Propaganda Flash: These posters for the food tax hearings hanging around downtown Phoenix depict police brutality on carrots.

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Children sang, citizens spoke, and protesters railed at the most recent community hearing on the newly approved Phoenix food tax.

The hearing at Burton Barr Central Library on Tuesday night was the seventh of 15 scheduled hearings around the Valley for citizens to voice their opinions on the food tax. Phoenix Vice Mayor Mike Nowakowski, district council members Bill Gates and Peggy Neely, and City Manager David Cavazos sat around for two hours answering questions and listening to concerns -- and there were plenty of them.

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Judicial Watch, a non-profit group based in Washington D.C., wants the state Attorney General's Office to find a way to reduce the paycheck of Police Chief Jack Harris.

The group wrote a letter to Attorney General Terry Goddard recently, asking him to file a lawsuit against the Phoenix Police Pension Board in order to stop Harris (pictured at right) from receiving any more pension payments on top of his regular salary. The firm says it's representing a group of concerned citizens, including three "active duty or retired City of Phoenix police officers." If Goddard doesn't sue to stop the payments, Judicial Watch's clients will, the letter threatens.

As New Times' columnist Stephen Lemons reported two years ago, Harris enjoys a $184,350-a-year salary, plus an annual retirement benefit payment of about $90,000 a year.

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Betty Mae Henderson

Tuesday morning cop news releases:

*Mesa police and Pinal County air units began searching for a lost 85-year-old woman before dawn this morning. Mesa police Sergeant Ed Wessing states, "Cell phone contact was made last night and it is believed she is in south Pinal County." The search was still going on at about 7 a.m.

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