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Landlords are the forgotten pandemic heroes

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ Glendale Star Columnist

The COVID-19 pandemic has been full of quiet heroism, men and women sacrifi cing to keep others healthy and safe. Doctors, nurses, fi refi ghters, paramedics, cops and grocery workers have all done amazing work and have all been recognized for their efforts.

But what about the owners of apartment complexes? The moms and pops who own duplexes or single-family rental homes? We have heard not a peep of praise about them despite their massive sacrifi ce over the past 16 months, a time period when they have been forced by various state and federal eviction moratorium orders to provide free rent to thousands of residents across Arizona.

I think it’s high time we do something many people fi nd unthinkable: Say something nice about the good actors often known derisively as “landlords.”

Full disclosure: In my day job as a public relations consultant, one of my clients is the Arizona Multihousing Association, a trade association representing the apartment industry. So, yes, I am predisposed to say kind things about property owners. That doesn’t change the fact that, beginning in March 2020, the state and then the feds voided more than one million leases in Arizona, suspending the private property rights not only of big companies that own apartments but retirees supplementing their Social Security with a rental property or two.

You think it’s tough having company stay a few nights too long? Imagine having residents stay 16 months with no rent while you pay the mortgage, property taxes, insurance and maintenance costs.

We didn’t force grocery stores to give away free food or gas stations to pass out free unleaded. But enforce free rent for a year-plus? Yes, we did.

One of the saddest parts of this story is the massive and underreported government snafu that has accompanied the eviction moratorium.

To date, Arizona at the state, county, city and town level has received about $1 billion in federal eviction relief funding. Thus far, 16 months into the pandemic, the agencies charged with distributing these funds have managed to give out about $134 million — or 13 cents of every relief dollar.

We can only wish government revenuers would be that ineffi cient when it comes to collecting our tax dollars.

These eviction relief programs, beset by red tape and overly complicated applications, have backlogs thousands of applications long. That’s tragic, because it never should have been this diffi cult to give away free money. Common sense should have dictated that everyone who qualifi ed for the eviction moratorium – in other words every renter who lost work or suffered a pandemic-induced salary cut – also qualifi ed for relief dollars. End of story.

That ship has sailed, however. And the Centers for Disease Control order suspending evictions is set to lapse on June 30. If it’s not extended again, tenant advocates say there will be a rush to the courthouse and a wave of evictions.

No property owners I’ve met look forward to evicting people, especially anyone who has struggled during the last year-plus that was 2020 and early 2021. At the same time, just as there are “slumlords” who give responsible property owners a bad name, there are also “bad apple” residents who used the moratorium as a vacation from responsibility.

They failed to pursue relief and went silent on the property manager. Instead of taking their stimulus checks or enhanced unemployment benefi ts and spending them on basics like rent, they decided responsibility could wait. Meanwhile, the back rent tab continues to rise.

So, thousands of property owners waited. For 16 months. Silently, amid frustration, the threat of bankruptcy and without an iota of praise for their efforts.

It seems like one kind column is the least we can do, no?

David Leibowitz has called the Valley home since 1995. Contact david@leibowitzsolo.com.

This ‘cicadas invasion’ is a battle worth fi ghting

BY JUDY BLUHM Glendale Star Columnist

Seventeen long years they have been waiting. Now, trillions of cicadas making a racket as loud as lawnmowers have emerged from their slumber throughout the Midwest and Eastern states.

The noisy little critters are considered a major nuisance because they amass in huge numbers in parks, wooded areas, neighborhoods and just about everywhere.

They fl y, land and crawl on trees, pets, cars and houses. People have claimed that the “cicadas invasion” is harmful to their mental health and doctors have reported that requests for anti-anxiety medication is on the rise. Ahh, the lovely sounds of nature. Why are cicadas so darn noisy? The males “sing” by fl exing their tymbals, which are drum-like organs in their abdomens. Small muscles rapidly pull the tymbals in and out, the sound intensifi ed by their mostly hollow abdomens. It’s one beautiful mating call.

When cicadas are burrowed underground, what do they do? Well, it seems they are tunneling and feeding, not really hibernating. Once they emerge as nymphs, they shed the exoskeleton, their wings infl ate, and they can begin their brief and loud adult life. If you are heading back East where the Brood X cicadas are serenading, you might take some ear plugs.

