Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 01:09:45 -0700
From: libertarianalliance@HOME.COM (Ernest Hancock)
Subject: How things really work
To: AZRKBA@asu.edu


I welcome corrections to any errors in the following since some of the 
facts are as old as 11 years. I share this post sent to some activist 
friends in the hopes that it helps you understand a little more about 
how things really work,... behind the curtain.

Ernie




Tood Hartley (producer for the Charles Goyette show) called today to ask 
that I be a phone quest on the show today at 2:35pm.

I had predicted on KFYI that the Tempe location was selected on purpose 
and was always intended to be a failure and that the real location has 
always been downtown and that this was jst a smoke screen (I'll give 
you details in a minute).

They call me at 2:35pm and put me on hold. Then Todd came back and asked 
if I could please be available for 5:35pm (bigger audience and such- and 
they were short on time). At 5:35pm I get a call and was told to hold 
and that Charles would be with me in a minute. I was told to make sure 
that I brought up the fact that I thought that Charles ws being used to 
help get the Tempe location shot down as part of a larger plan for the 
downtown location,... fine, sounded good for talk radio and about as 
close to the truth as anything else I would say. News breaks takes up 
the time saying that the FAA meeting with Tempe and Phoenix left the FAA 
feeling part of a scam and thinking, 'what the hell is with you guys'.

No time for me. They asked that I come on Monday for  longer time when 
we could get deeper into why I knew it wasn't going anywhere but 
downtown. I reminded them that I had just heard Charles say that he was 
going on vacation next week. After being put on hold Todd came back and 
after many "We're Sorries" asked if I would be a quest when Charles gets 
back,..... ohhhhh, I guess, but damn if I don't feel abused a little 
(got outta work on a Friday afternoon though - Donna is a Goyette fan 
and didn't mind working for me to help him out,... but I wouldn't count 
on her being too supportive if this happens again :)

The bottom line of what would have been discussed would be that in 1990 
when Terry Goddard was still mayor of Phoenix and his desire to run for 
governor of Arizona was known, he was pushing in the press a program 
called Phoenix 2020 that had taken neighborhood activist from around the 
city and put them on various committees to decide what the Phoenix of 
the year 2020 would look like. I got an inside view due to Goddard's 
"not really campaign chairman" Mike Sofee (I think that was his name) 
asked me to meet with him at Goddard's law firm one day. Goddard hadn't 
started his Governor's campaign yet and Mike S. was a partner in his law 
firm (as best I remember) and was asked to have me come met with 
them,.... why you ask? Well, at the time I was pushing hard on what got 
me started in activist politics, corruption in the Departments of 
Commerce on a state and federal level (helping my father's company get 
export data on foriegn port duties etc. opened up a web of "New World 
Order " crap that I got very indignant about). The Republic did a piece 
on one of my trips to Washington, D.C. etc. and th issue got the 
attention of the Symington campaign, Fred Koory (another candidate for 
governor), Sam Stieger & Goddard (it was the time of "It's the Economy, 
Stupid") It's also how I got in the middle of the AzScam thing and met 
many other bad guys that later became principals in all of this 
socialized sports stuff,.... Oh yeah, back to the Phoenix 2020 thing. 
You see at the time (late 80's+) Goddard was the front guy (now it's 
Skippy - different dance partner, same song). Goddard had bought a lot 
of land downtown  and then created the Roosevelt Redevelopment District 
to increase its value. All of this was with the support of the "Phoenix 
Forty" which is now known as the Greater Phoenix Economic Development 
Blah Blah Blah. What I found out was that it's not so much these 
organizations as it is the people that eventually take over control of 
them as a tool to use government force against the masses to get what 
they want (even the Libertarian Party falls into this category).

My actions were bringing me to the attentio of all factions and for 
some time everyone wanted to talk to me. Within a few minutes at 
Goddard's law firm it was made clear to me how bright my future would be 
if I supported Terry Goddard in his effort to become Governor and would 
be supportive of his efforts etc. I was invited to attend a press 
conference that evening at the City Council Chambers (the old round 
meeting room building - don't know if they still use that, it was before 
they built the new City Hall). All of the press was there along with 
every TV truck and radio microphone. I hung back with the press guys so 
I could leave whenever I wanted (which wasn't very long). I could tell 
that the reporters were pissed that they were assigned to cover this BS 
story and that they knew it was a campaign gimmick for Goddard's race 
for Governor, that hadn't been officially announced yet. (It is 
important to note that Goddard constantly goes on and on about how he 
had the "integrity" to resign as Mayor to run for Governor - yeah, after 
he milked the crap out of being mayor as much as he could).

The Phoenix 2020 program had two parts. The public touchy feelly 
planning for the future everyone got to put their handprint in the 
cement kind'a crap and the main plan for the development of Phoenix 
using public policy and government taxing authority (as well as 
condemnation, theft, fraud, lies etc.) I was shown the plans so that I 
would be properly impressed with my new friends. And everything that I 
saw has come to pass.

Expansion of the Civic Center (much more to come) Hotels, Baseball 
stadium, Football Stadium, Rio Salado Project lake that went at least 4 
times further than what we see in Tempe and a light rail system to tie 
it all together. I didn't think much of it at the time other than 
"cool", that was when I was starting to see what they had to do to get 
it going. Zonings would change to make land values go down, 
condemnations were more and more common and the same people and LLC's 
were buying up many of the properties were I saw developments planned 
before.

