Glendale’s Community Newspaper
Vol. 76 No. 50
INSIDE
This Week
www.glendalestar.com
A mother grieves a ‘lost soul’ BY TOM SCANLON
Glendale Star Managing Editor
NEWS...............4
City plans to help homeless with programs, assistance
NEWS...............8 Long-awaited lake at Heroes Park coming soon
SPORTS ........ 20 Ironwood rolls into high school football title game
OPINION..................... 12 BUSINESS.................. 13 SPORTS ...................... 14 FEATURES.................. 16 RELIGION ................... 20 YOUTH........................ 23 CLASSIFIEDS ............. 25
December 10, 2020
If tears could summon back a loved one, Jared Garcia would float home, hug his mom and say he’s sorry, grab his phone and see all the text messages and social media hits saying “im worried call me,” “where r u” and “you OK bro?” But this isn’t a fantasy movie. The tears of Stephanie Garcia and all of Jared’s loved ones only wash bitterly down their exhausted faces. The messages will go forever unanswered, save for the chilling finality of his gravestone: Loved By All Who Knew Him Jared A. Garcia 01/16/2000 to 10/02/2020 “He would’ve been 21 in January—it breaks my heart,” his mother said. All he wanted to do was rap out his freestyle rhymes to the world, but Jared ended up silenced, lying under a stone marked R.I.P. Gasping for breath two months after her youngest son’s overdose death, Stephanie checks her heaving chest long enough to blurt out a sentence:
“If only I can save someone else.” She is quelling her grief with action, leading a march in Jared’s honor starting at noon Saturday, Dec. 12, at 75th and Glendale avenues, turning on 67th Avenue before stopping at Myrtle Avenue. The route, significantly, covers the neighborhood where Jared used to buy drugs—probably including the batch that took the life from his body. Jared was raised in Tolleson and Avondale, graduating from Westview High two years ago, before moving to his mother’s Glendale apartment. Except for occasional stints in Peoria, where he went to rehab and lived with a roommate briefly, his world swirled around Avondale and Glendale. The night of Oct. 2, he was found dead next to a dumpster, a sad, lonely end to a promising life of athletics, music, friends and family. While she may never stop blaming Jared Garcia and his mother, Stephanie, celebrate herself for her son’s death, Stepha- at his graduation from Westview High School. Two nie shares the blame with two things: years later, he died from a drug overdose. SEE GRIEVING PAGE 2
(Photo courtesy Stephanie Garcia)
Lagoon project pumped up for splash down BY TOM SCANLON
Glendale Star Managing Editor
A tidal wave of hype continues for what is promised as a “one-of-a-kind” entertainment center anchored by a lagoon. But, even as he promoted the Crystal Lagoons project he proclaimed would be a “game-changer for Glendale,” City Manager Kevin Phelps gave perhaps the first “caution” signs. Crystal Lagoons is a massive water park, entertainment, restaurant and retail center—with hotels—planned just south
of State Farm Stadium. Phelps told an online audience Dec. 2 the developer is “hoping to be able to break ground before the end of the year. “We’re a little bit behind on being able to turn shovels,” he added. Phelps said construction will begin “if not December, the first quarter (of 2021). “It will be completed by the start of the fourth quarter 2022,” Phelps promised. Phelps also has delayed a “major announcement” on the Crystal Lagoons project. In mid-September, he told The Glendale
Star, “We’re looking in October to make a couple major announcements. The north end, the anchor hotel, and the south end, the family entertainment center—when we announce what those are and the companies behind them, it will truly give this project amenities you will not find anywhere else in the United States.” But there was no announcement in October, and a city spokeswoman recently said “there are no updates.” At the online meeting held by Yucca SEE LAGOON PAGE 3