Arizona 9-11 Memorial

Sept. 11, 2006

Transcript:

Michael Grant:
Tonight on Horizon a preview of tomorrow's primary election. We take a look at the most significant races voters will consider, and on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, a new memorial in Wesley Bolin plaza.

Announcer:
Horizon is made possible by contributions from the friends of eight, members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

Michael Grant: Good evening. Thanks for joining us tonight on Horizon. I'm Michael Grant. Voters statewide going to the polls tomorrow to choose candidates who will run in the general election in November. Here's a selection of some of the races voters will consider.

Michael Grant:
Joining us now to talk about the races that will make a significant impact into November, Arizona Republic reporter Robbie Sherwood who's got a little touch of laryngitis. You going to hang in there?

Robbie Sherwood:
It's good to be here but my voice didn't quite make it with me.

Michael Grant:
I will ask long questions. First question is kind of short. Probably not a real good turnout tomorrow.

Robbie Sherwood: County officials are predicting I believe sub 20%. Maybe significantly lower than that. So that could mean a couple of things, particularly in your governor's -- a lot of the Republican primaries and the governor's race could actually have some real impact there.

Michael Grant:
Yeah, we will get to it in more depth but the more effective your campaign, the more targeted at early ballots, the return rate of which has been really significantly off this year. Obviously, that can count on primary election day and very much so when you get a low voter turnout.

Robbie Sherwood:
Yeah, because not very many people are going to show up tomorrow. Some of these races might already have been won because of, if candidates were able to launch some sort of early ballot campaign and only one gubernatorial candidate so far has been able to do that.

Michael Grant:
Story this morning on the possible effects of proposition 200 tomorrow. We've got to encourage everyone, remember to show up with either your driver's license or a couple of other pieces of I.D. That have an address on them that matches.

Robbie Sherwood:
Yeah. There's a wide variety of nonphoto I.D. that is acceptable, including utility bills and your voter registration card, your sample ballot in Maricopa county, but you do yourself a favor --

Michael Grant:
Voter registration.

Robbie Sherwood:
Absolutely. Despite the public campaign to try to make sure people know to bring this, there are just areas of the state where this is -- people predict this is going to be a problem, particularly I think all eyes will be on the Navaho Indian reservation. They have a very strong tradition of showing up early in the polls. Very few people vote early. It's a county fair atmosphere there, but they also have a tremendous poverty, you have people who don't speak English very well. People without driver's licenses, without even tribal census cards. And a tradition of poll workers who are reluctant to ask for I.D. That if they have known you for years, it's offensive in that culture to even ask you for I.D. And so they have had to take all these special steps to make sure people can vote.

Michael Grant:
Alright, four-way primary for governor. Boils down to a decision probably between Len Munsil and Don Goldwater.

Robbie Sherwood:
Absolutely. And it's Goldwater's had the edge despite having fund raising issues until just the last few days. Because of the name I.D. Len Munsil's got his clean elections fund raising early in the game. Was able to target early voters and according to some internal polling that you see has been coming on strong, and most people I've talked to believe that Munsil will probably pull it out.

Michael Grant:
In fact, Robbie, Goldwater finally got the clean election money last Tuesday. Knew it was coming on the proceeding Friday, but still wasn't up on television for another couple days.

Robbie Sherwood:
At least in Maricopa county. I don't know if this was further evidence of a lack of organization, but he didn't have any time to spare. And yet wasn't on the air in two crucial days. So people will look back if he doesn't win, at strategic mistakes, even once he did get funded. The low turnout I believe is a benefactor for Len Munsil. He has the stronger organization through his ties to the center for Arizona policy, which is a large public policy organization that works on social issues and morals issues. Those are people that are going to show up for their guy. And, you know, maybe no one else.

Michael Grant:
That's right. Shifting over to the D side, other major race where we've got a primary contest is superintendent of public instruction, Slade Mead and Jason Williams on the democratic side.

Robbie Sherwood:
Yes. Mead has some name identification there to the extent that he can have that in that race. All earned while he was a Republican. I think that Jason Williams is a young, energetic schoolteacher, has some qualifications. Mead has never been in a classroom; he's been on school boards, but I think that Mead's political experience makes him the favorite there.

Michael Grant:
No argument here. Interestingly enough, though, as you well know, Slade Mead's legislative profile, though, was sort of as being a maverick in the Republican Party in the state senate. And you wonder how well that plays in a low-turnout, primary election.

