Homeless in Arizona

My question is not about any of the events that happened in this article.

But rather is it legal for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to ban a person such as Terri Proud from being hired by a government agency in Arizona???

Yes, I know that many high ranking jobs in Arizona government serve at the will of the governor and those people can be fired for any reason. But I don't think it is legal for the governor to black list people from being hired by the state of Arizona.

I also have a major problem with Arizona Government Jan Brewer for filing a frivolous lawsuit in Federal court in an attempt to flush Arizona's medical marijuana laws down the toilet.

And of course I am still angry at Arizona Governor Jan Brewer who when she was a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisor and she voted to steal a billion bucks from us and give it to Jerry Colangelo to build his Bank One Ballpark.

Source

Arizona Veterans' Services director resigns

By Lindsey Collom The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Apr 3, 2013 10:49 PM

The director of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services abruptly resigned over his hiring of a former state legislator whose recent comments about female troops serving on the front lines have inflamed veterans groups.

A spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that Joey Strickland disobeyed a direct order when he hired former Rep. Terri Proud, R-Tucson, who was quoted this week as questioning a woman’s fitness for combat during menstruation.

Strickland’s office had hired Proud in March to start work this month as his female-veterans convention coordinator, an offer that was rescinded Wednesday.

Brewer’s spokesman, Matthew Benson, said Strickland had erred in hiring Proud after he “was given strict instructions not to.” Strickland, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, first inquired about hiring Proud about a year ago when she was still serving in the state Legislature, and he was told not to do so. Benson declined to give a reason for that instruction.

“He chose to hire this individual anyway and, unfortunately, that person’s judgment was on display this week with some exceptionally ill-chosen public remarks regarding women in the military,” Benson said. “Of all people, Colonel Strickland should understand what it means to disobey a direct order, and, unfortunately, that’s why we are where we are today.”

He said Brewer was “grateful for Colonel Strickland’s years of honorable service to our country and to the state of Arizona.”

Strickland, 65, who offered his resignation to Brewer’s chief of staff on Tuesday, said he takes full responsibility. But he denies that he was disobeying an order and said Wednesday that he “didn’t realize” the order — given when Proud had proposed to resign as a state lawmaker before the end of her term last year — “meant that we could never hire her.”

“I was told by the chief of staff at the time, Scott Smith, that I could not hire her because it would be like we were doing a political favor by hiring her and that it was against the regulations for her to resign from the Legislature and come work for a state agency,” Strickland said. “We dropped it, and quite honestly, we forgot about it.”

When Proud again applied for a job with his office in March, Strickland said he didn’t think anything of it because she was no longer an elected official. And although she was not a veteran, he said, Proud was sensitive to veterans’ issues: She grew up in a military family, served on the House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee and championed a bill to create a state license plate honoring female veterans.

Proud said that her comments to the University of Arizona’s Arizona-Sonora News Service were taken “completely out of context” and that she’s devastated by the fallout. Proud said that female recruits should be able to serve in whatever role they wanted; the “joke” to the reporter was just that, she added.

“I would like to know what the hell have I done to the governor to piss her off so bad?” Proud said. “I am a single mom, I have a daughter with a terminal lung disease, and I have served the state in an honorable way. To be screwed like this, what the hell did I do to you, Jan Brewer? What the hell did Joey Strickland do?”

The first the Governor’s Office had heard of Proud’s new job came Tuesday in an e-mail that Strickland had passed on from a veteran who threatened to make political hay out of the hiring. In the e-mail, the veteran expressed concern that the director was “under extreme duress” to employ Proud, which Strickland flatly denies. He forwarded the e-mail to one of Brewer’s policy advisers and, not long after, said he received a call from an irate member of Brewer’s staff.

“He was yelling and screaming and using profanity,” Strickland said. “It startled me. I’ve never been talked to that way. The only thing I could think of was, ‘Mr. Smith, do you want me to tender my resignation?’ And he said, ‘Send the effing thing up here, and I’ll see if the governor will act on it.’”

His official resignation was requested at a meeting with several governor’s administrators Tuesday evening.

“They said they wanted to move into a new direction,” Strickland said. “That really devastated me. I’ve been an outstanding director. Am I not allowed to make a mistake?”

Strickland has been popular with veterans since being appointed director in July 2008, as officials were trying to resolve critical care issues in the state-run veterans home. Before coming to Arizona, Strickland spent more than 10 years as deputy secretary and executive director of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs. He retired from active duty in 1994 after nearly 29 years in the Army, according to the veterans department website.

Deputy Director Robert Barnes has been named interim director.

“Joey Strickland has been a legend among the veterans community, and this is just, something is really wrong,” said Joe Abodeely, an attorney and veterans advocate. “This is really just a political hack job.”