Fighting words
Among the sayings that have angered the conservatives, one says “erroneous U.S. air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians.”

While a pair of East Valley lawmakers say they want the Legislature to take action against a Sept. 11 memorial they call an “insult” to the victims of that day’s terrorist attacks, the commission charged with approving the placement of the memorial in Wesley Bolin Plaza will review the monument’s controversial laser-cut inscriptions “and see if some of them could be removed,” the panel’s chairman said.
Former state Sen. Tom Smith, chairman of the Legislative Governmental Mall Commission, also said the commission hadn’t made it a practice to review the wording of any memorials.
“We sure as heck will do it in the future,” he told The Associated Press.
The memorial includes quotations like: “You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles” and highlights chronological events such as “Congress questions why CIA and FBI didn’t prevent attacks” and “Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians,” a reference to a wedding party mistakenly bombed by American forces in Afghanistan.
Among the other inscriptions: “FBI agent issued July 2001 warning in ‘Phoenix Memo,’” “Steve of Scottsdale wrote songs for brother, Robby,”
“Grace of Phoenix Made Kids Giggle Again,” and “Violent acts leading U.S. to war, 05-07-1915, 12-07-41, 08-04-64 and 09-11-01.”
Mr. Smith’s commission in February heard a presentation from the Governor’s Sept. 11 Memorial Commission on its plans for the memorial and authorized its placement near the State Capitol.
He said he will personally review all the inscriptions and have the Mall Commission meet, likely in October, “to review the statements that have been engraved in the 9-11 memorial and see if some of them could be removed.”
However, Mr. Smith added, “I can’t do anything until I get all the facts.”
Mall commission ‘responsible’
A Phoenix Republican who served in the Legislature from 1991 through 2002, Mr. Smith said he didn’t know who or what would pay for any costs of altering the privately funded memorial, but that he believes the Mall Commission has the authority to revisit its authorization.
“The Capital Mall Commission is responsible for the placement of the memorials that go into Wesley Bolin Plaza,” he told The Associated Press. “Therefore, I think we have not only the responsibility but we have the authority to make any changes if something’s happened that’s inappropriate.”
Matt Salenger, an artist who worked on the project, told the Mall Commission at the Feb. 17 meeting the memorial’s creators wanted the inscriptions to “capture the really wide range of reaction, sentiments and facts and events that all occurred around the events of 9-11, 2001.”
Mr. Salenger told the Mall Commission that the inscriptions would include events from Sept. 11, 2001, and years following.
“In between that we have an array of all kinds of sentiments, reactions and Arizona relief efforts that went into helping out after 9-11,” he said.
According to a recording of the meeting, Mall Commission members asked a handful of questions, including whether there would be any representation of 9-11 victims.
Mr. Salenger replied that the name of the only Arizona resident killed in the attacks, Tempe businessman Gary Bird, would be included but that there also would be references to other Arizonans who responded to the attacks.
He earlier said the number of cuts to make the inscriptions in the steel canopy would equal the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the Flight 93 crash at Shanksville, Penn.
Mr. Smith told The Associated Press on Sept. 27, that it never occurred to him during the February meeting to check on details of the inscriptions’ wording.
“We never thought anything would be inappropriate,” he said. “It didn’t sound like there would be anything controversial.”
He also said he didn’t think his commission was misled. “No, I think we could have been naïve”
Legislative involvement
Rep. Russell Pearce, R-18, told Arizona Capitol Times he plans on submitting legislation next session to tear down the existing memorial, which was recently dedicated on the five-year anniversary of the 2001 attacks, and build a new one.
He also suggested the Legislature may act to call itself into a special session to address the issue prior to the regular session in January.
Rep. Laura Knaperek, R-17, said she would like to begin the process of launching a special session now.
“We’ll just sign petitions and get enough signatures,” she said, referring to the requirements in the state Constitution that two-thirds of the members in both the House and Senate sign a petition requesting a special session.
A spokesman for House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-10, said no representative had requested the paperwork needed to begin a special session. Though Barret Marson said the speaker would like to see the memorial altered to remove what he called “political statements” about the attacks and the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said there was little chance a special session would actually come about.
