With the economy in the dumps, many people are looking for ways to earn extra money. But be wary of schemes that will empty your pocketbook.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said complaints about business opportunity scams increased 300 percent since early 2008.

Most of the complaints involved Internet-based “opportunities.” Such schemes require consumers to pay an initial fee – often $500 to $1,000 – with the promise that they will make extra income. When that doesn’t happen, the promoter tries to sell expensive advertising or marketing tools.

Before investing money, make sure the opportunity is genuine and can be validated through a source such as the Better Business Bureau.

And if you do get taken, contact the Attorney General’s Office in Tucson at 628-6504. Don’t let connivers take advantage of others.

After almost a year with an acting police chief, the Tucson Police Department finally has a new leader.

Friday, City Manager Mike Letcher chose Assistant Chief Roberto Villaseñor to be chief. The selection is subject to confirmation by the City Council, which is expected next week.

The other finalist for the position was Assistant Chief John Leavitt. Letcher couldn’t go wrong regardless of which man he picked.

Richard Miranda retired as chief in June 2008 and now is assistant city manager. He was replaced by Kermit Miller, who has been acting chief and plans to retire this month.

It appeared the search was almost over last month when the field was narrowed to four finalists – Leavitt and another TPD commander as well as two out-of-state candidates. But the results were tossed out and the search restarted with only local candidates.

Congratulations to Villaseñor. We look forward to a lengthy tenure.

The swine flu outbreak is a serious matter, having killed about 150 people in Mexico and infected about 50 in the United States.

But while the virus has potential to morph into a pandemic – one of the most terrifying words in the English language – it isn’t even an epidemic at this point.

Caution and concern are merited, but full-bore hysteria is not.

Our government declared a national health emergency so it could release about 12 million doses of flu medications to states.

That’s a wise precaution, not cause for alarm. We wish similar efforts were under way in Mexico, where the onslaught of swine flu has not been handled as well as it should be.

As The Associated Press reported Tuesday, two weeks after the first known swine-flu death of the current outbreak, Mexico still hasn’t given medicine to families of the dead.

Our neighboring nation hasn’t determined where the outbreak started, how it spread or how to get frightened ambulance drivers to take sick people to hospitals.

“A portrait is emerging of a slow and confused response by Mexico to the gathering swine flu epidemic,” the AP reports. “And that could mean the world is flying blind into a global health storm.”

Let’s hope not. People need to be careful and follow the instructions issued by health experts: Wash your hands thoroughly and often. Avoid exposure to people who are sick. Stay out of Mexico. And if you get sick, stay home and call a doctor. Don’t share your germs with the masses.

Troops can’t stop virus

Border enforcement activists’ response to the flu outbreak has been unrealistic and counterproductive, however.

Many are calling for troops on the Mexican border, for example, as if a virus can be stopped by brute force.

It can’t. And even if it could, we would need to also shut down several of our own states as well as Canada, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions, all of which now have documented cases of swine flu.

U.S. officials are responding appropriately by screening people at the Mexican border, looking for those who are ill and barring them from entry.

But commerce between Mexico and the U.S. is conducted with thousands of trucks heading in both directions.

Even if all cross-border traffic were stopped, results would be marginal at best in preventing spread of the disease, noted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

We hope that Napolitano and President Obama will make some recommendations to the Mexican government about its handling of this outbreak.

HHS secretary is needed

We also urge the Senate to confirm Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as the new secretary of Health and Human Services.

That department has been functioning efficiently and professionally, but leadership will be essential as this swine flu outbreak runs its course.

Likewise, we reiterate our request to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to quickly find a replacement for Leesa Berens Morrison, who stepped down as director of the Arizona Department of Homeland Security.

There is much to be done to safeguard the public health, and so far our government has responded swiftly and logically to try to quell this threat.

The American people must do likewise.

Let’s save the hysteria for a pandemic or at least an epidemic, and let’s shelve the tendency toward xenophobia, recognizing that the U.S. and many other countries are battling the same threat as Mexico.

