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Transcripts

December 10, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Changes for Child Protective Services;
· Pet Partners;
· Winter Tourism in Arizona.
In-Studio Guests:
Howie Fischer, Capitol Media Services;
Jaye O'Donnell, Arizona Department of Tourism.

>> Michael Grant: Tonight on "Horizon," the state Senate makes changes to a house bill to overhaul the state's Child Protective Services. We'll have an update on the special session. Plus the unconditional love of a pet can have remarkable effects on recovering medical patients. Meet the pet partners. And the Fiesta Bowl and other events will soon bring visitors to our state. We check on the state of tourism for our winter season. Good evening, I'm' Michael Grant. First up in the news a key ruling from the United States Supreme Court today. Justices upheld the campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold. Upheld were provisions of that law banning unregulated contributions known as soft money to political parties and restricting some radio and TV ads right before elections. Legislature has been working on a bill to revamp CPS as well as other legislation. Today they seemed to be at an impasse, again. In a moment we'll update you on that as well as other stories making news today. First Merry Lucero has some background on the current special session stalemate.

>> Reporter: For the past 52 days the state legislature has been meeting in a special session, a main priority, overhauling Child Protective Services. But much of the negotiating has gone on in private meetings and not much has resulted. Back in October Governor Napolitano proposed a 35.5 million plan for more caseworkers, foster parent compensation and other reforms. Last week the house came up with a bill that carried only $2.7 million in funding and now there is a Senate bill with $21 million in funding.

>> David Berns: We need $27 million just to keep the program running the way that it's been operating, which isn't at the level that any of us wanted, and so we needed funding because we were short right from the beginning of the year. The second issue is that we didn't want money without policy changes. We believe that the system has to be improved and that we needed to have legislative improvement as well as programmatic improvement to keep kids safe.

>> Mark Anderson: Are we saying that the records are open except for certain cases or except for federal law or are we saying the records are close except for these people?

>> Reporter: Policy changes are being crafted dealing with joint investigations, what constitutes child abuse, releasing CPS records, child safety issues, open hearings and other provisions. But the main stumbling block to reaching a compromise on the CPS bill is still money. The new Senate bill was negotiated with the governor. It was discussed in the Senate family services committee after more committee meetings the Senate passed the bill today.

>> David Berns: We're not getting nearly what we had originally asked for, but we're getting what we need to move forward, and assuming that it passes both houses and that we would be able to make the programmatic changes and make the -- have the funds to keep our staff onboard and move forward.

>> Reporter: Therein lies the rub. The bill has stalled because the House of Representatives' leadership has reservations about it, especially the funding.

>> Michael Grant: Joining me now to talk about the special session and other news is Howie Fischer, chief correspondent with Capitol Media Services. Okay, the Senate moves the bill back to the house.

>> Howie Fischer: Yes.

>> Michael Grant: It's not dead on arrival but is it on life support?

>> Howie Fischer: Well, let's just say they're going to have to do major surgery to keep this one alive. The differences obviously start with the money. The house believes that you can hire 40-some additional caseworkers with just $2.7 million of new money. They say CPS is part of a larger Department of Economic Security, that they have billions of dollars and they should be able to look in the cushions and find the nickels and dimes.

>> Michael Grant: And Department of Economic Security does have billions of dollars. They do get a nice blend of both federal and state general funds.

>> Howie Fischer: Of course, the argument to the governor and director Berns as we saw is that much of this money is earmarked for specific programs, even unemployment benefits and things like that. So he says you can only move a certain amount of it around. The Senate side add little closer with the governor, said we'll give you $7.5 million for new employees. Because we recognize that we're telling you investigate every complaint of child abuse neglect, which we don't do now. And we'll give you another $13 million in a supplemental to carry you through at least February and then if in fact there's no more money to be found, if the auditor general can't come one more money in DES, we will make a verbal commitment to come one some additional funds. The house just went crazy over this. They're not convinced the agency needs any money. There's a couple policy issues, too. The biggest is when the bill came over from the house it's presumed all juvenile court hearings are open. There's a lot of argument that how are you going to give the agency more money and not have public oversight how it operates when it does take kids, when it doesn't? By the time the Senate got done with it, we were down to essentially pilot projects in only the largest counties, between 5 and 10% of hearings would be open with some exceptions to that and no requirement for public access to the courts and even the question of what records would be accessible to the public was closed.