“There is no concrete talk of a special session,” Mr. Marson said, adding that Mr. Weiers and Ms. Knaperek had a brief telephone conversation about the possibility before dismissing it.
Even if Ms. Knaperek or Mr. Pearce opted to circulate a petition for a special session, it is unlikely they would be able to get enough traction in the Legislature to force the issue, as they would need to gather the signatures of at least 20 senators and 40 representatives.
The Legislature has not called itself back into session since Dec. 1, 1981, when it did so to address legislative and congressional redistricting.
Mr. Marson also cautioned that any bill passed by the Legislature, whether in a special session or in the regular session that begins in January, would have to be signed by Governor Napolitano.
She has been criticized about the monument by her Republican opponent in the November gubernatorial election, Len Munsil, but has expressed support for the memorial.
The governor said she didn’t have any oversight over the design of the memorial or the committee that approved it. She also hinted the complaints are designed to harm her re-election campaign.
“Obviously the timing [of criticism] is obvious to everyone. The criticism itself is more appropriately answered by the commission,” Ms.
Napolitano said, adding that she did not play a role in approving the memorial. “I knew the general schematic. I knew the concept was to use a disk, with the sunlight coming in and illuminating a piece of the World Trade Center, but I didn’t see the wording, no.”
Although the monument was designed and approved by a 30-member committee created by an executive order in 2002 by then-Governor Jane Hull, Mr. Marson said it is now unclear whether the monument was under the purview of the executive or legislative branch of government.
He said legislation may be required to make any alterations because the monument has been completed and dedicated to the state.
Regardless of how changes must be made, Mr. Pearce said he is determined to make sure they happen. He said he is considering putting a measure on the 2008 ballot asking voters to approve the changes, and he joked that he would take the memorial down himself if he had to.
“We’re not going to let it stand – we’re going to rectify it, one way or the other,” he said. “If I have to come over with my own hammer, enough is enough. I’ve got a hammer that will take this down.”
GOP blasts Napolitano in commercial
The Arizona Republican Party released a commercial Sept. 27 laying the blame for the controversial memorial at the feet of Ms. Napolitano, at one point displaying the words “dishonorable” and “disrespectful” over her picture.
“We think it’s pretty powerful and delivers a message that Arizona voters need to see,” Garrick Taylor, a spokesman for the party, said.
The ad, which is more than two minutes in length, keys in on a statement Ms. Napolitano made at the Sept. 11 dedication of the memorial.
“My task, and the task I gave to the commission, was to make sure that Arizona children understood what had happened,” she said at the time.
The ad calls the monument a “shameful insult” to the people who died in the terrorist attacks.
In the ad, an audio of Ms. Napolitano at a recent press conference tells people they have to see the memorial before criticizing it “because you can only see it as a very honorable and respectful memorial. Come down and see how it all fits together,” text is displayed saying that Arizona families “have seen how it all fits together,” followed by a speaker at a Sept. 25 protest calling for the governor to tear the memorial down.
Mr. Taylor did not disclose how much the commercial cost to make, only saying it was created “economically.” It is currently only available on the Internet at the Republican Party’s official Web site, www.azgop.org, and at www.youtube.com, though he said the party may decide to release it elsewhere in the future.
Jeanine L’Ecuyer, a spokeswoman for Ms. Napolitano’s re-election campaign, said she hadn’t seen the commercial yet, but she had heard about it.
“It sounds like I don’t need to dignify it with a comment,” she said.
Ms. L’Ecuyer said the commercial’s assertion that the governor is to blame for the perceived offensive inscriptions is erroneous because the governor made no decisions about the monument, deciding instead to agree with the decisions made by the volunteers on the 9/11 Commission created by Governor Hull.
She also said the Republican Party was using the media to get information about the commercial in front of the public, as the Clean Elections system would prevent them from putting it on television.
“If they were to buy time and put it on TV, it would indeed trigger matching [Clean Elections] funds for the Napolitano campaign,” she said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this story. Arizona Capitol Times reporter Phil Riske contributed to this article.