Remember the Rio Salado vote? I barely do and remember that at that time 
the effort to buy out the river property cheap or to just start 
condemnation proceedings were rampant. Fighting back and forth by 
various governmental agencies and advocacy groups made things confusing 
for a while. The left wanted to get control of land from private 
property owners to save the dry river bed from the rape of the 
environment by developers while developers wanted to rape the taxpayers 
and the property owners. This is where Ricky Duncan's amicus brief on 
Arizona water rights put a whoa on much of this and why he got so much 
support in the '95 election and forced a runoff (he got 19-20% in a 
threeway race) due to the support of the many people in that district 
that would have been forced from their homes with a bargain basement 
takings settlement. Many forces were trying to get their hands in this 
cookie jar.

None of this is over and the plan still moves forward, just not as 
cheaply as the bad guys would have hoped for.

So when the location of the Football stadium was selected to be in 
Tempe, many of you may recall my not being convinced and stated many 
times that I "knew" that it would eventually wind up downtown near the 
America West Arena and Bank One Ballpark on, or very near, the old 
railroad tracks,... and this is why.

The plans that I saw were used by the "they" in Arizona Politics to make 
land purchases (remember that the Arizona Republic and Maricopa County 
Supervisor Betsy Bayless (now Sec of St and possible candidate for 
Governor - and dumber than a bag of rocks,... hell, dumber than the 
bag),.. Byless had to recuse herself from votes on the Baseball stadium 
due to the fact that her family owned much of the land - shocking :) And 
then the Az Republic goes into business with the Diamondbacks.

All of the ruckus that we caused during all of this (activism, 
campaigns, lawsuits) lead to the passage of various laws and 
initiatives. One of those was that the City of Phoenix can not spend 
more than 3 million dollars on a public project without the approval of 
the voters (limited to sports stadiums I think - don't remember the 
particulars). So when they tore down the Greyhound building accross from 
the Bank One ballpark to build a city financed parking garage for 
zillions of dollars they said it was for anything other than the 
stadiums,... yeah right.

Now we come to the football stadium. THEY WAN IT DOWNTOWN IN PHOENIX 
REALLY BADLY! But there is no way that they are going to get the 
approval of the voters for the improvements that they need from the city 
and hiding any voter fraud would be next to impossible. What to do,... 
what to do?

1st - you get the election to show voter approval of the tax required to 
build your stadium (one way or the other). Then you select the worst 
possible location (end of the runway of an international airport). The 
distraction is the followng. The people hopefully get so much 
satisfaction from getting the location moved that they feel vindicated 
in some way and are more supportive of  a much more logical location 
downtown in Phoenix. Keep in mind that many of the required commitments 
and contracts that would normally have already been entered into at this 
stage of contruction in Tempe have yet to be entered into. Changing 
location will cost next to nothing (interesting, huh?). Long (a 
developer that has offered land for free in the west valley) and 
Avondale (the city where the land for free is) will scream for attention 
as well as the indian resevations but they'll be ignored. It going 
downtown you all. BUT, that damn 3 million dollar thing is in the way. 
What to do,... what to do?

I'm not sure. But, it is very interesting to find out that Election 
Systems and Services, Inc. and very large and old construction firms, 
developers and investment firms have common Board of Directors. I wonder 
what common interest a board member of a very large construction firm 
and investment firms has with an Election Controling Software company 
that would cause them to be on all three? Makes you go,... hummmmmmm.( 
www.essvote.com the company that holds the counting computer programs in 
their hands and is contracted by the many governments here in Arizona to 
set up their counting computers and is working for the entire world to 
vote from their home on computers that they control - they make movies 
about this stuff )

With a 51-49% vote on the passage of the Football Stadium after a very 
high profile campaign, what makes you think that the exact same thing 
won't happen when the people of Phoenix are presented with a package 
that has improvements for the Football Stadium in downtown Phoenix that 
will of course include all of the free bread and circuses a Phoenician 
could possibly want?

http://www.essvote.com/ This web page should scare you. And this is why 
Glendale doen't want manual validation of the computer, IMNSHO, it's the 
same company that controls their elections too.

And this is why I was willing to make the statements I did on the radio 
and why someday they may have me on as a guest saying, "I told you so" 
,...... maybe they won't :)

What tipped me off that they were using the Charles Goyette show to 
further their plan was that he was so well informed and that he kept 
bringing up the name of Tom Irvine (and what a great guy he was). Tom 
was the attorney that did the condemnation stuff as I remember and was 
the lead on getting that little old lady kicked out of her house (some 
of you remmbert his better than I) also, the County of Maricopa hired to 
defend them against me (as if they didn't have enough attornies). He was 
hired as outside council to defend the claim that the Stadium District 
_and_ the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors were _not_ susceptable to 
any referendum where the stadium district was involved (another 
interesting story). Tim McDermott remembers him well from his lawsuits 
too. One thing that Thomas Irvine said that I still thought strange that 
he would relay to me, almost in a wisper outside court once, was that he 
was present at a meeting of those interested in the future of Phoenix 
downtown development where our efforts were seen as a real threat 
because they saw opposition quickly go away once the America West Arena 
was approved, but the Baseball Stadium issue just won't go away. It was 
later when he had a conversation with Tim McDermott that I think he was 
trying to offer us some kind of deal or "compensation". Could have been 
my imagination, but why else would he bring this up? Tom Irvine and I 
crossed paths years before when he was picked to be on the post AzScam 
committee (what does that tell you? :) And he always makes a big deal 
out of being a registered independent so as to appeal to anyone that'll 
hire him I guess.

Now you know why I am so convinced that the downtown Phoenix location 
will be the one. And by 2020, Phoenix will have a town lake of its own 
with hotels lining it and a light rail system that will link them all to 
the arena, stadiums, airport and later Tucson,... no matter what. Oh and 
gambling may be leagal and controled by these people by then too,... but 
that's another story.

Ernest Hancock

This year's freedom event www.freedomsummit.com