Robbie Sherwood:
Since he did so much to benefit governor Janet Napolitano, the democrat, and this is now a democratic primary, probably something he's been bragging about.

Michael Grant:
Let's go down to congressional district 8, because nationally there's a lot of focus on that primary. Got about 11 or 12 candidates in the mix of 2 parties. Is it boiling down basically to two on each side?

Robbie Sherwood:
Two and two. The republican side and then some fascinating stuff with the way national money has been spent in a primary, in unprecedented ways, at least for Arizona. The republicans you have a Randy Graf who is running the hard line, anti-illegal immigration candidacy, he ran before against Jim Colby. And you have Steve Huffman who was a moderate in the legislature who is being forced to talk about immigration when he's really a tax guy and has a lot of bright ideas about that. But the race has been co-opted by the immigration. The democrats, you have two very strong candidates, Patti Weiss, long-time anchor woman, been on the air there 30 years. People made her the early favorite because of her strong name identification. People have been having dinner with her every night for 30 years. And Gabrielle Giffords, a very talented politician, strong campaigner, was in the legislature, had political experience. Seemed to have the better political resume, but the prognosticators were still saying, well, if you have been on TV that's all voters need to know and name I.D. Trumps but the most recent polls in that district show Giffords outworking and winning.

Michael Grant:
Winning comfortably. I think the last poll that I saw from the last week was maybe 15 points for Gabby Giffords.

Robbie Sherwood: Right. You know, in a way it's sort of renews your faith in voters. No knock on Weiss. I think she's run a -- she's -- wouldn't be a bad candidate. It's just the political experience should trump in that situation and yet sometimes you see that it doesn't. If people sort of recognize the name and vote for it.

Michael Grant:
This is going to be very interesting. Let's, assuming Randy Graf takes it which is not a foregone conclusion, but that conventional wisdom down there is that if Randy Graf, the very conservative immigration candidate takes it, the Ds automatically win. And it's going to be interesting to see if conventional wisdom plays out that way in November. Because that is a district, obviously, heavily impacted by the whole immigration issue.

Robbie Sherwood:
Voter anger good immigration transcends party lines. So it could be a shocker. However, I think if the republicans thought Randy Graf could win they wouldn't have sunk money into Steve Huffman's race down there in the middle of a crowded republican primary which is really controversial thing to do. And at the same time, spending money against Gabrielle Giffords, seeing her as the stronger candidate. The way that that money has been spent shows you who is winning and who is more afraid of whom in the general.

Michael Grant:
You know, there's another primary up in the northern part of the state. Actually, it's the rural district that loops all the way from the north down through much of eastern Arizona, and that's Rick Renszi is the incumbent there. Ellen Simon, a contested primary on the d-side, has put together some serious money, a lot of it hers.

Robbie Sherwood:
Yeah. There's other candidates there, none of them have very much money at all and Ellen Simon who is writing -- raising a respectable amount of money, plus writing, you know, three or four hundred thousand dollars worth of checks of her own to the race. That has some national prognosticators putting that into more of a swing column. I still think that Rick Renszi will be next to impossible to beat. He's popular with democrats there. Ellen Simon has had some issues that have come up in regards mostly to her husband and child support issues that he had from a previous marriage in Canada and that were big enough to make the news. That's been dogging her. Business issues, and then the fact that she made her living as an attorney for the ACLU. In some democratic dominated districts that might be seen as a plus. In rural Arizona, the democrats are not like other places. They're armed to the teeth, frequently socially conservative and an ACLU attorney might not be their cup of tea.

Michael Grant:
And right from the start, Rick Renszi has faced and beaten back some competition. Let's at least touch on the legislative race, probably the one that has gotten the most profile and that's in Scottsdale involving Senator Carolyn Allen and Colette Rosati.

Robbie Sherwood:
Yeah, Allen is the incumbent. She is a self professed and proud moderate republican. And Colette Rosati is coming over from the House where she has been sort of a textbook, very socially conservative republican who has made news with things she said that got under people's skin. This is part of a carryover from 2004, where moderate republicans were pretty much targeted in a lot of races, more so in the House. I don't know that that formula works in the senate where everybody in the district of the party gets to vote. Rosati won house seats by having a strong organization of a core group of voters who voted for only her, the single shot theory. You can't single shot a senate candidate. Plus, Allen has just raised tons of money.

