Respect/Respeto

The Arizona Republic

Margarita V. Garcia
My Turn
Apr. 22, 2008 12:00 AM

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s helicopter is gone and his horses’ droppings have hardened, but his two-day Guadalupe stint has a familiar smell.

It was 1997 and hoping to save face from their disastrous roundup in Chandler, immigration officials swept into Guadalupe. Saying town officials solicited their help, immigration officials posed for every camera and spoke clearly into every microphone.

Despite criticisms from Latino leaders, Guadalupe’s mayor and council held their ground supporting the feds. So serious was the situation that Sheriff Joe himself dispatched deputies to protect our mayor. But in the end, nothing - nada - but a good show for more inept immigration officials.

Fast-forward 11 years. Enter Sheriff Joe. Except for the invitation, the stage is the same but the production was much better and the main character more rehearsed and qualified.

There he is, the star of the show, so certain that his Latin American and Drug Enforcement Administration experience is a perfect fit for stomping out Guadalupe’s problems.

The main character is billed as:

• Someone respected and envied by his peers for developing an extensive intelligence network by working with our neighboring cities, three school districts and the Yaqui Indian Tribe.

• Someone who works freely and independently without oversight from pesky town managers or citizen commissions.

• Someone whose community policing and crime rates would quell even the loudest of mayors and Latino activists.

• Someone whose herolike influence on our youth would cause a mass movement to careers in law enforcement.

• Someone who would never allow almost 1,000 backlogged warrants to exist in his town.

• Someone who enforces the law but epitomizes a compassionate conservative.

Surely, Guadalupe’s criminal element is no match for a lawman of such magnitude. But again, nada.

Instead, in reality, we have a Maricopa County sheriff who is proud that he scared away a dozen kids from getting confirmed by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted and caused the other 60 to focus on him instead of God.

If Guadalupe’s sweeps proved anything, it is that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has been in our tiny 420-acre community for more than 20 years but has never become a part of it.

As for “America’s toughest sheriff,” he still holds the honor of being Guadalupe’s most powerful and ineffective politico ever.

The writer is a Guadalupe Town Council member. She has lived in the town since 1960.