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www.ahwatukee.com
Wednesday 1, 2020
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Construction, politics will energize 2020 AFN NEWS STAFF
INCREASE IN FLU CASES
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hey say hindsight is 20/20. Foresight, not so much. But if there’s one safe bet, it’s 2020 will be a year for the history books. Ahwatukee and the rest of the Phoenix region will not sit meekly on the sidelines as the nation debates the fate of its president by way either of impeachment or the ballot box or both. The region – tinged blue on the west and blazing a solid red on the east – will be every
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FAMILY FUN
ers for a vote. Meanwhile, the Arizona State Supreme Court will make a momentous and long-awaited decision - or start to - in the long legal chess match between homeowners and golf course owner Wilson Gee. Within the next week, attorney Tim Barnes, representing two homeowners who want the 18-course restored to its former glory before it was closed in 2013, will file his answer to Gee’s request asking the high court to review
up in the western part of the community while older ones grappled with decaying streets and rusting light poles. Red, White and Boom! went boom and Ahwatukee’s legislative district went blue. As schools grappled Arizona’s efforts to assess their performance, students’ mental health and safety rose to the forefront. And 2019 for many Ahwatukee residents
brought major changes that AFN reported as they prepared for them. What follows is a return visit to five of those residents.
see YEAR AHEAD page 14
5 residents whose lives changed for 2020 BY COTY DOLORES MIRANDA AFN Contributor
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bit as embroiled as Washington, D.C., in the epic debate over America’s future. More locally, two of Ahwatukee’s golf courses could see significant developments before election season gets into full swing. In a few weeks, a quartet of local men will present a new vision for the Club West Golf Course and it could include residences of some kind as well as a pared-down playing field from 18 to nine holes. If the homeowners association board is satisfied with the plan, it will put it before the community’s approximate 2,400 homeown-
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hwatukee starts a new year and a new decade today, dramatically altered by some of the big changes that occurred in the last 10 years. There’s a new freeway in town, but two fewer golf courses. New subdivisions sprung
Now, that’s a break!
Ed Kriesel
Ed Kriesel was diagnosed in 2008 with
see YEAR page 7
Kyrene School District made it easy last week for parents to finish Christmas gift wrapping or go to work without worry about their kids by holding a winter camp at Lomas Elementary in Ahwatukee. As demonstrated above by, from left,. Drew Whitehead, Maverick Winston and Jordan Gutierrez, the kids got the better part of the deal. For more photos, see page 24. (Chris Mortenson/ AFN Staff Photographer)
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