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November 12, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
An interview with Arizona's Governor-elect Janet Napolitano;
Families of two WWII two veterans, one a Navajo code talker, meet 60 years later.
In-Studio Guests:
Governor-elect Janet Napolitano

>> Jeanine: Tonight on "Horizon," Janet Napolitano will officially be sworn in as Arizona's 21st governor in January. Tonight she talks about the job ahead, including resolving the state's budget crisis, working with a Republican legislature and following through on her campaign promises. Plus, one was a Navajo code talker, the other a fellow Marine radio operator. They fought together in World War II. Now their families meet some 60 years later. Good evening, I'm Jeanine L'Ecuyer in tonight for Michael Grant. First, there is news tonight from the state capitol. Legislative leaders have agreed on spending cuts and budget changes totalling $240 million. That's to erase about half of the state's projected short fall. Now, this is a package that is largely drawn up by Governor Hull. It is set to be considered in a one-day lame duck special session later on this month, that is if the rank and file lawmakers go along with that idea. A one billion dollar budget shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year awaits governor-elect Janet Napolitano. The Democrat withstood the post-election counting of mail-in ballots and she has now been declared unofficial winner, at least until the ballots are canvassed later on. Here is a look at final results. Napolitano beat her opponent Repubiclan Matt Salmon by 1%, or 22,000 votes. Independent Dick Mahoney and Libertarian Barry Hess trailed far behind, receiving less than 10% of the total votes. Napolitano is the first Democrat elected to Arizona governor in 20 years. Joining me now is Arizona's current Attorney General governor-elect Janet Napolitano. Thank you so much for being here tonight. The glow wearing off or setting in?

>> Janet Napolitano: Little bit of both. The glow is dusting off a little bit and we're beginning now to work on the transition, begin the process of meeting with Governor Hull and her staff so that we can have a seamless of transition as possible.

>> Jeanine: When you mentioned that's going well, you had a meeting with the governor today?

>> Janet Napolitano: We had a very good meeting this morning. She had prepared briefing books and I think she and I will be meeting off and on throughout the transition. That process is well under way. I.

>> Announcer:Ed my transition team today.

>> Jeanine: A Republican and a Democrat?

>> Janet Napolitano: A Republican and Democrat as co-chairs. There are another 10 men's of the team and they began meeting today, to begin scoping out possible appointments to head agencies and to fill the various vacancies in the government.

>> Jeanine: You've got a budget mess on your hands. I know that's not a new news flash.

>> Janet Napolitano: Really?

>> Jeanine: Shocking. We have now got a special session on the books. Half of the budget deficit -- budget short folly raced. Is that likely to happen n your opinion?

>> Janet Napolitano: I think if they're going to go into special session, they ought to deal with the entire projected deficit for 2003 and fix it and I think this legislature, which was responsible for the 2003 budget has a responsibility to complete their jobs. But as it stands now, I don't know that they have the votes to do it, and we will certainly be meeting with legislators over the next few weeks to see where the areas of consensus can be drawn.

>> Jeanine: I guess that's the biggest question tonight. As you begin to get your arms around a budget crisis, the likes of which we have seen, to say there are grim faces at the state capitol is kind of an understatement these days. Where are you going to start? Are we looking at an increase in our state taxes?

>> Janet Napolitano: I don't think we're looking at an increase in tax rates, but I do believe that we need to address spending cuts, eliminating duplication and waste. Some of the cuts are going to be very, very painful. I had a call today, for example, from a gentleman who owns a well digging company. Well, to dig a well in Arizona you need to get a permit. You need to get the permit from the department of water resources. The department of water resources has already been severely cut back and they are going to get cut back more. So he can't get the permit and it's affecting his ability to do his job. Those are real cuts and they are going to affect real people this time. We are not going to be able to disguise them. I think we need to look at revenue bonding for school construction beginning in 2004 and I intend by the end of this month to appoint a citizens panel to look at not only the spending side of the budget but the tax side to see what loopholes legitimately should be closed.

>> Jeanine: Some of the legislators who have been around for a while have said there isn't anything left to cut. We're down to the bone now.

>> Janet Napolitano: Well, I think there are some places to cut. I'm going to begin with the office of excellence in government. That's sayonara. Some of those kinds of things. But I will tell you that, like I said earlier, these cuts are going to be very visible, because a lot of the excess has already been taken out of the budget.

>> Jeanine: Coming back to that notion of a tax increase, is it -- a lot of people are speaking as if it is inevitable, it cannot be done any other way.