Michael Grant:
She is also very popular as you know, Robbie, in Scottsdale. Again, though, low voter turnout, that might be another race that could be impacted by that.

Robbie Sherwood: It could be close, but I think that Allen's core group in Scottsdale will trump Rosati's core group which seems to be from fountain hills.

Michael Grant: Well, I suppose we shall see. We may get election results just you know, remarkably fast because --

Robbie Sherwood: May not take very long to count. We might all be home by 9:00.

Michael Grant: Robbie Sherwood, Arizona republic, thank you.

Robbie Sherwood: Thank you.

Michael Grant: Watch that voice. Today, to mark fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001, Governor Janet Napolitano dedicating Arizona's 9/11 memorial called "moving memories," at Wesley Bolin plaza. Larry Lemmons visited the memorial a few days ago and spoke with one of the designers.

Eddie Jones:
Light's very ethereal and constantly changing and it's positive. It's historically and traditionally we have always associated light with hope.

Larry Lemmons:
Hope and light, to mark the anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history, September 11, 2001.

Announcer:
Tower 2 collapsed. This is tower 1. Within minutes after that we were ordered out.

Larry Lemmons:
This is the newly created Arizona 9/11 memorial in Wesley Bolin plaza. Messages are cut into the memorial. A time line of events that day and subsequently. They disappear and reappear as light changes.

Eddie Jones:
Did you see that? Isn't that amazing? I love it when that happens. And it will be -- see, it's getting more and more intense.

Larry Lemmons:
Eddie Jones is one of the designers of the memorial. Currently, the Jones studio is, in fact, an exhibit at the Scottsdale museum of contemporary art.

Eddie Jones:
We have been an exhibit for four months. And it's been very rewarding. We get to be one on one with the public. We get to talk to kids and school groups and we -- I think we're getting -- it's probably more out of it than the visitors are.

Larry Lemmons:
The 9/11 memorial, called "moving memories," was chosen by the Arizona 9/11 commission from many entries. It's the creation of three designers, Jones, and two of the studio's architects, Matt and Maria Salenger.

Eddie Jones:
They are a registered artist team with the state of Arizona. I am not. But we decided to collaborate and it was wonderful. The ideas and the way we sort of evolved our ideas, and clarified our position, emotion. It was so much about a personal statement in the beginning. But we felt, you know, we have a responsibility to try and communicate beyond our feelings. Our feelings aren't even relevant when you take in the entire community. The fire department from New York City gifted a very large and heavy steel beam fragment from the world trade center site and that's going to be positioned here on the pedestal. And you see the circle of light? Every September 11 at 12:00 in the afternoon, this circle of light will perfectly be centered over the beam fragment. Circles always symbolize unity, solidarity and peace. And we wanted the memorial to be a very peaceful place. We also wanted to provide shade for people that might be here during the summer, especially children, you know, classrooms that will attend this memorial as a field trip.

Larry Lemmons:
The Arizona 9/11 memorial is a reminder of that fateful day made on our consciousness. The impact it still makes. It's a moving memory that suggests a path to the future.

Eddie Jones:
My hope is people will begin to understand the context of that day and that from that, we can find encouragement that we are -- we are at our best when we rise to the occasion. And to extend that further, if someone would have come from the memorial thinking, gosh, we're all in this same boat, we're all on the same planet, you know, maybe we need to begin to appreciate our relationship with the whole world regardless of color and nationality.

Michael Grant:
Here now to tell us more about the memorial and what it means, the two other designers of "moving memories," Maria and Matthew Salenger. Matthew, I guess we ought to state the day we were shooting that video, there was a water problem at the memorial. It is not under water. Correct?

Matthew Salenger:
No. It will never have water sitting in it. There was a lot of debris that had been washed in there from a monsoon three weeks ago and that was causing the drain to be clogged, but that's all been cleaned out.

Michael Grant:
Matthew, I have great admiration for people who can do what you and Maria can do. One thing that strikes me is the enormity of 9/11. How in the world do you stand back from an event like that and create a memorial? Was that a painful, difficult, gut wrenching talent stretching kind of exercise?