>> Michael Grant: Was the county attorney out there today literally? I mean, I know he's obviously not very happy with the Senate version.

>> Howie Fischer: No, but he has a lobbyist, Mark Fall, who has been out there and has been very, very vocal in explaining, I'm willing to back the money but we have to have the reforms. From Rick's perspective, he's already backed off. He thinks CPS should be a whole separate agency. He thinks that the investigative arm should be definitely separated. He says, look, I backed off on that. I'm willing to consider other money but you've got to have the reforms. Now, some of what Rick wants is in fact in there in terms of some additional access to public records. In terms of revamping the mission of CPS to make the protection of child paramount rather than preservation of the family --

>> Michael Grant: Does not go far enough.

>> Howie Fischer: Does not go far enough as far as he's concerned.

>> Michael Grant: Speaker did not appoint a conference committee to meet and confer with the Senate on this thing and our days are getting down to a precious few, are they not?

>> Howie Fischer: The problem becomes we are today in day 52 of this special what was hopefully a two or three-week special session. The speaker said, look, I'll work Thursday, I'll work Friday, I'll work Saturday. Next week we've got a real problem. There are lawmakers who said we have planned vacation for months. Going to go away around Christmas, figured we could get out in the middle of December, the session started October 20th. As you start losing people, there isn't the critical mass there to get the necessary votes. This issue the governor is going to put a big emphasis on, she says we really have a crisis. There's the related issue of the prison funding. Representative Russell Pearce said, look, so what if we go home without resolving it. We're only four weeks from the regular session. I don't feel there is any emergency for additional prison beds.

>> Michael Grant: And the real logjam there being that the Senate has approved money but only for temporary beds. The house not only wants some permanent prison beds but also wants permanent private prison beds?

>> Howie Fischer: Exactly. The house's belief is that the governor has dragged her feet on this saying there's already law on the books to go ahead and contract for private prison in Kingman for 1400. There's a contract for like 3600 down in Marana. The governor dragged her feet. They want to make sure she in fact does create private prisons and give the long-term contracts necessary for construction.

>> Michael Grant: Howie, just out of curiosity we have been talking about this short fall in beds. Where are these people right now? I keep wondering where --

>> Howie Fischer: Some of them quite frankly are in day rooms. They're in hallways of the prisons. Some of them are in county jails where they have contracts with Coconino County, for example, and with Navajo County. Some of them are actually being held in other county jails at state expense, in other words, the state says, yes, we know this person has been -- has been sentenced, we were supposed to pick them up.

>> Michael Grant: You hang onto them, we'll pay the $100 a day.

>> Howie Fischer: Exactly. But that's not -- clearly not an answer. It's really not a long-term solution. What is a long-term solution? It's obviously got to be a mix of temporary and permanent beds.

>> Michael Grant: I understand we now have a club for mainstream Arizona?

>> Howie Fischer: Well, what happened is there's a group called -- the club for growth. This is based out of Washington D.C. and they want to elect conservatives, using again this label system that nobody is happy with. They've already backed people like representative Jeff Flake for Congress. Now they want to put a million dollars into next year's legislative races to get the right, capital R, kind of people elected to the legislature. This has alarmed a lot of the moderate Republicans. So today Grant Woods, who is a former Attorney General, and Jack Jewett, who is a former State Rep, still on the Board of Regents announced they were forming a mainstream Arizona group. They want to get money from all sorts of sources, including corporate sources because of the way the law is worded to counter what Club for arizona is going to do. They want to run issue ads. The law says any of these groups can't -- you can't use this kind of money, you can't use corporate money to say go out and vote for John Smith and vote against Jane Doe. But you can run an ad saying we have a crisis in child protective services, and John Smith when he was in the legislature did a lot to help us out and you should call John Smith and congratulate him. And I'll tell you, in a tight race, that type of publicity, if you put a million dollars on TV in Arizona that goes a long way.

>> Michael Grant: And one of the other things they can't do is target someone. They really only could speak in support of someone, correct, with whatever ad budget they may have?

>> Howie Fischer: Up to a point and again with the issue ads you could do the reverse. We have a crisis in CPS and I want you to know these lawmakers voted against funding for CPS.