>> Janet Napolitano: Well, I think -- that was a huge issue in this campaign for governor because I said, look, everything is on the table, meaning we'd have to start taking a look at the revenue side of the budget as well as the spending side. When you are planning your household income or your household budget, you take a look at what you are getting in and what you're likely to spend and what you absolutely have to spend. We're almost down to what we almost have to spend to provide certain essential services, public education, you know, child protective services, the department of corrections. You know, those are basic services that government provides that really can't be put on the private sector. Then -- and to say, we're not going to look at the revenue side, either, I this eye is short sighted. We need to be planning for the future so the next time there is a recession we don't have this kind of result.

>> Jeanine: Are we going to be looking at service cuts like delivery of police and fire services? I have to disclose I work for the City of Phoenix. I'm an employee, municipal employee but the city governments are scared.

>> Janet Napolitano: They're scared that the legislature is going to take from state shared revenue. That's revenue that goes back to them from which they fund police, fire, your libraries, all of those things. My proposed budget for '03 does not touch shared revenue. That's something we want to fight to protect. But I can't speak for the legislature on this score.

>> Jeanine: Some of the other things that you mentioned, for example, child protective services, the Department of Public Safety, is service delivery in those areas going to change?

>> Janet Napolitano: It may have to. One of the things we need to do is look at are there things we can do more efficiently and better so that we are -- we can continue to render the same or better service at a lower cost. We need to look at things like E-government and using more E-government types of options. We need to look at the whole process by which we staff some of these offices. We need to look at whether there can be some consolidations would that save us administrative overhead allowing us to put more on the ground. There are things we have an obligation to do to make sure those precious dollars are well spent.

>> Jeanine: You will be dealing with a Republican legislature.

>> Janet Napolitano: I will be.

>> Jeanine: How are you going to do that?

>> Janet Napolitano: I will deal with them like ideal with them now. I put forward my proposals. I always try to get bipartisan support. I approach things in a nonpartisan way. I think I was elected to help solve problems and not to be up there posturing, and I don't intend to posture. I intend to work.

>> Jeanine: Let's go to education. The revenue bonding you talked about for those of us less familiar with that, what do we mean when we say revenue bonding.

>> Janet Napolitano: What we mean is basically instead of paying for new school construction that is going to be taking place over the next few years out of the general fund, out of current dollars, that we would essentially issue bonds for that to be repaid over time. It essentially works like a mortgage on your home. You know, everybody -- most people, most of us, we have a mortgage on our home. Why? Because we can't pay -- afford to pay cash up front. And also we're going to be living in that home over years and it makes sense to spread the payments out. Schools are essentially houses of education and the bonding program or revenue bonding program would not only take pressure off the general fund, but it also would more fairly spread those costs out over the generations of children who will use those schools.

>> Jeanine: There's been resistance to that idea, though.

>> Janet Napolitano: Yeah and I don't get it. I don't understand, because economically, financially from a financial planning standpoint on you you best uses your dollars, there is no question that revenue bonding is the best way to go.

>> Jeanine: When you talk about 2003 we will have to muddle through somehow and planning for the next recession, is that an expectation you will place on this legislature? Is that something you're going to look to the JLBC to keep looking forward?

>> Janet Napolitano: I think the legislature of the past, and when I say that, I mean 10 years ago, 8, 10, 12 years ago, their key mistake and what we're paying for now is they did not plan for a rainy day and they had no long-term vision of what the state would need by way of infrastructure to accommodate the tremendous growth that we have. We need roads. We need schools. We need hospitals. These are things we have to plan for and take care of if we're going to continue to protect the Arizona quality of life or improve the Arizona quality of life. They didn't plan for that. They were very, very short sighted. We need to change that vision. We need to say, you know what? We're planning for this year, next year, but we need to be thinking where Arizona needs to be in four years, eight years, ten years, where we need to have assets, where those assets need to be placed where our population growth is likely to occur, and that needs to be an integral part of our budget process. The budget process sets the priorities. Those priorities however spin out more than just in the fiscal year. They spin out over many, many future years.

>> Jeanine: Clearly budge set a priority for you. What else is going to be at the top of your list when you come into office in January?

>> Janet Napolitano: Clearly education. I think when I campaigned for governor I said I was going to protect K-12 classroom spending from any future cuts. I intend to do that. I do not believe we should balance the budget of Arizona on the backs of another generation of school children. On the other hand, I'm going to challenge school districts and educators to find better ways or find more ways to put more money into the classroom out of the dollars they get as opposed to administration and there are always things we can all think about to improve where the dollars go so that we can begin raising teacher salaries, so we can begin think about reducing class size, so that we can pay for textbooks and lab supplies, hello.