Our focus should be on staying healthy.

As Arizona and the rest of the nation girds for the swine flu, one of the state’s point people on the crisis is resigning.

Leesa Berens Morrison, who has served as director of the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, is stepping down. She was appointed by former governor and current U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Morrison didn’t give a reason for her departure but said the time was right for her to leave. Actually, the timing is lamentable.

The department is responsible for preventing and responding to man-made and natural disasters – such as the swine flu.

The disease has killed about 150 people in Mexico, and more than 40 cases have been confirmed in the United States. Monday, the federal government issued a travel advisory urging Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.

Gov. Jan Brewer must move quickly to fill this essential state position.

One way to save money immediately is with early releases of a limited number of inmates who do not pose a risk and are nearing the end of their sentences.

But that plan was undercut by legislators who didn’t understand it.

The Department of Corrections said 300 inmates might be eligible for the program. With taxpayers spending almost $40,000 per year per inmate, the savings would be substantial.

Then, Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, said 50 of the inmates might be dangerous, so the program should be scrapped.

Harper forgot one aspect of the proposal. Each inmate’s case and prison record would be reviewed by the Board of Executive Clemency to see if early release was appropriate.

And state Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, said no one should be released early from prison because those former inmates would compete for jobs at a time when the state unemployment rate is 7.8 percent.

Neither of these legislators understands that the amount we spend on prisons can be reduced – responsibly.

A corrections officer watches from a tower in the old main yard of the Arizona State Prison in Florence. Arizona taxpayers spend $114,000 per hour to run the state prison system.

Arizona legislators have turned their eyes on the state prison system as they struggle to balance a budget deeply in the red.

That’s a reasonable place to look for savings. The Department of Corrections is one of the state’s largest agencies, with one of the most massive budgets.

But if legislators want immediate savings to help balance the budget for fiscal 2010, they are on the wrong track. The only safe and effective way to save money on prisons is to incarcerate fewer people. And that will take time to show results.

Arizonans spend about $1 billion per year to lock up almost 40,000 people. That works out to about $114,000 per hour. Arizona spends a larger share of its general fund on prisons – 9.5 percent – than every state except Oregon and Florida.

There is little doubt that we don’t have to put all those people behind bars. Other states have found that there are less-expensive ways to punish criminals while still protecting the public.

But Arizona has steadfastly stuck to the lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key philosophy. And we are paying an inordinate amount of money as a result – money that could be spent far more productively on education, health care, child welfare and any number of other state needs.

As they looked to cut the costs of prisons, legislators looked in the wrong places.

They first talked about cutting inmate programs, including special treatment for sex offenders and a work-based education program. But those reduce recidivism. Cutting spending there will result in higher costs in future years.

Legislators also discussed running prisons with fewer corrections officers. That would create unsafe environments for remaining officers as well as inmates. That’s not an acceptable way to save money.

It takes time – and it takes thought by legislators – to save money on prisons. There would have to be changes in the state’s criminal code to allow early release of some inmates under very strict circumstances.

There also must be a reduction in the number of mandatory sentences, giving judges more leeway in deciding what is an appropriate sentence, within a given range. Mandatory sentences, mostly for drug-related offenses, have put large numbers of people in prisons with no appreciable reduction in the crime rate.

Money can be saved on prisons. Other states have done and are doing it. But savings are long term and shouldn’t be counted on to fix Arizona’s current budget problems.

Mexican drug cartels are increasing operations to the south, complicating coordinated U.S.-Mexico efforts to break the backs of the smuggling rings.

“We’ve seen running gunbattles in places like Guatemala and Honduras between rival Mexican cartels,” reports Anthony Placido, chief of intelligence for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Increased U.S. border enforcement likely is a factor in this development, and now nearly 500 more federal agents are en route to the border, along with more X-ray machines and drug-sniffing dogs, thanks to President Obama.

We’re grateful for the help, but the war isn’t over. The cartels haven’t dropped their U.S. trade; they’ve merely expanded their territory.

Only international cooperation with all affected nations is likely to bring this blight to a halt.

