Rep. Russell Pearce was leaning hard on the Arizona Department of Public Safety over its East Valley towing contract. The words he used to do it were written by a Cactus Towing lobbyist.
The Mesa Republican sent a letter to then-DPS director David Gonzales in March 2005 objecting to the agency’s plan to end the exclusive contract long held by Cactus.The letterhead and signature were Pearce’s.
The rest of the letter was written by John Mangum, a lobbyist for Cactus.Mangum sent a draft of the letter to a Cactus executive three days before Pearce signed and forwarded it to Gonzales. The text of the Pearce letter is virtually identical to Mangum’s draft.
Pearce says he has known Cactus’ former owner, Lee Watkins, for more than 20 years. They have become close friends, says Pearce, who has sponsored bills in the last few years that benefited the towing industry in general and Cactus in particular.
After Pearce’s son, Justin, was convicted on a felony charge of tampering with a public record in 2000, Watkins gave him a job as a tow truck driver.
When Pearce ran for office, Watkins and his employees were among his most reliable donors. Since 2004, Pearce has raked in $2,280 from Cactus employees, their spouses and company lobbyists.
That doesn’t sound like much. But many of the donations were at or near the maximum allowed by law for individual contributions. Pearce raised a total of $20,842 from individual donors in his 2006 campaign, his last run for office.
Pearce also bought a car from Cactus, a Toyota sedan that he drove for five years. Pearce says he got no special deals on the car, which he described as “wrecked.”
Pearce says his intervention with DPS came after Watkins complained he was being mistreated by the agency. But those efforts were aimed at forcing DPS to follow the law in allotting its towing contracts, and were not meant to benefit Watkins or his company, Pearce says.“I thought if they were mistreating him (Watkins) because they don’t like him, and they’re not following the law, that offends me,” Pearce said, adding he never pressured the state police to favor Cactus. “
If he feels he has been wronged, Lee is the first to say ‘hey, this isn’t right.’ And like anybody, if you listen, if you agree, you are willing to take up his fight.
“Integrity is the most important thing a guy has. You don’t wage war for things you don’t believe in,” Pearce said.
Watkins would not agree to an interview. His lawyer, Kent Nicholas, says the reason is the ongoing criminal investigation into Cactus Towing by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, launched three years ago.
Sheriff’s detectives served search warrants on Cactus’ office in March 2005. The investigation into allegations of overcharges under city and state towing contracts is still open.
2 comments:
Russell Pearce is ghetto-fabulous!
Will there ever be real rotation?
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