>> Michael Grant: Call them and tell them --

>> Howie Fischer: You think that they're idiots. But again if you don't say the magic words vote for or vote against you stay within the federal law.

>> Michael Grant: At this point in time they have 40, $45,000 in the bank or pledged --

>> Howie Fischer: They have 45,000 pledged, I think they're hoping to get close to the match of the million dollars that the club for growth has.

>> Michael Grant: All right. Howie Fischer, thanks very much for the info.

>>> Michael Grant: It began as an everyday drive down the street. What followed led one Phoenix family from pain and misery to the happiness and beauty of unconditional love. Producer Merry Lucero, Videographer Richard Torruellas and editor Ben Avechuco bring you the story.

>> Jennifer Morse: I went to turn. I don't remember the impact, but I know that when I came to we had been broadsided by an SUV, and when I woke up, both of my kids, they didn't -- they weren't responsive. They were knocked out. Michael didn't look like he was alive, and Alexis was bleeding a lot.

>> Reporter: A nightmare was happening and Jennifer Morse could only wait for the paramedics.

>> Jennifer Morse: So I rode with Michael, and I could hear him in the back and he was dying, his lungs were punctured and I could hear it bleeding. They kept coming down and saying, and he has a Chip in the vertebrae in his check. And he has a broken collar bone. And he has several broken ribs. And he has a chest tube and a collapsed lung. And he has a broken pelvis. And he has bruising on his liver and his kidneys and it's bleeding internally and we'll have to watch that. And finally he has a very serious head injury. He has skull fracture and he has a bruise on his brain and if he lives 12 hours we'll consider that a very good sign. And if he lives 24, he has a pretty good chance.

>> Reporter: Michael was in a coma for 12 days. Then he began to -- the slow painful process of recovery, physical therapy, neurorehab, but something was missing.

>> Jennifer Morse: During that whole time he just almost wasn't -- he was like a rag doll. He was trying -- he knew who we were, and he was glad to see us, we would come in and he would be glad to see mom and grandma and dad, but he was very flat emotionally. He couldn't tell you how he felt. I don't think he knew how he felt.

>> Reporter: What would it take for the Michael that his family knew to return? The answer might surprise you.

>> He is the soul of unconditional love. They represent the best of humanity. Here they are giving of themselves for the love of people, and sharing the love of their -- of their companion animal.

>> Michael Morse: You can feel them loving you and you can love them back. It's a connection that you don't get with human beings.

>> Reporter: Michael Morse's greatest emotional boost in recovering from his traumatic injuries, the love he felt from and for some puppies that were brought to him in the hospital.

>> Jennifer Morse: The whole unit was abuzz. The puppies are here, the puppies are here! But the greatest thing was Michael just brightened right up. Big Michael smile. Puppies! And he was holding them, and just loving on them. You can see in the picture he just looks better than he has the whole time. He just looks so happy.

>> Michael Morse: Most of the time up until that point people wanted me to do things, and I was having a hard time giving it to them. But the puppies, they wanted attention and I could give it to them no matter what. I had no problems. So it was a feeling of accomplishment kind of.

>> Reporter: It's called pet facilitated therapy, people and their companion animals visit hospitals, nursing homes other and places where they can raise the spirits of those who need it most.

>> I love you!

>> Reporter: The therapy method gets credibility from research and clinical study by a national association called the delta society. Edie Moore is program manager for the delta pet partners pet therapy program.

>> Edie Moore: If a person can just reach out and stroke a dog's head, that has been show to lower their blood pressure, and that can help relieve stress for the parents of the sick child, for the child itself. It just can bring a touch of home to somebody who is in a situation they're not happy with.

>> Dee Ketinas: We have children who, you know, were able to move and walk because of the desire to reach the animal or seniors who have a difficult time in moving their arms will do -- will pass over the pain in order to actually pet the animal.

>> Reporter: Dee Kotinas founded animals benefit club a nonprofit no kill shelter and is the instructor for pet partners. Potential members attend a day-and-a-half long workshop.

>> Dee Ketinas: And your dog is going to be thinking and working. Make no mistake of that, that that produces stress. So you have to know how to relax and how to help your animal relax.

