TO CLIPS INDEX - Clips for April 15, 2008

State's business community twists, turns on taxes
The Arizona Republic - April 15, 2008 12:00 AM
The business community's position on taxes is becoming an awkward Twister move. It
supported a meritorious broad-based property-tax reduction and is muscling through a
dubious expansion of the research and development credit. Then, it's pushing an initiative
to increase the regressive sales tax for transportation, further departing from the user-pays
principle. Big business seems to believe taxes are something others should pay for its
benefit.

ASU denies it 'banned' radio station from buses
The Arizona Republic - April 14, 2008 04:49 PM
Arizona State University denied Monday that they ever placed a ban on campus shuttle
drivers playing talk radio station KTAR. "ASU did not impose a mandate against any radio
station," ASU spokeswoman Leah Hardesty said. She said the university suggested to the
bus company, Coach America, to either turn the volume down or turn it to a different station
while they investigate a complaint by a student who claims they were offended by content on
the station. "It is our obligation to investigate those complaints," Hardesty said.

Weiers assembles residents who back property-tax repeal
The Arizona Republic - April 15, 2008 12:00 AM
Trying to put a human face on a proposed property-tax repeal, House Speaker Jim Weiers
on Monday assembled homeowners and small-business owners to urge support for the
measure. Hours later, he sent the measure to the governor, who has five days to act. "These
are tough financial times," said Ginny Jones, a Gilbert homeowner. With costs rising for every-
thing from prescription drugs to utilities, the tax relief promised by permanent repeal of the
education-equalization tax would be a financial buffer, she said at a Capitol news conference.
Lawmakers last week approved the repeal of the tax, building on the three-year suspension
they negotiated in 2006.

Opinion: GOP sets own rules on school spending
East Valley Tribune - April 15, 2008
Eric Kurland is president of the Scottsdale Education Association.
Back in 2000, a majority of Arizonans opted to enact a law to increase teacher compensation
by passing Proposition 301. Everyone who I speak with echoes my belief; our voters voted “yes”
to invest more in Arizona’s teachers. They voted “yes” to increase funding for public schools. Did
you know that there was a part of the proposition to eliminate “excess utilities (state general fund
money used to offset rising costs of utilities of school districts)?” Reps. John Huppenthal, Tom
Boone and Jim Weiers, and the political cronies who support them, have a secret; Proposition 301
will eliminate excess utilities.

SCC profs told not to talk to sheriff detectives
East Valley Tribune - April 14, 2008 - 8:41PM
The head of Scottsdale Community College’s music department has directed her professors not
to speak with Maricopa County Sheriff’s detectives investigating enrollment fraud unless they have
a court order. In an e-mail Friday, Christina Novak told the music faculty members that the attorney
representing full-time professors throughout the Maricopa County Community College District
advised against voluntarily co-operating with the criminal investigation. Novak declined to comment
on the e-mail, citing the legal advice. Michael Napier, the MCCCD faculty association’s attorney,
declined to comment.

Businesses urge governor to repeal tax
East Valley Tribune - April 14, 2008 - 9:42PM
Business owners came to the state Capitol on Monday to urge Gov. Janet Napolitano to sign legislation
permanently repealing Arizona’s property tax. The news conference, organized by House Republican
leaders, was designed to put pressure on the governor. Most of those who spoke said allowing the levy
to return as scheduled late next year would have a devastating effect on the economy. Tim Jeffries, a
consultant who works on strategic planning with small companies, said the $125 million that would be
taken from businesses — about half the total state property tax revenue — could be better spent on
creating thousands of new jobs.

Today's Daily Sun editorial: Dorm birth a wakeup call to end isolation
Arizona Daily Sun - April 15, 2008
Our view: When a life is at stake, privacy has to take a backseat to aggressive intervention. That NAU
students are having sex on campus is not news. That a student can give birth in her dorm room to a
stillborn infant without her suite-mates knowing about it -- or that she was even pregnant -- seems
almost beyond belief. The recent case resulted in no charges being brought against the student, even
though she disposed of the body in a trash bin. Without a corpse, prosecutors had no way of knowing
the condition of the infant at birth.

UA 'home run' is hit vs. cancer of colon
Arizona Daily Star - April 15, 2008
Two-drug combo in study is hailed as 'breakthrough'
Striking a major blow against a top killer — colon cancer — a new drug therapy cuts the threat of this
disease by as much as 90 percent in high-risk patients, University of Arizona scientists announced
Monday. The new therapy — combining the drug DFMO and an anti-inflammatory known as sulindac
— was tested in patients who had developed precancerous colon polyps, putting them at high risk for
full-fledged colon cancer. Overall, their likelihood of developing more dangerous polyps was cut by 70
percent after three years on the combination therapy.

UA salaries above average, below for research schools
Arizona Daily Star - April 15, 2008
Salaries for University of Arizona professors are above the national average for public universities
but lag behind most schools with comparable research activity. The annual report on college and
university faculty salaries released Monday by the American Association of University Professors
found that overall, faculty across the country saw their real income decline this year over last year.
The 3.8 percent salary increase was erased by a 4.1 percent rise in the consumer price index,
resulting in a loss of 0.3 percent.

UA researcher wins IBM award
Arizona Daily Star - April 15, 2008
For the second year in a row, Amar Gupta, Thomas R. Brown Chair in Management and Technology
at The University of Arizona's Eller College of Management, is the recipient of the IBM Faculty Award.
The award program is designed to foster collaboration between university researchers and those in
IBM research, development, and services organizations. The company looks worldwide for recipients.
IBM engineers Kenneth Day and Kenneth Boyd of Tucson, are working with Gupta as he continues to
refine his research on the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory production model. Boyd is currently on
assignment in Tel Aviv and is using some of Gupta's ideas.

