BY LINDA BENTLEY | JUNE 13, 2012
Desert Ridge JP to be decided in three-way primary
Schapira has made only two campaign contributions, both of which were to Democrats
PHOENIX – The race for the Desert Ridge Justice of the Peace, which serves the North and Northeast Phoenix areas, Cave Creek, Carefree, New River and Desert Hills, will be decided in the Republican primary election among three candidates.
Candidates in the race are incumbent Clancy Jayne, Bill Ponath and Jeff Scapira.
With 831 valid signatures required to appear on the ballot, Schapira collected 888 signatures, while Jayne and Ponath collected 1,101 and 1,286 respectively.
Yet, on June 13, it was Schapira, with only three minutes to spare before the 5 p.m.
deadline, who filed a complaint in Maricopa County Superior Court challenging the nomination petitions of Jayne and Ponath, in an attempt to disqualify them from appearing on the ballot.
However, on June 14, Deputy Maricopa County Attorney M. Colleen Connor, representing Maricopa County, filed a motion to dismiss, stating Schapira failed to name the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell and Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne as indispensible parties to the action as per A.R.S. § 16-351.
Schapira named only the candidates whose petitions he was challenging.
The case was scheduled to be heard before Superior Court Judge Colleen French on Tuesday, June 19.
Schapira has other issues plaguing him in this Republican primary. For starters, he doesn’t appear to be a Republican, despite his registration.
Over the past 12 years, Schapira has made only two campaign contributions, both of which were to Democrats.
In 2004, he donated $500 to Democrat presidential candidate Joe Lieberman.
In 2006, he donated $1,000 to Arizona Rep. Jack Jackson, Jr., another Democrat.
Jayne spent years dogged by the IRS for failure to pay income tax, with tax liens spanning from 1984 through 1992.
He finally paid his tax liens off when he ran for reelection to the state legislature in 2006, but was booted off the ballot for failure to collect the requisite number of valid signatures in a complaint brought by Rep. Carl Seel, R-Dist. 6.
Looks like Schapira has tax issues of his own, only his problem is with the Maricopa County Treasurer for failure to pay $5,113.50 in property taxes for 2011, which now includes an additional $340.89 in interest.
Neither Schapira nor Jayne have legal backgrounds.
Schapira appears unable to follow statute to file a proper petition challenge while Jayne still has trouble writing grammatically correct sentences, which became apparent in his responses to a number of complaints filed against him with the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct that resulted in both private and public reprimands.
Ponath, who is a lawyer that has served as a judge pro tem, authored the book, “Verdict for America.”