>> Reporter: The volunteers learn how to deal with different medical and social situations.

>> It's very difficult, isn't it?

>> We have somebody here to visit. Hello, Doug. I understand that you had an injury here, and I've brought Tonto to visit with you.

>> Really?

>> Tonto, can you say hello?

>> Can I pet him?

>> Reporter: They see a demonstration of a typical visit and finally must pass a skills and aptitude test with their pet. Which includes reenacting situations that could potentially scare the pet. Once they pass, the teams can start sharing the love.

>> Carol Imbriale: I've always felt that she could really be a good pet partner, and now, you know, it's coming to be a reality, and we've been talking about the different places we can take her and we'd like to go to the children's home and we'd like to go to nursing homes and hospitals.

>> Reporter: Pet partners don't always have to be dogs. Rabbits get into the act.

>> Do you want to pet the rabbit?

>> Sure.

>> Reporter: And another loving animal whose favorite watering hole is a nursing home, rebel the miniature horse. Some residents seem fixed on rearranging rebel's mane but the main thing she brings is a lift to spirits at St. Joe is sufficient's hospital children's rehabilitative services kids take their minds off their troubles and trying days can have moments of fun. Children with special needs also have positive experiences with the pet partner teams. Edie Moore visits academic behavioral alternatives, a school for students with behavioral and other challenges. Moore enjoys sharing Tonto's love and life let sons.

>> Edie Moore: There are time when the children are upset and my dog has come to know these children, and he visibly gets concerned when he sees someone he knows is upset. Tonto is upset because you're his friend, and so they can say, oh, well, they feel bad about hurting Tonto's feelings and it helps them to get out of themselves a bit and deal with the situation.

>> Reporter: At Barrow neurorehab unit in Phoenix patients are healing from spinal cord and trotmatic brain injuries, stroke, cancer, tombers and other ailments that recreational therapist Sara Roth says she see pet therapy help patients verbalize and recall memories.

>> Sara Roth: We also see that patients are able initiate if they have had a stroke and they're not able to use the left side of the body, sometimes there will be work on putting the animal on that side of the body and having them initiate and try to use the weaker extremity so that it's something that they're very familiar with working with the animals, that they're able to sometimes get more movement out of the hand by working with the pets.

>> Reporter: And this is where Michael Morse felt happy again for the first time after the traumatic accident that nearly took his life, because of the puppies.

>> Michael Morse: Just a feeling of love, comfort. I was truly happy.

>> Reporter: And he his sister have healed well from the accident and now Michael is passing on what he got from that visit in the hospital. He adopted Biscuit. They took obedience classes to prepare for the pet partners workshop and certification.

>> Michael Morse: I'm kind of thinking we're going to take her and get to see how she makes other people happy, go back to the ICU and brighten up other people's lives because it's very dim. It's not very happy to go there and just lie there all day, then get up, exercise, and feel cruddy. So it kind of brightens up your day.

>> Reporter: So being a pet partner will be both his contribution and his reward, plus Michael says, it's a nice thing to do.

>> Michael Grant: The Morse family is still recovering from their injuries. Jennifer Morse says the booster seat saved her daughter's life. Pet partners and the animals benefit club subsist on charitable contributions.

>>> Michael Grant: We are into Arizona's busy winter tourist season, Fiesta Bowl, big marathon, winter hot spots, other stuff Schorr to bring vistors to our state. Joining me now to talk about it is Jaye O'Donnell. She is the Director of Advertising and Media Relations for the Arizona Department of Tourism. Jaye, Kansas state and Ohio state, that should be a pretty good draw, I would think.

>> Jaye O'Donnell: Should be a great draw. They are known for being travelling teams.

>> Michael Grant: Is the Fiesta Bowl really become sort of the kickoff gateway event to the high season for tourism?

>> Jaye O'Donnell: It is a great way for the tourism industry in Arizona to start their year. You may have heard recently that we have reported third quarter indicators, and we have increased over last year during third quarter, so our spending is looking better in terms of lodging, retail, amusements and restaurant. We have gone from $2.7 billion in spending last year to $2.9 billion in spending. So we have made some headway in terms of recovery, but the Fiesta Bowl should help increment -- help build that recovery incrementally in terms of the kicking off the start of the year.