15 reasons not to hate tax man
Arizona Daily Star - April 15, 2008
It's April 15, and here are 15 reasons to love the tax man. OK, love is, perhaps, too strong a term. Here
are 15 reasons to tolerate taxation. 1) The interstate through town is being widened. Sure it's a nuisance
now, but when those eight lanes are all open in a few years, they will accommodate 196,000 vehicles a
day, and we'll be able to speed safely through Tucson. (Of course, traffic by 2030 could exceed 300,000
vehicles a day.) 2 When you turn the spigot, water comes out. Yes, we know, there are doubts about the
future supply of water in the Colorado River, but for now the $4 billion Central Arizona Project, your tax
dollars at work, is keeping us from sucking our aquifers dry. Imagine, a 330-mile uphill river, just for little
old us.

2-drug cocktail slashes chance of getting colon cancer
Tucson Citizen - April 15, 2008
A combination of two drugs can reduce a person's risk of getting colon cancer by 70 percent to 95
percent, a University of Arizona researcher announced Monday. Eugene Gerner, director of the gastro-
intestinal program at the Arizona Cancer Center and professor of cell biology at UA, made the
announcement as part of the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in
San Diego. Gerner's partner in the research is Dr. Frank Meyskens, a former UA employee and
current director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California,
Irvine.

2 pines moved for UA sports building die
Tucson Citizen - April 15, 2008
Two of the four Aleppo pine trees moved last year because of construction at the University of
Arizona have died. The cause of death is unknown, but the strong suspicion is that the two affected
trees drowned from last summer's monsoon rains. "Those trees should have been put in the ground
immediately," said Elizabeth Davison, director of UA's campus arboretum. Instead, the 65-foot-tall trees,
which had spent three healthy decades providing shade on the UA Mall, were left in the transplanting
boxes in which they were placed for transport last May in an effort to keep them safe from construction
crews working near McKale Center.

Amid controversy, KTAR host broadcasts from campus
ASU Web Devil - April 15, 2008
ASU says it didn't ban station, will work with bus company to develop policy
An ASU parking lot became the battleground for a free speech debate Monday when a KTAR talk radio
personality hosted his show on campus to protest the station's being banned from University shuttle
buses. But on Monday, an ASU spokeswoman denied that ASU ever banned KTAR, saying that company
bus drivers was merely asked to turn down the radio or change the station if students were offended.
News/Talk 92.3 KTAR-FM morning talk show host Darrell Ankarlo broadcast his show from Lot 59 North
Monday morning, while listeners and students handed out flyers with a picture of the host behind bars
and the words "Free Ankarlo" below his mug shot.

Faculty salaries decline
UA Daily Wildcat Online - April 15, 2008
While UA faculty salaries exceed national averages, the university is struggling to attract and maintain
top employees. According to data from the Chronicle of Higher Education, full-time professors at the
UA will make an average of $113,100 during this school year, compared to $79,000 for associate
professors and $69,700 for assistant professors. All three figures exceed national averages for that
span by $6,000 to $10,000, according to a report by the American Association of University Professors.

Opinions: Bus stop
ASU Web Devil - April 14, 2008
When the words "free speech," "university" and "controversy" are put together, it always seems that
the university is causing controversy by pushing the limits of free speech. This kind of thing seems
to happen on a fairly consistent basis as schools try to live up to their billing as higher-education
institutions, attempt to push society in new directions with innovative ideas and act as champions of
the notion of free speech. And it should work no other way. For this reason alone, it's great to be a
college student.

Campus Acquisitions Eyes $30M Project Near ASU
GlobeSt.com - April 14, 2008 07:42pm
TEMPE, AZ-A company formed by Campus Acquisitions Inc. expects to close May 1 on the $5 million-
purchase of a 1.5-acre parcel near Arizona State University. The Chicago-based developer plans to
start immediately on construction of a $30-million, high-end student housing complex. The development
site at 922 and 936 E. Apache Blvd. formerly held a Taco Bell restaurant and Texaco station, respectively.
The land was sold by the Nelson Cos. of Des Moines, which acquired it last year to build a 100-unit
condominium project with ground-floor retail. When the bottom fell out of the condo market, Nelson
offered the property to Campus Acquisitions, which it had worked with on projects in Des Moines.

Stunning Images of the Red Planet's Biggest Moon
Scientific Computing - April 14, 2008
A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars' two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA
spacecraft orbiting Mars. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took two images of the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, within 10
minutes of each other on March 23, 2008. "Phobos is of great interest because it may be rich in water ice
and carbon-rich materials," said Alfred McEwen, HiRISE principal investigator at the Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Previous spacecraft, notably Mars Global Surveyor, have
taken higher-resolution pictures of Phobos because they flew closer to the moon, said Nathan Bridges,
HiRISE team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.

NASA spacecraft adjusts flight path for Mars landing
Newkerala.com News - April 13, 2008
Washington: NASA engineers have adjusted the flight path of the Phoenix Mars Lander, setting the space-
craft on course for its May 25th landing on the Red Planet. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera had taken more than three dozen images of the proposed
area for landing - a broad, flat valley informally called "Green Valley."

Opinion: Call it latte, but a tax is a tax and it adds up
Inside Tucson Business - April 15, 2008
When engineers need to know the precise strength of a structure, they test it by adding tiny amounts of
weight to an actual example or a model. Eventually, the structure fails. That last gram of weight – the one
that makes the difference between an intact structure and a pile of rubble – is pretty significant, at least to
the structure. Thus, it’s always with some amusement when I read of how "little" government programs
and taxes cost us. Gov. Janet Napolitano has said that the County Equalization Tax was worth only "two
lattes a month" to the owner of a $250,000 house. The County Equalization Tax is the 43-cent state
property tax imposed on all property owners to equalize funding across school districts.