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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS Wednesday, December 21, 2016
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Club West Golf Course Step into Christmas buy-in totalsFOOTHILLS $4 million AHWATUKEE NEWS
BUSINESS
MADE IN AHWATUKEE P.34
COVER STORY
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
the plan with three golf-related experts who have been working with him to develop it since July. They included Jim Bellows, the owner of a golf course management and development company; Bill Phillips, a golf course architect; and irrigation designer Gaylon Coates. Ellen Davis, an original Club West resident and lawyer, also fielded audience questions related to legal issues. The plan poses five goals: “revitalize and grow customer loyalty;” about $1.5 million in upgrades to the irrigation system; removal of about 10 acres of turf to cut water consumption; hire a professional golf course management company to run day-to-day operations; develop non-golf opportunities at the
A AHWATUKEE FREEWAY FIRESTORM Charges fly in freeway fight
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BUY, SELL SOON?
Rate hikes may spur home selling, buying
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plan for Club West homeowners to buy their beleaguered golf course would require them to kick in $4 million without the immediate need of finding a source of cheap water. The plan, unveiled last week to about 120 of the community’s 2,559 homeowners, calls for major upgrades of the course’s irrigation system and some landscaping changes to reduce water consumption and “return the nature and professionalism of this venue to what it used to be,” Save Club West Association leader Jim Lindstrom said. “Our recommendation is to identify homeowners in the community who are willing to participate financially in the purchase of the golf club,” said Lindstrom as he unveiled
FOOTHILLS NEWS
See
BUY-IN on page 16
(Will Powers/AFN Staff Photographer)
Jim Simpson is prepared to greet you from 6-9 p.m. today at 2313 E. Taxidea Way, Ahwatukee, where his home is virtually wall-to-wall Christmas decorations. For a look inside, see page 21.
Outside the classroom, a teacher’s duties are endless BY CATHRYN CRENO AFN Guest Writer
EDITOR’S NOTE: Retired longtime education reporter Cathryn Creno of Ahwatukee has become a teacher. Now that she’s finished with her first semester and students are on winter break, she is writing again about her new career.
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disco ball glittered above my head, a disc jockey spun tunes and sixth graders at their first middle school dance stood in nervous clusters on Kyrene Altadeña Middle School’s gym floor. My assignment as a teacher at the school Halloween dance was to cheerfully supervise lines for pizza and soft drinks while wearing a fake mustache and Day of the Dead
stickers on my forehead and cheeks. I had a blast. My shift only took an hour on a Friday afternoon, and I would not have traded the experience of seeing students dressed up and away from their textbooks for anything. I have been teaching Spanish at Altadeña
Happy Holidays
See
ENDLESS on page 12