>> Jeanine: When we're talking about begin to thinking about raising teacher salaries and begin to think -- that's exactly where we are, isn't it? We're at the begin to think. We can't get there yet.

>> Janet Napolitano: Well, I think there are some things we can do to start this year. And if we simply got every school district in Arizona to put 62 cents of the education dollar into the classroom instead of the average now, which is 58, 62 cents is the national average, we're at 58 --

>> Jeanine: Talking about four cents --

>> Janet Napolitano: That's $156 million, and you haven't raised a tax, but what you have done is challenged the districts to really look at the non-classroom expenditures to find four more pennies and I think that's a legitimate challenge to make.

>> Jeanine: Is AIMS helping that or hurting that, or standards testing, whether it's AIMS or anything else?

>> Janet Napolitano: I think we need an AIMS type test. The AIMS test we had was poorly implemented and a poorly designed testing instrument and we ended up wasting thousands of classroom hours and millions of dollars on it. So it needs to be rethought and redone, but we need to have some kind of a test so we can measure whether our schools are doing what they ought to do and our children are learning the curricula that we think they ought to learn. The only thing I would suggest and believe is that it should not be a high stakes test, meaning it shouldn't be a criteria for graduation. A single test, I think, is a very dangerous thing to have as a measure for graduation.

>> Jeanine: Have you picked staff yet?

>> Janet Napolitano: I have picked some staff. We haven't -- we haven't released those names but over the next week or two, we will be releasing names of people who will be coming with me to the 9th floor, and we are going to have a very open process in terms of recruiting people for agency directorships, deputy directorships. We're going to have a page on the governor's website for the transition for people to send in their resumes, and one of the functions, key functions, of the transition team I assembled was to make sure we recruit the best and the brightest, but also people who reflect the true diverse tea that is Arizona.

>> Jeanine: Do you expect a lot of changes in department heads?

>> Janet Napolitano: There will be some. There no doubt will be some but there will be a few that I will ask to stay.

>> Jeanine: Let's go back to the campaign for a little bit. Clean elections. We were talking before we went on the air, I've watched more than some, less than others, but my memory that was about the ugliest one I have seen in a while.

>> Janet Napolitano: There was a fair amount of mud being thrown.

>> Jeanine: A fair amount of mud, nastiness, fair amount of things that may or may not have been issues. In your opinion to clean elections work or not work?

>> Janet Napolitano: I think it worked, but I think it needs some change. I mean, we've now been through the first governor's race under clean elections. We had a clean elections campaign two years ago but it was for a seat on the Corporation Commission. So now we've been through the big TAHUNA. All the statewide offices were up, legislature and so forth, was up. I think we should sit down when the dust settles and thoughtful people should sit down and say, what worked well and what did not? I think everyone agrees that Dick Mahoney, the Independent, misused the million dollars he got to run probably the most negative campaign in Arizona history. From my standpoint, as a major party candidate running as a clean elections cadidate it worked ok. It worked fine and I was able to spend more time campaigning, meeting with voters, than I would have the other way, which was you spend all your time on the phone trying to raise money.

>> Jeanine: You had lots of support from the democratic party and organized support, which made one of our great pundits said it's not a member of an organized party, I'm a Democrat.

>> Janet Napolitano: I'm a Democrat. No, we did. The democratic party ran a tremendous coordinated campaign and had a very strong get out the vote effort in Arizona. It was particularly evident in the southern part of the state where we had Raul Grijalva running for Congress and he had his troops on the ground. We had thousands of people, volunteers working phone banks and walking doors on behalf of the democratic slate, and the result was I won and Terry Goddard won. So two of the top three offices are now held by Democrats.

>> Jeanine: It was interesting to me to note that you actually lost Maricopa County and won Pima County as well as some other key what we used to call outlying areas.

>> Janet Napolitano: We call it greater Arizona.

>> Jeanine: And the conventional wisdom, at least as I remember it, is you can't win without winning Maricopa County and you clearly have proved that wrong.

>> Janet Napolitano: Well, when I won Attorney General I lost Maricopa County in '98 as well. Maricopa County is heavily Republican in registration. So you can lose it, but you can't lose it by much in order to win statewide, and we were very competitive in Maricopa County, very proud of our efforts here, and that's because people saw me as a centrist, common sense person and we got quite a bit of crossover in this county.

>> Jeanine: Your employees, State of Arizona employees, some of the lowest paid, morale, we hear, depending on where you look, is not as good as one might hope and it has direct probably relationship to do with some of the salaries. How do you get at that? Is there a way to protect your state employees as you go through the budgeting process?

