The Phoenix Area Sucks It! but especially Prescott.

For some reason there are still people out there who want to deny the fact that people come in different shades and speak more than one language.  Say, people on the city council in Prescott, AZ.  It's a view that saddens me, angers me, and occasionally makes me laugh at it's ridiculous justifications.

The city of Prescott hung two banners on one of it's main streets to promote the census.  One in english and one in spanish.  After four days, over four dozen complaints and the objection by two city council members only one of the two was still there.  Guess which one:

"If you're here in the U.S. and can't speak English, you need to go home," [City Council member John] Hanna said, especially people who are here illegally. "If you're counting them ... you're saying you'll do whatever you can to cater to their needs."

"I went to city hall and I came unraveled today, asking the question, 'Who authorized that, why did we authorize that and what reasons do we have to advertise in Spanish when we have visitors coming into this community and the first thing they see is the Census 2010 sign directed totally at the Spanish community,'" [Council member Steve] Blair said on his show.

When The Daily Courier asked about why he was concerned about visitors seeing a sign in Spanish, Blair explained, "It would seem like we're a Spanish community rather than an English community," and most visitors are not Hispanic.

I always love this defense. Some of my best friends use it:

Blair said he helped census efforts in the Dexter neighborhood in 2000, and noted that many of his wife's family members are Hispanic.

At least they came up with a solution:

"I think we replaced it with a much-improved system," [City Manager Steve] Norwood said.

The city now plans to take advantage of an offer from the U.S. Census, which offered to provide T-shirts, hats and flyers to give away door-to-door in a central section of the city that has a high Latino population. Volunteers from AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) will conduct the campaign.

And as if all that wasn't bad enough:

Blair also commented on his radio show March 3 about the effort to count homeless people.

"Communities have to do strange stuff like counting every single crevice that may have a homeless person living underneath a tent," he said.

I'm assuming that only applies to the english speaking homeless people.