Matthew Salenger:
In a lot of ways it was. I think all three of us were really heavily affected by the events of 9/11, and that's why we all really wanted to get into this competition. Mostly to work through our own emotions about it and not so much to win the competition or to have any kind of glory or any part of that. And it really was the culmination of the three of us sitting down and reading all the information that was put together by the Arizona 9/11 commission and the historians at ASU, Nancy Delette and her team. Reading through that and bringing all these memories back us to about what we felt after the events of 9/11. And realizing that all of this information that they collected which were a range of time lines and sentiments and interviews from people, and Arizona involvement in the events, plus all the really neat things that people around the state did to celebrate the unity we all felt afterwards. Anyway, t make that the culmination and the basis of the memorial, all we knew is that that needed to be the basis. And as Eddie said to use sunlight as a major material influence and put those two pieces of the art form together, the sentiments and the sunlight, was really where the creation began.

Michael Grant:
Still, Maria, even when perhaps you have now narrowed it to that extent, there's a variety of different ways in which you could display that information. This is a wonderful way to do it, the moving memories, a concept. What led you to that?

Maria Salenger:
Well, we did study different forms of how to include all of this text. And when you talk about the enormity of the event itself and one of the things that we really wanted to include was this great difference in scale in the way somebody in New York experienced the events and the way that we experienced them here, and really talk about that, that distance and then the different scales of the -- of what was happening in the relief efforts, whether it was the firemen who ran into the building or the, for instance, there was a 12-year-old girl in Goodyear, Arizona, who sold t-shirts to build a memorial there.

Michael Grant:
Those were juxtaposed.

Maria Salenger:
To put all that difference in scale together. So we studied and thinking about how the call for the memorial was to have something that was no maintenance and no moving parts. But we knew we wanted it to be something dynamic that can show this change of information happening. So we studied different ways of cutting out the text and letters out of steel and what kind of forms it should have as a canopy. And that really led us to looking at the technical situation of having to get the canopy a certain distance away from the screen you present the letters on which for us was the concrete bench. So that really led to the linear form of the -- the way that the canopy comes down close to the concrete bench. And then the charge to have it be a gathering space and a place with shade had us continue the canopy up and around and create that whole enclosure.

Michael Grant:
Matthew, you were making the point and it's a good one, too, about how your memories do. You will focus on one thing and then focus on another. And that is a very nice way to display that concept, as well.

Matthew Salenger:
Yeah, I think in reading all these sentiments and everything again it brought back all these memories for us and it started reminding us of the emotions and everything we felt at the beginning which I think was really healing for us. And we wanted to portray that for everybody else, to have the same kind of healing process, so that they could come to the memorial. You know, a major part of the idea of the memorial is it's in this circle which represents the unity we all felt in the days following 9/11, but also that the nation had really gotten polarized after that, and we wanted to find a way to bring everybody back together, so all of these sentiments and everything - there's really a broad range of emotions and reactions and facts - all of that's put back together. We hope that creates a dialogue that's included in the memorial. And this circle that you stand within while you read it, we hope creates a dialogue with yourself that involves each and individual that's at the memorial in a dialogue with their own memories. And hopefully realizing how their memories changed and how their emotions and ideas can change, too.

Michael Grant:
Maria, just about out of time, but I understand there was an interfaith service early this morning before the official dedication? Pretty moving?

Maria Salenger:
It was a wonderful event. The Arizona interfaith movement had representatives from many different religions there. I think there were eight to 10 people that spoke and each of them gave a prayer, a blessing, and a song for the space.

Matthew Salenger:
I think the most important thing that they did was really -- they were calling for peace. And all the memorial, the most important thing I think about the memorial is that we need to remember, you know, the events of 9/11 because of where it's brought us today. And it's important to understand those pieces. It's led us into war and it's important to understand if there were misleadings into that based on 9/11. We need to remember those things. And they brought all that up and brought up peace.

Michael Grant:
Matthew Salenger, thank you so much for being here. Maria Salenger, our thanks to you as well.

Announcer:
What brings people to the polls on Election Day? Or lulls them into a state of political apathy? On primary election day, we look at why voter turnout is relatively row in American politics. Plus, arts organizations enrich our community with culture as funding for the arts faces new challenges. A look at funding for arts. Tuesday on Horizon.

Michael Grant:
Thanks for joining us on a Monday. We will see you tomorrow. I'm Michael grant. Have a great one. Good night.