>> Michael Grant: In general nationwide, has the travel/tourism industry pretty much recovered from 9/11 or not?

>> Jaye O'Donnell: We're starting to see a bit of a recovery, however, Arizona is faring better than the national average. Our occupancy level for third quarter were up 4.8% and the national average I believe was 2.1%. So we are faring as a state a bit better.

>> Michael Grant: You know, I read in the newspaper this morning about this huge marathon that's coming here in about a month. That's the first I had heard of it.

>> Jaye O'Donnell: We are involved in the PF Chang's rock-'n-roll marathon. It's January 11th. It's actually a combination of a full marathon as well as a half marathon. So it's the first event of its kind and they're expecting to break a world record with the number of runners who are coming to the Valley to race.

>> Michael Grant: I guess 30,000 or so. Now, are the visitors associated with something like that, are tease people who travel a marathon circuit or follow a marathon circuit?

>> Jaye O'Donnell: Exactly. And actually I think this race will probably garner even more than an average marathon would because the course is said to be a flat course, which is great for runners. I would love to be running in it, but I'm going to be having a baby around that time, so I won't be involved. However, I will be standing on the sidelines cheering the runners. But, yes, they do travel and they travel well. In fact, the economic impact that is expected is quite significant. In fact, the runners are expect to stay longer than just the weekend of the race and travel to different parts of the state as well.

>> Michael Grant: And the sponsoring group on this does two or three other similar type events in other parts of the country?

>> Jaye O'Donnell: Elite racing does produce this event and they have a rock-'n-roll marathon in San Diego, they also have a marathon? Virginia beach, it's a half marathon, in Nashville as well. But this is the first time they've combined a half marathon with the full marathon. The race starts in downtown Phoenix. The full marathon goes through Scottsdale and then both of the races end up in downtown Tempe.

>> Michael Grant: You know, it's interesting, you've got obviously the Phoenix open, you've got the classic car event, you move into cactus league. I mean, really, it's a steady stream of events into the March, April time frame.

>> Jaye O'Donnell: Exactly. It's a great push for us to have those major event draws during that time period. The Fiesta Bowl kicks it off obviously, to have this race, the rock-'n-roll marathon in the middle of January as a nice sort of cushion in between there, Phoenix open, Tucson Open. We go into the Barrett Jackson classic car auction. And then we also have spring training and spring training as you well know is a huge economic impact generator for Arizona as a state.

>> Michael Grant: Tell me about scenic roads.

>> Jaye O'Donnell: Arizona scenic roads, Governor Napolitano announced the Arizona scenic roads website. It's a new website, a new product that was launched recently. It's actually sitting on Arizonaguide.com. It's a collaboration between sister agencies, the Arizona Department of Transportation, they provide add significant amount of content for the site, Arizona highways also contributed consent to the site as well as their gorgeous award winning photographs and then the Arizona office of tourism, we provided the creative direction, and it is a phenomenal site. There are other scenic roads in other states around the country, however, this is a first website of its kind in Arizona that we're launching. It features the 22 scenic roads around Arizona, many of them are located in rural parts of the state and it's our way of really helping to encourage travel to parts throughout Arizona, especially rural communities.

>> Michael Grant: Have you got a website address?

>> Jaye O'Donnell: It's Arizonascenicroads.com.

>> Michael Grant: Okay. Jaye O'Donnell, thank you very much for joining us. Sounds like a lot of things to do. We'll kick it off the with Fiesta Bowl that the for transcripts of this program and related links you can go to our website. That address is www.kaet.asu.edu, click on "Horizon," and follow the links. You can also see what's on upcoming "Horizon" programs. Speaking of which, Governor Napolitano will join me here tomorrow. You can ask her a question via e-mail, and we may use it on the program. Send your questions to horizon@asu.edu. Here's a look at some of the issues we will be covering tomorrow with the governor.

>> Michael Grant: The special legislative session is still going but Governor Janet Napolitano and the legislature have come to an agreement on a major stumbling block, funding and reform for Child Protective Services. Join Governor Napolitano for her monthly visit on "Horizon" as she talks about the special session and her recent veto court victory. Governor Napolitano Thursday at 7:00 on "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant: Thanks very much for joining us on this Wednesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Hope you have a great one. Good night.

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