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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS www.ahwatukee.com
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
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Smaller recovery A church like no other homes called threat AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS to quality of life STILL A CRISIS
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BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
A AHWATUKEE COMING HOME
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I THEE PLAN
hwatukee is not immune to a new threat to neighborhood quality of life that’s invading Phoenix in the form of small, unregulated group homes for recovering addicts and alcoholics, City Councilman Sal DiCiccio has warned. The threat recently was outlined before City Council by Arcadia residents, who had filed a citizens’ petition demanding that the city administration start enforcing laws that could restrict the number of homes in one area to some degree. A separate petition called for the city to hire outside legal counsel because the city Law Department had not been enforcing See
FOOTHILLS NEWS
HOUSES on page 15
(Special to AFN)
People who drive past the southeast corner of 48th Street and Frye Road in recent months may be wondering what the huge building being erected on the sprawling site is all about. Displaced by the South Mountain Freeway, it’s the new Mountain Park Community Church, which when finished in the fall, will look like this rendering – and offer a rooftop community gathering spot that has no match in Phoenix or the rest of the Valley, according to church leaders. For details, see Page 24.
Military background, math and softball all help freeway fighter BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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HAPPY VEGGIES
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at Lawlis is widely known among her fellow Ahwatukee residents as someone who pitches hardballs at government agencies over the South Mountain Freeway. But across the country, Lawlis has another reputation: She has a wicked softball pitch as well. The outspoken president of Protect Arizona’s Resources and Children – the Ahwatukee based anti-freeway organization – has garnered fistfuls of medals and ribbons for her prowess on the mound in women’s softball leagues for nearly four decades. She has played in as many as 14 weekend
tournaments in a year, often pitching in four 55-minute games in a 24-hour stretch. That stamina – together with a passion for Arizona’s desert environment – goes a long way in explaining the energy she has put into PARC since its formation in 2006 and her leadership of the group for the last eight years. That and a 20-year career as a computer software engineer for the U.S. Air Force, which she retired from in 1995 at the rank of lieutenant colonel. As she awaits the next phase in PARC’s legal battle to stop the freeway, Lawlis and PARC are preparing another court challenge aimed at preventing the Arizona Department of Transportation and freeway developer Connect 202 Partners from blasting in an area
between 32nd Street and South Mountain. “It is so dangerous and it is so infuriating,” she said of the blasting – set to begin sometime this summer and occur on a weekly basis into next year, according to ADOT. “That provides us with the basis to go for another injunction,” she added. “There isn’t any reason to approve this kind of work, which is going to cause some amount of irreparable harm until the court case is settled.” The “court case” is the appeal PARC, the Gila River Indian Community and various environmental organizations have filed with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over federal Judge Diane
SUMMER STRONG
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LAWLIS on page 20
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