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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS www.ahwatukee.com
SNOW JOB
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
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Club West course’s new owner has high ambitions
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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s he looks out at the lush landscape at the heart of Club West, Rick Breuninger doesn’t see just a golf course. The CEO of the new owner sees a gift to Ahwatukee – his home for more than 30 years – and a hope for his Native American people. Breuninger also sees Club West Golf Course as a business. So far, the way he’s been running it has earned high marks from neighbors. “The community has been coming out, hugging me and crying,” said Breuninger. “There’s a retired Air Force colonel who said he and his wife hadn’t been able to see the fairway from their house for 15 years,” Breuninger recalled. “After we cleared the area, they came out and gave me a big hug and handshake and said, ‘God bless you and thank you.’” Breuninger’s parents were Ahwatukee pioneers of sorts as one of the first families to live south of Warner Road in 1982. His mother, a longtime hair stylist in Ahwatukee, is a member of the Oneida Nation, based in Wisconsin and mid-state New York. A lawyer with degrees in fine arts and American Indian studies from Arizona State University, he has transformed a course that only a year ago this month seemed on life support. A small group of residents back then had launched an effort to buy it because former owner Wilson Gee was reducing irrigation, saying he could no longer afford costly potable water from the city.
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That effort ultimately failed and the course by midsummer had turned brown for a second consecutive year, sparking fears it would follow the defunct Ahwatukee Lakes Golf Course into oblivion. But as the course was turning brown, Breuninger was planning green as he assembled investors, negotiated with Gee and planned Club West’s new life. That new life started with $100,000 worth of seed that has produced an emerald paradise for Club West residents and golfers. It also has included a renovation of the clubhouse, which will be open exclusively to members as he turns Club West into a semi-private
course. The clubhouse restaurant – the only part of the clubhouse that will be open to the public – is now under new management by Biscuits. Owner Lloyd Melton said he plans to keep it open from sun-up to sundown with See
WEST on page 20
DiCiccio’s water meter task force picks up steam BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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(Cheryle Haselhorst/AFN Contributor, Kimberly Carrillo/AFN Staff Photographer)
ABOVE: The Club West clubhouse is surrounded by green after fall reseeding and will now will remain largely for members’ use. RIGHT: Richard Breuninger, the CEO of the new Club West Golf Course ownership, has big plans for the restored site,
ity Councilman Sal DiCiccio and a half dozen Ahwatukee citizens last week stepped up a concerted effort to uncover the mystery behind the expensive spikes in scores of water meter readings in the community. The citizens – highly skilled professionals who volunteered their time after the October town hall on the meter woes and have been dubbed the Phoenix Water Spike Task Force –
met with DiCiccio’s chief of staff, Sam Stone, to determine a course of action. They compiled a list of 15 different sets of highly technical data they are requesting from the city Water Services Department as they begin to investigate why so many Ahwatukee water customers were stuck with hundreds of dollars in bills for meter readings that spiked by thousands of gallons for one month. “This is an incredibly skilled group,” Stone said, noting it includes the head of manufacturing for a tire company, two engineers and an Intel technician. “They’re fantastic.”
He added that the “huge amount of information” they’ve requested from Water Services involves highly technical areas, ranging from the device that transmits usage recorded by a meter to the software the city uses to compile that data to the city’s processes for verifying those readings. Meanwhile, a Water Services spokeswoman debunked some theories being advanced on social media to explain the spikes. Spokeswoman Stephanie Bracken said that See
WATER on page 19