Hungry? I have a new recipe to share. First, you gather up a bunch of cicadas, throw them in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Then fry them up in a pan with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Get your dips ready because they are supposedly delicious with a little salad dressing. (Do not try this if you are allergic to shellfi sh.) A sustainable, cheap and high-protein snack. I saw this famous chef on a cooking show saying that cicadas and other insects are the “food of the future.” Well, I don’t like the looks of that future and I will not put a bug in my mouth. Intentionally that is. (I did swallow a fl y once by mistake.)

I was coerced into eating rattlesnake once. I was at Rawhide when it was in Cave Creek and my husband thought it would be fun to try it because it was

Justice for all?

BY J.D. HAYWORTH Glendale Star Columnist

“Equal justice under law,” reads the inscription carved above the columns on the magnificent building that houses the Supreme Court of the United States.

Business consultants who earn their living devising new concepts for “leadership in commerce,” (a dubious exercise, but a triumph of marketing) might call those words a “mission statement.”

That would be wrong.

Those four words encapsulate the essence of a republic, and we confuse them at our own peril. You may have been taught that the words “republic” and “democracy” are interchangeable.

Again, that would be wrong.

Ours is a constitutional republic — a form of government based upon the edicts enumerated in our Constitution — the supreme law of our land. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution further elaborates: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

In other words, our Constitution is a document of limited and enumerated powers, based upon law. That same Constitution establishes a framework for self-government, based not upon majority rule, but the supremacy of law, equally applied to all: the essence of justice.

Small wonder then, that Benjamin Franklin didn’t hesitate when asked by a Philadelphia socialite, “Dr. Franklin, what form of government have you given us?”

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

He knew how difficult that would be, and he also knew the dangers inherent in a democracy, because the printer-inventor-founder defined it in this way: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch.”

Dr. Franklin’s simple and powerful definition of democracy exposes the “tyranny of the majority” — and why confusing the term “republic” with “democracy” is dangerous.

Sadly, such confusion is commonplace.

Even more tragically, we have seen news coverage — or more accurately, elitist lectures disguised as news — sow seeds of more confusion.

In less than six months, the Biden Administration has opened our borders, empowered our enemies, dismantled our domestic energy production, dismissed concerns about ballot security, prioritized illegal aliens over citizens and instituted a policy of runaway spending, encouraging the Federal Reserve to just keep printing money, with the expansive inflation that inevitably accompanies that action.

And that’s not all.

Transforming the military into an institution of uniform political ideology instead of a fighting force is also underway; likewise, the effort to legitimize male athletes “in transition” dominating biological females in women’s athletic competition.

What else?

Plenty.

All done by executive action.

Where are the Republicans?

Well, they’re there, and some are putting up a fight — though the “alphabet networks,” their cable cousins, and the major newspapers ignore their efforts.

Some conservatives seek solace by looking to the political calendar, and the midterm elections scheduled for November of next year. Still others look to the judiciary and the three conservative Supreme Court Justices that were installed during the Trump Administration.

But the wheels of justice continue to turn — slowly — if at all.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, James Comey and John Brennan all enjoy freedom — despite suspicions that each of them have been involved in illegal activities.

Can we keep our Republic?

It may be easier to change the Supreme Court inscription: “Special justice for some.”

And that would be wrong.

J.D. Hayworth worked as a sportscaster at Channel 10 Phoenix from 1987 until 1994 and represented Arizona in Congress from 1995-2007.

KIRK’S OPINION – King Features

BLUHM FROM PAGE 10 one of its bestselling “snacks.” No, it does not taste like chicken. It is nothing more than a small, tough, cooked piece of viper. I almost choked on it.

Oh, I did watch someone eat chocolate-covered ants (very unsettling). And although I love chocolate, I refused to give the “haute-cuisine” a taste. I do not like bugs. My nephew in Ohio said he and his friends stuck cicadas on a stick and roasted them over a campfire. To me, that is what marshmallows are for.

But I digress. Cicadas are putting on one of the world’s great natural spectacles, that you must hear to believe. It is like a pulsing, surging electrical current. The sound heads for a crescendo before receding slightly, only to build up again to a roar. We can enjoy them in Prescott and Sedona as we head into summer. Scientists say their “music” has a special beat. Dear readers, just please don’t eat.

Judy Bluhm is a writer and a local Realtor. Have a story or a comment? Email her at judy@judybluhm.com.

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