>> Janet Napolitano: We are going to fight for them. I respect the state employees, and we'll work closely with them and as we make decisions, we'll make sure we're in full communication with them. These are people -- these are working men and women. They have children, they have lives, they have families. We have full-time employees in the State of Arizona who qualify for food stamps. That's how bad it is. That's just an outrageous set of circumstances. So as things improve and things get better, we will also look to improve the lot of the state employees.

>> Jeanine: Do you expect layoffs of state employees?

>> Janet Napolitano: I would hope not, but I can anticipate that we'll have some significant hiring freezes and, again, that's going to have real impact out there, talk about the gentleman with the water wells. That's the kind of thing that gets affected by this kind of a budget crisis, but, you know what, we're going to deal witness, I'm going to work with the legislature to deal with it. I think we were elected to solve this problem and to start putting together the foundation for a better future, and that's my job as governor.

>> Jeanine: One last question. What was your favorite part of this campaign?

>> Janet Napolitano: My favorite part -- you know what? I loved just meeting people. I mean, I would go stand in front of a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon and hand out my brochures, I would go walk door to door. I even worked my own phone bank.

>> Jeanine: How do you have the stamina for that? Aren't you worn out?

>> Janet Napolitano: It was a great time. It was great meeting and talking with Arizonans, and what was very interesting to me and really confirmed my belief in Arizona is how astute the people were. They know we have a budget crisis. They know there's pain ahead. But I think we're willing to join arms and link arms together to get out of it.

>> Jeanine: Governor-elect Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Janet Napolitano, thank you so much for being with us.

>> Janet Napolitano: Thank you very much.

>> Jeanine: They became friends while serving as marine corps radio operators in the second world war. One was Navajo, the other anglo. After their return from the battlefield, their paths never crossed despite living only a few hundred miles apart. That changed thanks to an exhibit at the Arizona capitol museum. Recently museum staff arranged for the families of the two men to meet. Paul Atkinson and photographer Carol Lynde were there. A warning, the story does contain some World War II footage which is graphic in nature.

>> Reporter, Paul Atkinson: The Navajo code talker exhibit came to life in anticipation of a movie about the unsung heroes of World War II.

>> Joel Ayala: We have heard of Japanese and American historians that will tell you some of those battles in the south Pacific could have gone either way were other not for the code talkers.

>> Reporter: There are photos of the first Navajos recruited. And photos of them using the language as a military code. The capitol museum also has on display portraits of code talkers taken by a Japanese born photographer whose father fought against the U.S. in World War II.

>> Marian Shepherd: The photos are absolutely gorgeous. They really give a sense of who these men are and were and what they did. They are stunning.

>> Reporter: The exhibit also features the personal items of a radio operator who served with code talkers. The artifacts were loaned by the ex-Marine's widow who called the museum after seeing a newspaper story about the exhibit.

>> Marian Shepherd: Her husband had served with the -- one of the code talkers in Guam in 1944, and she was calling to let me know that she had a lot of artifacts and a letter and some photos and I asked her if she knew who the code talker was, and she said, yes, it was Sammy Sandoval, and at that point I let her know that Mr. Sandoval was still alive.

>> Reporter: Samuel Sandoval was 18 when he was recruited to join the marine corps in 1942. He would later meet Paul Dannacher from Davenport, Iowa. The two trained in San Diego as radio operators and got to know each other while stationed together in Guam.

>> Marian Shepherd: The photos in the Dannacher case that Mrs. Dannacher brought in were taken by her husband in the field, and these are actual on the spot photos. They're not staged. They're not posed. This is how they really were. And up until this point we had nothing like that. These are really, really important.

>> Reporter: While offering to loan her husband's personal effects, Mrs. Dannacher inquired about meeting the men in the photos, Sammy, or Samuel Sandoval lived in Shiprock, New Mexico. Museum staff asked Sandoval to let them know when he would be in town. He did.

>> Helen Dannacher: I'm really thrilled to see him and to meet him, and I don't know whether he remembers Paul or not, but we have pictures there, so I'm sure he probably has.

>> Reporter: Hell un and her daughter Carol wait anxiously at the exhibit. Samuel Sandoval was in town at an event honoring the code talkers. He arrives at the capitol museum with his wife Malula and grandson Kenneth.

>> Helen Dannacher: Is Sammy, I'm Helen Dannacher. Do you remember Danny? Do you remember Danny? Yes, I remember him.

>>> Do you remember --

>> Reporter: Helen Dannacher's husband Paul passed away in 1995. She knows little about Sandoval other than he served with her late husband.

