40 MEGALOPOLITAN LIFE BEST BUSYWORK ICE AT SKY HARBOR As if air travel weren’t stressful enough. In March, Transportation Security Administra- tion agents were going unpaid amid a partial government shutdown stemming from a fight over the budget for the Department of Homeland Security and the tactics of Immi- gration and Customs Enforcement agents. President Donald Trump got the bright idea to send ICE agents into airports ostensibly to keep things running. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was among those to receive an ICE deployment, only for the agents to just kind of … stand around. Some peered over the shoulders of TSA agents who were working without a paycheck. Others rode the escalator up and down. Security wait times were minimal despite the shutdown. After a few days, the ICE agents returned to their normal duties of wreaking havoc across the country. i i i BEST LOOMING EXISTENTIAL CRISIS COLORADO RIVER WATER CUTS The pain is coming. We just don’t know how bad it’ll be. For a century, rights to Colorado River water have been determined by a complicated agreement that apportions the river’s supply among seven states, numerous Native American tribes and Mexico. This year, that agreement is set to expire. The parties that rely on the river — particularly the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and Cali- fornia — have been locked in a negotiation over the river’s future that keeps going nowhere. The river accounts for roughly 36% of Arizona’s water supply, and the Grand Canyon State is already staring at a possible 77% reduction in river water. If no agreement is reached, the federal govern- ment may impose one. Arizona is likely to get the short straw in that arrangement. The state has already set aside millions to fight any imposed cuts in court, but no matter what, it’s about to get even drier out here. i i i BEST ASS-KICKIN’ TURNING POINT GETS SMOKED IN SRP ELECTIONS It’s America’s dirty little not-so-secret: Here, in this grand home of democracy, tens of millions of voters never show up at the polls. And no one gets out of bed excited to vote in, say, public utility leadership elections. Until this year. In April, voters and landowners cast ballots to determine how the Salt River Project, the state’s oldest and biggest elec- tricity and water utility, would be governed. In a test of its political might after the murder of founder Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA decided to make the SRP elec- tions its pet project. It plastered the Valley with campaign signs and raised an army of volunteers to chase ballots, warning about a woke takeover of the utility. In most cases, that might’ve swayed a normally sleepy local contest. In reality, voters who may not have known who their SRP district board member was absolutely knew that TPUSA sucks donkey balls, so they turned out to vote against the new big bad of Arizona politics. In the end, renewable energy-friendly candi- dates notched their first-ever majority on the SRP governing board. For Turning Point, it was an embarrassing miscalculation. BEST BOTCHED INVESTIGATION SCOTTSDALE POLICE DEPARTMENT No wonder news outlets lapped it up: The accusations were filthy. Apparently, dancers at infamous Scottsdale strip joints Bones and Skin — owned, amusingly, by the brother of the Scottsdale mayor — were drugging patrons and running up ungodly bills on their credit cards. We’re talking invoices for nearly $180,000. “Holy Jennifer Lopez in ‘Hustlers!’” you might say. That was the tale Scottsdale police were telling, anyway. Alas, it might be bullshit. As Phoenix New Times reported, a lawsuit against the police department over its investigation laid bare many of the probe’s missteps. Scottsdale detectives never conclusively showed that a single customer had been drugged and never got a single club employee to admit any knowl- edge of such a drugging scheme. The cops never sent in an undercover detective and never raided the club to search for drugs. All it found were customers with morning- after regret and a strong incentive to say