Glendale’s Community Newspaper
Vol. 76 No. 31
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NEWS...............3 Meet Congressional candidate Joshua Barnett
NEWS...............4 District 29 candidates are looking for primary votes
www.glendalestar.com
Mayor, council seats up to voters BY TOM SCANLON
Glendale Star Managing Editor
With the clock ticking to the Aug. 4 election, the choice is clear for Glendale voters: tried-and-tested leaders or new-and-unknown candidates. Eight months after voters soundly rejected huge pay increases for the mayor and city council, Mayor Jerry Weiers and Councilwoman Glendale voters will decide on experienced city leaders or newcomers Joyce Clark are asking the in the Aug. 4 election. (Glendale Star file photos) same voters to reelect them. of Glendale in 2012. In 2016, he narrowBoth say they helped lead a dramatic ly overcame a challenge from defeated financial turnaround, taking Glendale Mark Burdick and was reelected. from the brink of bankruptcy to sound His challenger this year is a political financial footing in five years. newcomer: Michelle Robertson, an edWeiers, a savvy political veteran, was ucator with the Cartwright Elementary a Legislative District 12 representative School District who previously dipped for 10 years before being elected mayor her toe in the election water in 2016,
Glendale Star Managing Editor
Back to school is not back to normal in fall 2020
OPINION..................... 10 FEATURES...................11 BUSINESS.................. 12 RELIGION ................... 14 YOUTH........................ 15 CLASSIFIEDS ............. 16
Jerry Weiers
Michelle Robertson
when Steve Watson defeated her for Maricopa County school superintendent. While the gregarious Weiers clearly has a wide circle of support, with the endorsement of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce, he apparently is not popular with police and firefighters. The Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, Arizona Police Association and the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona all endorsed Robertson. SEE ELECTION PAGE 2
Love’s lost as brakes slammed on truck stop BY TOM SCANLON
YOUTH .......... 15
July 30, 2020
Almost from the moment the phrase “planned truck stop at Cotton Properties” was uttered at a fall city council study session, Litchfield Park and Waddell neighbors consistently howled a unified response: “No Love’s!” At Glendale City Council and Planning Commission meetings and at a neighborhood meeting with the developer of 160 acres at Cotton Lane and West Bethany Home Road, scores of neighbors insisted a Love’s Travel Stop would bring noise, crime and congestion to their rural neighborhood. As the city moved ahead, first with annexation of the former Maricopa Coun-
ty land, then with rezoning approval, it seemed the protests were in vain. Until last week, when the truck stop hit a stop sign. “The city of Glendale has been informed by representatives of Cotton Properties that they have officially canceled the sale agreement with Love’s Travel Stops and have entered into a deed restriction agreement with the Montana Farms Property Owners Association and Protect Neighborhoods Now,” said Jay Crandall, a city spokesman. “That agreement will prohibit a truck stop from being built as any part of the development.” The national truck stop company confirmed this in an email to The Glendale
Star. “Love’s is not moving forward with building a travel stop at the location we were previously looking at in Glendale. We are open to building at another location in the future but do not currently have plans to build in Glendale or on the 303 corridor,” said Caitlin Campbell, a Love’s spokeswoman. While C.J. Unzen rallied her Litchfield Park and Waddell neighbors for months to attend meetings and fire off angry emails to city council members, it took a legal effort led by Kathryn Cooley-McKinney to slam the brakes on a truck stop. Cooley-McKinney said a threatened referendum on the issue did the trick. SEE LOVE’S PAGE 2