Take it from Tuffy the Yorkie: Smoke detectors are essential in every home.

Tuffy, a 5-year-old Yorkshire terrier, resides with Tucsonans Brad and Frances Bishop. And when a kitchen vent fan burst into flames about 2 a.m. Thursday, Tuffy knew just what to do.

His furious barking awoke the Bishops and they escaped the fire.

Tuffy was pressed into action because the Bishops had old smoke detectors that they had removed during painting and never replaced. When the fire damage is repaired, two new smoke detectors will be installed.

Smoke detectors save lives – even for families equipped with canine warning systems.

It’s difficult to find a more vulnerable population than senior citizens who live in nursing homes.

Old, frail and sometimes in the throes of dementia, nursing home residents need intense care, supervision and protection.

Yet in Arizona and around the U.S., they increasingly are put in harm’s way. Some nursing homes, faced with too many empty beds, are housing violent mentally ill patients just across the hall from the often-infirm elderly.

An Associated Press analysis found that 1,357 mentally ill patients ages 22-64 were housed in Arizona’s nursing homes last year – a 39 percent increase over 2002.

Seniors across the U.S. have been beaten, raped and killed by mentally ill patients, the AP analysis found.

It’s not clear if that’s occurred in Arizona; the state’s Department of Health Services refused AP attempts to discuss the issue. But it may be only a matter of time.

“When they take a mentally ill individual and place them with a frail, incapacitated elderly person, that’s a prescription for harm,” notes Phoenix lawyer Martin Solomon, whose firm handles cases of elderly abuse.

Many cities have a shortage of psychiatric beds. And with healthy seniors living independently longer, many nursing homes have beds to fill.

Those institutions are all too willing to house the mentally ill. And as long as they keep that population under 50 percent, Medicaid will foot the bill.

The situation is unfair for all concerned. Elderly people should be safe in nursing homes, of course. But it’s also unfortunate that mentally ill people are warehoused in an inappropriate venue. Many can lead independent lives if given the support to manage their lives and stay on medications.

Arizona and other states must eliminate the financial incentives for nursing homes to house the mentally ill. The populations must be separated.

Just as Arizona’s prison system segregates juvenile offenders from hard-core convicts, so must the state keep predator and prey apart in nursing homes.

The search for the next chief of the Tucson Police Department has been embarrassingly botched – a situation that will unfairly cast a national pall over a highly respected department.

Middle school student council elections are more professionally handled than this debacle has been.

The city of Tucson spent months and an undisclosed amount of money – likely tens of thousands of dollars – in a national hunt for the city’s next police chief. How much was spent? The city says it doesn’t know – which doesn’t speak well of accounting procedures.

Then – after candidates had been flown to and lodged in Tucson, after extensive and costly background checks, after meetings with several community groups, after hours and hours of interviews and after the field had been narrowed to four finalists – the search was canceled.

City Manager Mike Hein, who is charged with selecting a chief, said only that a chief would not be selected from that list of finalists, which included two from within TPD and two from outside Tucson. Instead, a new search will be started including only candidates within TPD.

Hein issued a statement saying TPD employees “have demonstrated a commitment to excellence and have made the Tucson Police Department the best police department in the country.”

But that sterling reputation was known before the city launched a national search for the next chief. If Hein and the council thought so highly of TPD and wanted a chief from within the department, why go through the expense and the effort of a national search – and then call it all off when the end was within sight?

The candidates who applied from outside Tucson thought highly enough of TPD to risk endangering their careers elsewhere. Now they’ve been told – with very few specifics – to go back to their lives, it all was a big mistake and Tucson no longer is interested in anyone from outside of TPD.

Memories are long. The next time Tucson needs a chief and decides to conduct a national search, tales of this adventure will be resurrected.

Concerns also were raised that required qualifications varied on different Web sites.

That may not have been a major factor in canceling the search. But it adds to the perception that the city didn’t have a firm idea what it was looking for in a chief – one of the most high-profile positions in local government.

