Arpaio Promotes Immigration Hot-line, Accomplishes Nothing

The Arizona Republic, in its editor's desire to really inform the public of important news, has published a story in today's newspaper that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has painted signs advertising his illegal immigration hot-line on trucks and vans. According to the story, he did this because "We had a problem because we were having trouble getting the number out to the public." Apparently not enough people get copies of his press releases.

So let me make sure I understand this: Sheriff Arpaio is spending taxpayer dollars on "rolling billboard" that advertise a hot-line that has a success rate of barely four percent? Out of 2,000 calls, he's arrested 85 "suspects," which means 1,915 were a waste of time of the officers he has assigned to answer the calls and chase after the leads. If I recall other reports correctly, these 85 arrests are a combination of hot-line calls and the result of other investigations. What will probably lower the number even more is the fact these are "suspects" and won't be "convicted" until they're through the court system.

Look, nobody likes it when anyone breaks the law. But for a sheriff who has over watched as the county’s murder, rape and property crime rates have increased well above the national average; sits on 45,000 un-served felony warrants; is the subject of 4,900 outstanding lawsuits he pays private lawyers millions of taxpayer dollars to defend; and spends over $500,000 a year for fancy office space in the Wells Fargo Bank building, that spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a program that has a 4.25% success rate, it seems to me to demonstrate totally misplaced priorities and a lack of fiscal accountability.

Sheriff Arpaio is no longer entertaining or funny. He's not even successful at doing his job. He's now the joke and it's a really old joke that's getting older. It's time to retire Joe Arpaio.