Z'Tejas springs back / p. 28
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Inside This Week
Phoenix's big body cam cost feeds a giant
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
A COMMUNITY ..... 22 An Ahwatukee-based foundation hopes people are motivated by this post.
ll that was missing when Phoenix City Council last month unanimously approved the purchase of new on-body video cameras for police officers was the “Ka Ching” that reverberated in a little-known but huge growth industry and the giant in it. With no discussion and only a brief presentation two weeks earlier to its Public Safety and
Justice Subcommittee, the council approved a five-year $39.26 contract will bring to nearly $47.5 million the city’s total cost of police body cameras from 2019 to 2028, all with Axon Enterprise, which has all but cornered the Valley market for an important law enforcement tool. The contract is the latest – and by far largest – that the Scottsdale-based global manufacturer of weapons and other technology recently secured with Valley police departments this year for its next-generation camera, the Axon
Body 4, which debuted in April. Also in April, Mesa approved a five-year contract that will cost the city $2.1 million annually to equip its officers with body cameras. That contract, which can jump to $2.5 million annually without further council action, is nearly four times the size of the annual cost Mesa was paying in 2017 for body cameras. Scottsdale City Council voted to pay Axon
see AXON page 16
Ahwatukee VPC to consider controversial city parking proposal
Back already?!
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
SPORTS ............. 32 Pride senior running back Randle Parker is helping Mountain Pointe’s resurgence.
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REAL ESTATE ...... RE3 Ahwatukee attorney explains new parking law for HOAs COMMUNITY ............................ 22 BUSINESS ................................28 SPORTS ................................... 32 GETOUT ...................................34 CLASSIFIEDS ...........................38
www.ahwatukee.com
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
@AhwatukeeFN
Classes resume today, July 19, for all Kyrene and Tempe Union schools and Kyrene de la Sierra teacher Kylie Chapman spent last Friday getting her classroom organized for the first time, as this is her first job after graduating in May from Arizona State University. Not all parents are happy that the 2023-24 school year is starting in Ahwatukee today, as you’ll discover in the story on page 3.
he Ahwatukee Foothills Village Planning Committee is scheduled July 24 to consider a rezoning request from St. Benedict’s Catholic Church to allow for a senior care home on its 48th Street campus. But that request could be overshadowed by a debate that has involved other village planning committees over Phoenix’s proposed reduction of minimum parking requirements for new multifamily developments and a proposal allowing small unattached dwelling units in the backyards and other areas of single-family residents’ lots. Some of the city’s 15 VPCs have voted against reducing the number of parking spaces required for new multifamily projects; oth-
see BENEDICTS page 12
(David Minton/Staff Photographer)
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