Kermit Miller has been acting police chief for nine months since Richard Miranda retired. Miller has done an admirable job in his temporary position, but is due to retire in May.

It is incumbent that Hein move deliberately to fill the job before Miller retires. TPD needs a new chief, not another acting chief.

There are qualified local candidates. It’s unfortunate Hein and the council didn’t recognize that before now.

Should this license plate frame lead to a $130 fine?

The point has been made: License plates must be entirely visible – including the word “Arizona.”

So it makes sense for the Legislature to now dial back a strict law that went into effect Jan. 1.

Last year, a bill passed by the Legislature allowed police to stop any vehicle with the state name even partially obscured on its license plate. Fines could be as high as $130.

Now lawmakers are considering amending that. A motorist could be cited for the plate violation only if stopped for something else. And the fine for the first violation would be only $30.

There are good reasons for having license plates totally visible. But now that people understand that, it is reasonable to make the law less punitive while still keeping it in effect.

The four Tucson police chief finalists

Within the next month, City Manager Mike Hein and members of the City Council will make a critically important decision as they select Tucson’s next police chief.

The police chief is one of a community’s most visible leaders. But the chief also is responsible for overseeing a corps of men and women entrusted with ensuring the safety of citizens. There is no more important government duty than public safety.

The search for Tucson’s next police chief has been narrowed to four men: Capt. Brett Klein and Assistant Chief John Leavitt, both of the Tucson Police Department; Assistant Chief Blake McClellan of the Phoenix Police Department; and former Chief Mark Paresi of the North Las Vegas Police Department.

If there were deep cultural or operational problems within TPD, it would be important to select an outsider to set a new direction. But that is not the case, as TPD is a nationally respected and professionally run department.

So selecting the next chief comes down to picking the best match for the department, for Tucson and for Tucsonans.

There are some obvious needs in the next chief.

He must have strong leadership skills so he earns the respect of the officers who work for him.

He must be good at communication – within the department, with the City Council, with neighborhood groups and with the countless other constituencies that interact with police.

And the next chief’s focus must be on local, street-level crime – preventing it to the extent possible and identifying and arresting wrongdoers when crimes are committed.

Several of the candidates talked about the importance of focusing on crimes involving guns, gangs or drugs. That kind of strategy is essential so repeat offenders and the worst of the worst are targeted for special attention.

Illegal immigration will be a topic of discussion for the next chief – but it will not and should not be a major focus of the department’s attention.

Certainly anyone who breaks state laws should be identified and arrested – and that undoubtedly will include some illegal immigrants. But no local law enforcement agency has the time or resources to go after people whose only crime is illegally entering the country.

Murder, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, auto theft – these are the crimes that concern most Tucsonans. And they are the crimes that should also be of paramount concern to the Tucson Police Department. To investigate those crimes, police need the trust and cooperation of all residents – including those who are in the country illegally.

The next Tucson police chief must be multifaceted and multitalented. Much will be expected of him in a high-pressure environment.

U.S. weapons are as much a part of border violence as smuggled drugs from Mexico

Soldiers stand guard during a November presentation of weapons seized during an operation against the Gulf cartel in Mexico City.

In our rush to erect walls and beef up the Border Patrol to keep people and drugs from being smuggled into the United States from Mexico, we have overlooked an equally important problem:

The vast quantities of guns smuggled from the United States into Mexico – guns largely responsible for the massive increase in violence on both sides of the border.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón recently said his police and military are dangerously outgunned as they go after powerful drug cartels. Over the past two years, about 800 law enforcement officials have been slain. And almost all of the weapons used in those murders are coming from the United States.

That allegation was supported by the U.S. State Department, which reported that guns bought or stolen in the United States were used in 95 percent of the 6,290 drug-related murders in Mexico last year and the more than 1,000 killings so far this year.

This is not a Second Amendment issue, which protects the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. The U.S. should aggressively enforce current gun laws to keep weapons in the hands of law-abiding Americans.

The United States and Mexico are the closest of friends – but in some ways, we also are the worst of enemies.