>> Helen Dannacher: It's so nice meeting you. It's been so many years.

>> We have been down here for quite a while.

>> Helen Dannacher: It's wonderful to see you. Does this look familiar?

>> Reporter: Sam yum has few photographs from the four years he served in the corps. Helen promises to send him copies of her husband's candid snapshots.

>> Helen Dannacher: I'm really thrilled. This is one of the highlights of days of my life to meet Mr. Sandoval, because I was going through Paul's pictures, and I would say, Sammy Sandoval, and I didn't realize who he was until I was going through some Paul's papers.

>> Reporter: Helen's husband didn't talk much about the war. Paul Dannacher married Helen several months after he was discharged in 1946. The two met only one week before Paul was shipped off for basic training. It was through letters that they got to know each other and fell in love. It was also through a letter Paul never sent that Helen learned the extent of danger he faced fighting in the Pacific.

>> Helen Dannacher: He mentioned the twisted bodies and so forth and then he also mentioned, he says that the young replacements that they just got, they didn't last very long, and out of what is it, a company is 100 and some people, of marines, he says there were only 20 of them left out of that original 120 of that company. And this was on Okinawa, and he was one of the few that was left.

>> Samuel Sandoval: Many times it comes back to me...

>> Reporter: Samuel hasn't forgotten the images of death. They still haunt him.

>> Samuel Sandoval: Back in the days, in my younger days, like this youngster here, I remember my great, great grandfather saying, don't look at a human being, dead human being, or even the blood, but we had to go through that. It was our duty to be there.

>> Reporter: Paul Dannacher chose not to talk about his war experiences. Samuel did not have a choice.

>> Samuel Sandoval: After discharge, I didn't think anything of it because we were told to -- ordered by the marine corps not to say a word about our expedition or where in the tour of duty.

>> Reporter: It wasn't until 1968 that the rule of the code talker became declassified as a military secret. The 400 Navajos who served as marine corps radio operators have slowly received the praise so Longley overdue. Only about 100 code talkers are still alive.

>> Joel Ayala: I think it's still important now to acknowledge that contribution now that most of them are getting up in the years and they're passing away, and it's important for us to do the exhibit now and get them out and hopefully get them to talk about it, because otherwise those oral histories will be lost forever.

>> Joel, Mrs. Dannacher won't mind if you get close.

>> Reporter: The museum's director made sure to take photos of the story's latest twist, the reunion of two families whose paths might never have crossed again.

>> Marian Shepherd: Seeing two families come together after 60 years and to me that is just so incredible. You know, after 1944 Mr. Sandoval and Mr. Dannacher both went their separate ways. They both led very different lives for 60 years. And I think to have these two families reunited after all this time was just an incredible experience.

>> Carol Lyon: I'd like to thank all the people here at the museum and you for putting this all together because you did this it will be preserved. Thank you.

>> Helen Dannacher: It makes me feel very complete to know that this is happening, and Paul would have loved to have met Sammy, but it's nice. It gives me a very warm feeling.

>> Samuel Sandoval: I feel much better being sort of isolated myself for many years now that I met Paul's wife. I'm very honored.

>> Reporter: Samuel's wife Malula is making sure her husband's story is never forgotten.

>> Malula Sandoval: If some day he's gone, if he dies, I carry on his legacy, and my backup will be the videos that I took and the book and the documentary that I wrote up.

>> Reporter: Paul Dannacher's legacy was to be carried on by his son David, but David died suddenly in 2002 from a medical complication resulting from his military service. Helen is fearful that the story of her husband and the other marines who fought in World War II will some day go untold.

>> Helen Dannacher: The young people really, I want them to know what these brave young men did and there's a story to be told here. There really is. And I think it's important that the next generation knows what these brave young men did.

>> Jeanine: The Navajo code talker exhibit is on display at the state capitol museum. The museum is located underneath the capitol dome at 1700 West Washington. Museum hours are 8:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday.

>>> Tomorrow night on "Horizon," public health, disease prevention and education has played a major role in reducing the number of unnecessary deaths. But we could be doing better. We will look at how public health services can be improved. Then on Thursday, Phoenix landed the genomics consortium earlier this year. We will look at the progress made in its first 100 days. Then on Friday, a wrap-up of the week's political news on the journalists roundtable, including a tribute to outgoing republic editorial editor and long-time "Horizon" contributors Keven Willey. That's Friday on "Horizon." I'm Jeanine L'Ecuyer in tonight for Michael Grant. Great being with you this evening. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow night.