38 Best of phoenix 2023 | WWW.bestofphoenix2023.c0m | septemBer 28, 2023 so-called Christian university, this scrap of land on Colter Street in west Phoenix was merely a real estate venture. But to 46 families, the humble park was home. And when GCU gave them all eviction notices, those families organized, banding together not just with each other but with other mobile home park resi- dents across the Valley in similar circum- stances. At Periwinkle, a leader emerged: Alondra Ruiz Vazquez, a grandmother who ran a local soccer club and lived in Periwinkle with her husband for years. Ruiz had never organized a protest. But with the support of longtime community organizers in Phoenix, she was soon chanting into bullhorns, speaking at city council meetings, and heading up a movement with her neighbors. Yet despite her efforts, despite the community rallying around her, despite teary pledges from lawmakers to do something about the displacement, GCU got what it wanted. In May, the park was closed, fracturing a community and forcing residents out of their homes. It was, in a sense, inevitable. The Periwinkle residents were up against a Goliath with flashy lawyers and the city in its pocket. Yet the impossibility of their struggle never made them hesitate. They knew their fight was a righteous one. And there’s no question that the impacts of the Periwinkle protests — the way these families forced the powerful to witness the human toll of our housing crisis — will reverberate on. Best Self-Own WENDY ROGERS Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers is the master of the self-own. From calling herself an Oath Keeper to comparing herself to Kyle Rittenhouse to supporting the white-nationalist “great replacement theory,” Rogers is nuttier than a racist Snickers bar. In 2022, the Republican- controlled Arizona Senate censured the election-denying Trump-worshipper after she called for gallows to be built for traitors and tweeted out antisemitic tropes vilifying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish. She later went all Alex Jones on us by suggesting that a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., was a false-flag operation. But one of her best self-owns happened earlier this year when she took out a restraining order against Arizona Capitol Times reporter Camryn Sanchez, who had the temerity to knock on Rogers’ door while investigating whether Rogers actually lives in her district. Sanchez fought the order, and after a hearing where Rogers admitted that she’d knocked on “tens of thousands” of doors as a candidate for public office, a Flagstaff judge dismissed the restraining order. Rogers was pilloried for her fool- ishness. Did wrong-way Wendy finally jump the shark? You would’ve thought so, but in July, Rogers tweeted out a video containing X-rated activities involving Hunter Biden. She later took down the video, but some opined that she may have violated Arizona’s revenge porn law by posting it in the first place. Just when you think Rogers can’t go lower, she slides right into the septic tank. Best Bizarre Political Stunt STEPHANIE STAHL HAMILTON The only thing dumber than Democratic State Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton’s wacky prank of hiding Bibles in the state House lounge was the Republicans’ overreaction to it. The Tucson Democrat was caught on camera picking up Bibles lying around the lounge and hiding them beneath cushions and in the refrigerator. Supposedly this was her way of making a point about the separation of church and state. Granted, that’s kind of weird, but so what? Hamilton, who’s a Presbyterian minister, apologized for her behavior. But that wasn’t good enough for the Republicans, who tried to expel her from the House, but they fell a few votes short. They did have the votes to censure her, though, but just barely. Apparently, some of the GOP members were afraid they may have inadvertently sat on the Word of the Lord, though sources tell us that at least one nasty case of hemorrhoids was miraculously cured in this fashion. Praise Jay-sus. Best Act of Bipartisanship EXPELLING LIZ HARRIS Traditionally, the Arizona Legislature is a vast reservoir of bad behavior, especially by Republicans, who have controlled the state House and Senate for all of recent memory and have raged uncontrollably and without accountability for so long they no longer recognize that their time of unlimited power will soon be past tense. During the last legislative session, Republicans largely doubled down on extremism, despite their dwindling majority. But something happened when it came to expelling state Rep. Liz Harris, a fellow GOPer from Mesa who invited a conspiracy theorist to testify at a committee hearing. The conspiracy nutbag then proceeded to accuse both Democrats and Republicans of taking bribes from Mexican drug cartels. Granted, if the QAnon crackpot had taken aim only at Dems, the outcome might have been different, but she was not so discrimi- nating, and Harris was on the hook for this nonsense. An unusual bipartisan coalition in the state House voted to expel Harris from the chamber. In some ways, the act marks a turning point for Arizona politics.