Mexico is the leading source of drugs brought into the United States, and Americans are eager customers. And it is American drug users who finance the cartels, which are becoming so violent they pose a real security threat to the United States.

Last December, top officials in the Bush administration pledged that the U.S. would supply more money, training and equipment to help Mexico crack down on drugs.

That hasn’t worked. Instead, the Obama administration should follow through on promises by Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce a long-ignored ban on importing assault-style weapons. Many are illegally resold and shipped to Mexico.

Raul Yzaguirre, executive director of the Center for Community Development and Civil Rights at Arizona State University recently wrote in the Tucson Citizen about the difficult relationship between the United States and Mexico:

“Mexico’s drug lords give law-enforcement authorities and anyone else who stands in their way a choice: ‘plomo o plata.’ Literally, lead or silver. (The lead is meant for the whole family.)

“Mexico may be supplying the drugs, but Americans are providing the lead and the silver.”

Yes, Mexico must do more to keep its drugs and people from illegally entering the United States. But we are neighbors who share a property line, and the United States has the same responsibility to keep guns from illegally entering Mexico.

Each nation must get its house in order. The safety of people on both sides of the border is at stake.

At the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offices in Phoenix, Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the ATF, last year shows some of the large-caliber bullets that are sought by Mexican drug cartels.

The number of U.S. residents here illegally has declined, a rare occurrence that the Department of Homeland Security links to rising unemployment and more rigorous border enforcement.

But another factor that may be deterring immigration is the fact that border violence is up – way up – with drug cartels engaging in rapes, murders, kidnappings and gunbattles virtually in our backyard.

Indeed, Phoenix is now second only to Mexico City for kidnappings with ransom.

Last year, Phoenix reported 3,664 abductions, most linked with Mexican human smugglers and narcotics gangs, USA TODAY reports.

And Pima and Cochise counties have seen more and more “rape trees,” where women migrants are raped and their clothes hung on display.

State Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, is proposing legislation to make harboring an illegal immigrant a felony and to prosecute those who help smugglers, among other changes.

The most effective response to these crimes, however, will hinge on the coordination of local, state and federal law enforcement, as encouraged by Attorney General Terry Goddard.

Better yet would be cooperation and coordination with officials in Sonora, Mexico, as well.

As Paton noted in a news release, “Hundreds of people are being kidnapped, raped and killed. Body parts are cut off if ransoms aren’t paid fast enough. Drug cartel members are being assassinated in our own state.”

In addition, the firepower employed by the drug cartels is horrifying.

Goddard showed a .50-caliber rifle to legislators this week, noting, “Those bullets pierce armor. They will go through armor, and they will go through tanks.”

As southern Arizona morphs into a battleground for dueling drug cartels, the Attorney General’s Office must do everything conceivable to coordinate law enforcement responses and keep our citizens safe.

Last year, the state’s Operation Tumbleweed led to 59 arrests and broke up a ring suspected of smuggling 400,000 pounds of marijuana a year, for several years, into the U.S.

We hope more such operations can be waged and completed to deter not only marijuana smugglers, but also those dealing in worse drugs and those who smuggle human beings.

We wish innocent illegal immigrants would refrain from crossing the border – especially while this violence is raging.

And we hope Arizonans and Sonorans alike can look forward to expanded binational law enforcement efforts to keep us all safe.

This escalating border violence must be quelled, the sooner the better.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio

The Arizona Latino Legislative Caucus is urging President Obama’s administration to review Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s operation – and rightly so.

Concerns about racial profiling and other abuses of people’s civil rights have surfaced since Arpaio began raiding Hispanic neighborhoods over the past two years.

His recent decision to segregate illegal immigrants in county jails also raises questions, as all inmates are to be treated under the same standards.

The Departments of Justice and of Homeland Security were asked last week to review the situation, in a request by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and three other House Judiciary Committee Democrats.

We hope a federal review in Maricopa will be forthcoming. The notion that people with brown skin are treated differently is not acceptable in Arizona or anywhere else.