FREE SUBSCRIPTION
Highland’s big game PAGE 30
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
Sunday, September 4, 2022
County island residents decry Gilbert project
INSIDE
This Week
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
IT’S TIME TO VOTE
THEMESATRIBUNE.COM GILBERTSUNNEWS.COM CHANDLERNEWS.COM
NEWS.......................
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
L
iane Reid remembered growing up in Gilbert when there was just one streetlight in the entire town. “We could ride our horses into Jim’s Dairy Bar and hitch up out back and get ice cream,” said Reid, who lives on a piece of unincorporated county island near Knox Road and Val Vista Drive in Gilbert. Over time, she’s seen urban growth chew away at the town’s agricultural roots and now a newly proposed annexation of land
for the development of rental housing is looming. “I really feel that it’s going to have a strong impact on my quality of life as well as my family’s,” Reid said at the Aug. 23 Council meeting. “Everything in the city life is encroaching. “I moved there so that I could have my farm animals and you know my distance between my neighbors. Now, without any choice of mine, I’m getting an overwhelming amount of neighbors piled on top of me if this goes through.” New Village Homes is proposing to build
Highland Park, a gated community of 72 townhomes and 66 cottages for rent on 16.2 acres near the southeast corner of Val Vista Drive and Warner Road. In order to build the project, the developer wants to annex approximately 5.88 acres that is near the northeast corner of Val Vista and Knox and under Maricopa County jurisdiction into the Town of Gilbert. The remaining property is in Gilbert. Council’s initial hearing in August was the kickoff for the developer to begin col-
see ANNEX page 8
How much are… Failed Gilbert project’s dirt pile 6 remains untouched
EV’s 9/11 commemorations take on many forms.
COMMUNITY......... 19 Free Gilbert car show remembers fallen warrior. COMMUNITY....................................... 19 BUSINESS.............................................24
SPORTS................................................. 30 GETOUT.................................................32 CLASSIFIEDS.......................................36
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
T
ruck load after truck load of dirt – about 22,856 cubic yards –were hauled and dumped nearly five years ago on a 7-acre site near Gilbert Civic Center that was to be the home for a proposed veterans memorial park. Operation Welcome Home touted that a scaled-down version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and an education and resource center when it unveiled the plans in 2015. But that project proved to be a pie in the sky when the nonprofit in 2019 announced it couldn’t raise the $3 million needed to build the park and shuttered its operation, prompting Town Council to sever its contract with the group and take back the land it had been leasing for $1 a year.
see DIRT page 12
those dooggies in the picture? Well, Bibi and Gordo are so bonded that the Friends for Life Animal Rescue in Gilbert is knocking $200 off its normal $350 per-animal price so someone will take them together. Like too many pets, the 3-year-old dogs – Bibi is a 9-pound Chihuahua mix and Gordo a 16-pound terrier-poodle – were handed to the county by a family that could no longer afford them. “These two have had a rough time lately when they lost their family, so Friends for Life promised them they would find them a home together,” a spokeswoman for the rescue said. Friends for Life’s adoption center is at 952 W. Melody Ave. and to learn more about the two dogs, go to azfriends.org. (Friends for Life Rescue)