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Deal collapses, but slim hopes exist for Club West BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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nother potential buyer has walked away from Club West Golf Course, but owner Wilson Gee said there’s a slender hope that he might have it ready for play this coming season. And in both cases, the cost of city potable water looms large. The buyer, whose identity was not disclosed, reached the end of a due diligence period last week but opted not to close the $850,000 deal on the beleaguered course. It has been barren desert since spring 2018 after the city shut off water service over previous owner Richard Breuninger’s failure to pay $160,000 in delinquent bills. “Same concerns — water,” Gee told AFN as the reason the potential buyer became the second in four months to walk away.
A foursome of local businessmen who were interested in buying the course several months ago bailed out after completing their due diligence inspection of the course, claiming that it was worth only $450,000 because of the extensive infrastructure work needed to make the course playable. Gee said there is still a possibility that he may be able to save the day in time for seeding that would make the course playable before the end of the year. “There’s a 50-50 chance we might be able to open the course,” he said, saying he had the possibility of cheaper water. “It may be doable.” “There are a lot of moving parts and I’m doing the financials right now,” he said, declining to provide specifics except to say “it doesn’t involve well water.” Cheap water has been an issued for the course since about 2015, when the Phoenix Water Services Department abruptly termi-
nated an agreement that would have given Gee a somewhat cheaper rate on potable water for another year or two. That agreement was put in place after the city backed out of a deal Phoenix signed in the mid 1980s with the former Del Webb Development Company, when it was building Club West, to provide reclaimed water from a plant that the developer would build. After 12 years, the city demolished the plant, citing high operating costs. But it never told Club West homeowners about the water-sourcing problems from 2002 to 2013, or that it was substituting more expensive potable water for reclaimed water for the golf course. The water problem has only grown worse with the imposition of rate increases this year and next, Gee said, adding that the annual
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300 Ahwatukee volunteers help pack meals BY COTY DOLORES MIRANDA AFN Contributor
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ore than 300 Ahwatukee children, teens and adults jammed the Milenio Elementary auditorium Saturday to pack 10,000 meals through a locally first-ofits-kind partnership spearheaded by Mountain Park Church. But the packages of dehydrated black beans, rice, beef base, vegetable blend and roux that participants packed were not destined for some impoverished country halfway around the globe. They were destined for families right here. Orchestrated by Outreach Pastor Greg Battle, the packing event was organized under the auspices of Generosity Feeds, a nonprofit created in 2011 by Ron Klabunde. When Klabunde and his family moved to
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Charlotte Warren and Grace and Kasen Laird help fill the packages of dehydrated, healthy food during a mammoth packing session last Saturday at Milenio Elementary School that Mountain Park Church organized on behalf of Generosity Feeds. (Pablo Robles/AFN Staff Photographer)