FREE SUBSCRIPTION
EV mega-park woes PAGE 9
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
Inside This Week
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
GPS board to consider bond, override measures GPS’ 250 buildings need $198M in repairs. See page 14 BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
NEWS............................ 4 Ten buildings with 568 residential units heading to Cooley Station.
COMMUNITY.............
Sunday, May 14, 2023
G
ilbert Public Schools is preparing to ask voters this November for more money by continuing a 15% budget override and approving a bond likely to be
between $100 million and $125 million. A resolution calling for a Nov. 7 election is expected to go before the governing board on Tuesday, May 16. Mail-in ballots would go to voters living in the district’s boundaries. “The electorate can approve the budget override and the $100-million bond – or $125 million or $200 million – and not see a commensurate tax rate increase,” because assessed property values have grown, said
Bonnie Betz, assistant superintendent of business services, at the May 9 board retreat. An override, which GPS is now referring to as a “budget continuation,” allows school districts in Arizona to increase their maintenance and operations budgets up to 15%. The M&O budget pays for day-to-day expenditures such as salaries, supplies and utilities.
see BOND page 12
Jury convicts killer That’s a stretch of a Gilbert war hero 21
Williams Field star Saira Prince shines on track.
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
S SPORTS..................... 30 Gilbert thespians bring new Limelight musical to life. COMMUNITY..............................21 BUSINESS...................................24 SPORTS.......................................28 GET OUT.......................................31 CLASSIFIEDS............................. 33
eventy-three-old Frank Bernal was living his retirement years tending to vegetables on his acre-plus lot about a mile from Gilbert Town Hall, playing golf and visiting with his extended family of 10 siblings. But in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, Oct. 11, 2020, police found the highly decorated Vietnam War veteran with deep roots in Gilbert in his home clinging to life from a brutal beating. He died nine days later. Earlier this month, a Superior
Court jury took less than four hours to convict Jacob Kanakaholoki Samia, 35, of first-degree murder in Bernal’s slaying. Samia, who has been incarcerated since his Oct. 26, 2020, arrest, faces sentencing June 22. Samia was a 2006 Chandler High graduate who played varsity football. “I hope the sentence will reflect the viciousness of his attack on Frank,” said older brother Andy Bernal days after the jury’s verdict on May 2. “There’s not really any closure to any of this because it’s
see BERNAL page 6
Ashley Young and Elizabeth Freer stretch during a Yoga at the Museum class inside HD SOUTH, Home Of The Gilbert Historical Museum. Darien Pruitt holds the ckasses every Monday night at the museum. For detail about this class and other programs: HDSOUTH.org. (David Minton/GSN Staff Photographer)