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TEEN MENTAL HEALTH REQUESTS / P. 13 From Uptown to Downtown, covering Chandler like the sun.
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
December 25, 2022
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Inside This Week
Chandler Council quietly OKs small pay raise NEWS............................. 3 An eye-popping mural pays tribute to Zora Folley, Chandler first Black council member.
BUSINESS.................... 24 A Chandler store thrives with pickleball’s popularity growth.
BY KEN SAIN Arizonan Managing Editor
M
ost politicians are very careful when it comes to increasing their own salaries, especially since most people can’t give themselves raises and taxpayers cast a leery eye on politicians who do. Chandler Councilwoman Christine Ellis is not most politicians.
Chandler’s 2 freshman lawmakers ready to work BY PAUL MARYNIAK Arizonan Executive Editort
GETOUT......................30 New Chandler nightclub is the toast of the town. REAL ESTATE...............................20 COMMUNITY............................ 22 BUSINESS................................... 24 SPORTS...................................... 28 GET OUT.................................... 30 CLASSIFIEDS............................... 32
“If you have a problem with us getting a small little raise, sit down with me,” Ellis said after attending one of the many city events she attends weekly. “I’ll explain it to you.” Chandler City Council quietly pushed through a change that would give members small, automatic raises to match those given around the Valley at its Dec. 8 meeting. The raises will not start until 2025, after this
T
hey had made their decision to run for the Arizona House of Representatives within a few weeks of each other in October 2021. For Patty Contreras, newly retired after working mainly as a program manager for the city Human Services and Parks and Recreations departments for 31½ years, the decision seemed a logical step in a lifetime of public service. Increasingly unhappy about the legacy she saw being left to her
two daughters – and children generally – scientist and military veteran Stacey Travers decided it was time for her to try and change that narrative. And on Jan. 9 – a month after they captured a lead in the General Election that was never seriously in jeopardy – the two Ahwatukee women will be sworn in as the new representatives for Legislative District 12, which includes Ahwatukee, northern and western Chandler and south Tempe.
see LAWMAKERS page 4
term ends. The item was on a consent agenda with 40 others and none of the members chose to highlight it during the Dec. 5 study session or the regular Dec. 8 meeting. “This restoration will either be the same as city general employees receive in a [Cost of Living Adjustment] or what is the current [inflation rate], whatever is lower,” Mayor
see RAISE page 6
Making Christmas merry
East Valley strip mall entrepreneur Michael Pollack of Chandler, far right, spread some Christmas cheer last Tuesday among 20 needy families selected by the Child Crisis Center of Arizona. To read about what he did and why, see page 17. (David Minton/Arizonan Staff Photographer)
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