The Zone, it would look more like a graveyard than an industrial and residential district,” said Ojile.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Monday Ballot Drops Show Democrats Won Three Key Races

Monday Ballot Drops Show Democrats Won Three Key Races

By Corinne Murdock |

Maricopa County’s long-awaited drop of 71,000 ballots on Monday night locked in three key races for Democrats: governor, secretary of state, and senator. The vote results remain unofficial, with two statewide races remaining close.

Republicans easily won the state treasurer’s race with incumbent Kimberly Yee at the helm, leading Democratic challenger Martín Quezada nearly 56 to 44 points. 

Quezada retweeted political commentary indicating that the Democratic Party didn’t offer him enough support, financial or otherwise. 

Incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly will likely win handily over Republican challenger Blake Masters, 51 to 46 percent. 

It appears that Masters issued a preliminary concession on Friday, preparing for what Monday’s returns made more apparent. 

Democrat Katie Hobbs will be Arizona’s 24th governor, becoming the fifth woman to do so. Hobbs pulled in 50 percent of the vote to Republican opponent Kari Lake’s 49 percent. Hobbs announced that she won on Monday, but Lake didn’t concede. 

Rather, Lake questioned why Maricopa County’s top election officials, Recorder Stephen Richer and Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, launched a political action committee (PAC) to defeat certain Republicans. 

Democrat Adrian Fontes prevailed over Republican Mark Finchem in the Secretary of State race, bringing in 52 percent over Finchem’s 47 percent. Fontes declared victory on Monday morning, long before the ballot drop that night.

Finchem refused to believe the results of Monday’s ballot counts. He reminded voters that the polls didn’t reflect the results at all, challenging the ballots’ validity. 

Several races remained too close to call. In the race for superintendent of public instruction, Republican Tom Horne leads Democrat incumbent Kathy Hoffman by .02 percent — just over 6,400 votes. In the attorney general’s race, Democrat Kris Mayes also leads Republican Abraham Hamadeh by .02 percent: nearly 3,200 votes. 

Greenlee and La Paz counties had 100 percent of their votes completed. Yavapai and Gila counties had over 99 percent of their votes completed as of Monday night. Maricopa County had nearly 99 percent of votes completed. Yuma and Pima counties had 98 percent of votes completed. Coconino County had 97 percent of votes completed. Pinal and Navajo counties had 94 percent of votes completed. Cochise County had nearly 91 percent of votes completed. At the rear, Apache County had 74 percent of votes completed. 

Nearly 48,800 ballots remain

No estimated percentages of completion were given for Graham, Mohave, and Santa Cruz counties. Altogether, they account for over 106,100 votes. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Arizona Secretary Of State Advocates To Keep Porn-Laden Books In Class

Democratic Secretary of State Candidates in Conflict Over Alleged Opposition Research

By Corinne Murdock |

The Democratic primary for secretary of state race is heating up after reports that Reginald Bolding will release opposition research on Adrian Fontes in the near future. 

The news prompted Fontes to issue a video to dissuade the significance of whatever Bolding plans on releasing. He didn’t elaborate on what the opposition research would entail, but he assured the public that the potential controversies had no bearing on his ability to serve. 

Fontes alleged that Bolding was acting out in anger due to recent media reports on his dark money ties, and because media revealed that a supporter of Fontes filed a complaint on the dark money issue. Fontes also called for Bolding to drop out of the race.

“He is going to try to levy some personal attacks on me, on things that have nothing to do with the office, on irrelevancies, which is what desperate politicians will do,” said Fontes. “Know this: there is no Democrat in this race that is better to beat Mark Finchem in the fall.” 

Bolding hasn’t addressed the claim of his dropping opposition research. Instead, the minority leader tweeted that not every post on Twitter contained real information. 

Bolding came under scrutiny this week after reports emerged that his campaign was propped up by dark money from the political action committee (PAC) of his voting rights nonprofit: Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona. The nonprofit’s PAC funded campaign ads for Bolding. Dark money refers to funds whose sources aren’t disclosed.

In an interview with ABC15 last week, Bolding denied that his nonprofit was a dark money group on the technicality that his nonprofit markets itself as a voting rights organization, and that he doesn’t run the PAC arm. 

“There’s definitely a separation between community organizing and dark money entities that have been designed to change the election outcome,” said Bolding. 

The Phoenix-based market research firm, OH Predictive Insights, is polling Arizona Democrats about Bolding and Fontes. One of the questions discussed Bolding’s dark money controversy at length. 

The news of Bolding’s ties came several weeks after reports came out that Bolding raised more than any other Democrat among state House candidates and officeholders. 

Our Voice, Our Vote is part of Activate 48, a coalition of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) organizations. Several other members of Activate 48 endorsed Bolding and campaigned for him: Living United for Change (LUCHA), Mi Familia Vota, and Chispa. 

One recent Activate 48 mailer for Bolding included the Planned Parenthood for Arizona (PPAZ) endorsement. Both Bolding and Fontes served on PPAZ’s board in the past.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Arizona Secretary Of State Advocates To Keep Porn-Laden Books In Class

Democrat Secretary of State Candidate Wants Voting Precincts Eliminated, All-Mail Elections

By Corinne Murdock |

Former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes declared that Arizona should eliminate its voting precincts and adopt all-mail voting.

Fontes proposed the ideas during a half-hour debate with House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding (D-Laveen) hosted by Arizona Horizon on Wednesday.

“We need to have vote centers across the entire state so anyone can vote anywhere,” said Fontes. “Do we need reform? The simple answer is yes, but that reform needs to come in a continuation of the progress Arizona has had for 30 years, not stepping backwards like some people want.” 

Fontes also proposed that the state should adopt Maricopa County’s ballot tracking system and send voters text messages when mail-in ballots are mailed to the voter and received by the election department. 

Bolding appeared to disagree with Fontes. 

“One thing I do think is extremely important is that we have to provide Arizonans with choices. And we have to make sure that we have free, fair, and secure elections,” said Bolding. “We have to make sure our systems are working for everybody.”

That wasn’t to say that Bolding disagreed with mail-in voting. Bolding insisted that vote-by-mail is secure, and that Arizona is a prime example of that fact.

Fontes responded that his proposal for vote centers would still provide options for those who want to vote in-person rather than by mail. He insinuated that Bolding didn’t understand all-mail voting because he lacked the election administration experience. 

“It’s very clear to folks with the experience in these offices that when we say ‘all ballot by mail’ we have to have an option for replacing messed-up ballots, ballots that folks want to change, for example: they can bring them in, turn them in, and get new ballots,” said Fontes.

Bolding pledged to register high school seniors to vote as soon as they turned 18 and improve the state’s lobbyist database. He said that partisanship has reached an “all-time high” in the state and country. 

Fontes pledged to publish an easy-to-read elections procedures manual, reduce red tape for small business development such as registries of trademarks and notary public procedures, increase public communications, and improve information technology security systems.

Bolding argued that the current elections process was too complicated for most Arizonans to understand. Fontes agreed. 

Fontes claimed that his administration executed a secure election that defeated former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was rigged to ensure President Joe Biden’s victory. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.