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INSIDE
This Week
BUSINESS ................... 30 Retail anxiety as holiday shopping season begins..
Conservancy, Edge may soon get round one ruling BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
A
fter a year of back-and-forth arguments mostly on paper, a homeowners group may soon get a decision on whether it can press for a permanent ban on housing on the Club West Golf Course.
Mountain Pointe wins 6A playoff thriller.
GETOUT.......................... 36
Santa’s Ahwatukee visit kicks off string of joyous regional celebrations. COMMUNITY...................... 25 BUSINESS .......................... 30 SPORTS ............................... 34 GETOUT...............................36 CLASSIFIEDS ...................... 41
Judge Timothy Thompson has set Dec. 2 for 30 minutes of argument on course owner The Edge’s motion to dismiss the request for a ban filed by the Club West Conservancy almost a year ago. If Thompson grants The Edge’s request, The Conservancy and attorney Francis Slavin will have to decide whether to appeal the decision.
Lakes lawyer rebuts request for $2M sanction BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
SPORTS ......................... 34
www.ahwatukee.com
Thursday, November 24, 2022
@AhwatukeeFN
T
he lawyer for the owner of Ahwatukee Lakes Golf Course accused the plaintiffs in their long lawsuit against the company of seeking “an unjustified windfall” by asking a judge to impose a $2 million sanction on it. Attorney Daniel Maynard, representing ALCR, made the accusation in a lengthy rebuttal to attorney Tim Barnes’ request before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian – the fourth judge assigned to a case that Lakes homeowners Linda Swain and Eileen Breslin filed in 2014 over the 18-hole executive course’s closure a year earlier by Wilson Gee and the other Bixby Village partners. Barnes cited a laundry list of items that he alleged were not completed when ALCR reopened the Lakes course. That list included the absence of a full clubhouse, damaged concrete cart paths, restrooms in disrepair, tunnel walls covered by graffiti, “lake beds un-
cleaned unsealed or abandoned,” and a bridge that was “generously, shoddy work that reflects a ‘workmanship be damned’ attitude.” All those items meant, Barnes said, that Gee failed to meet the specifics of a 2021 order directing him to reopen the course for full operation by Sept. 1, 2022, and have the reconstruction completed by the previous day. But Maynard said Barnes’ “vitriolic attack on Wilson Gee…is overstated.” He said that while irrigation for the course may have been turned off by Bixby Village, Gee’s original company, the site had been owned by two other companies before ALCR reacquired it after The True Life Companies walked away from a tentative $9 million deal to buy it. “So when the plaintiffs argue that Bixby turned off the water for eight years, that is not accurate,” Maynard wrote. “Bixby turned off the water when it closed the Golf Course, but others kept
see LAKES page 8
If he denies it, either Thompson or another Maricopa County Superior Court judge will then hear evidence related to the Conservancy’s assertions that many people bought homes in Club West because Shea Homes and the builder that preceded it promised that a
see WEST page 6
Worth leaping over
Amy Lia, 12, had lots to leap in joy over last Saturday, as did the others who attended the resurrected Festival Of Lights Kickoff Party. For a look at scenes from the event, see page 24. (David Minton/AFN Staff Pho-
tographer)
Special Happy Thanksgiving from Our Family to Yours!
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