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This Week
NEWS ................................... 7 Gilbert lawmakers on notice over car fee.
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
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s ilbert building a five-deck parking garage for the public good, or is it to benefit a private developer at the e pense of a businessman’s property because it would bring in new ta revenue That question is central to a case that a Superior Court udge this week is e pected to rule on. The case involves an eminent domain action pitting the town against Marc Barlow, a commercial real estate appraiser who owns an office building at ilbert oad and Hearne Way and a vacant lot ne t door. “ imagine this has been a torturous e perience,” Judge Bruce Cohen told Barlow
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SPORTS .......................... 24 Gilbert girls roundball eyes state crown.
COMMUNITY.................14
BUSINESS .....................20 OPINION ....................... 22 SPORTS ......................... 24
GETOUT .........................27
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at the end of a two-day hearing last week. “I want you to know someone in this courtroom heard it was not a good e perience for you. get it. want you to leave with that thought regardless of how I rule.” Gilbert began in February building the public garage with 580 parking spaces on 1.2 acres of property it owns at the east end of Hearne Way in the Heritage District. The town wants to take a 755-square-foot triangular piece from the northeast corner of arlow’s 1 ,000-s uare-foot vacant parcel to build a roundabout at the garage entrance to accommodate emergency vehicles. But Barlow, a 30-year town resident, contends the roundabout would pose accessibility problems for his vacant property. The roundabout will be at the junction of
BUSINESS .....................20 Gilbert skin care firm hits the mall.
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Big run goes to the dogs PAGE 14
Hearne and the proposed riComp Drive, a new street that will come north off of aughn Avenue to Hearne on the west side of the garage, according to court documents. The town also plans to rebuild Hearne Way leading into the garage as a one-way street with a 20-foot sidewalk and an 8-foot dropoff lane on the north side of Hearne. t would take 273 feet of the street in the process, effectively eliminating five parking spaces about half of the parking for Barlow’s building that houses three other tenants and sits on the south side of Hearne. Barlow wants the judge to block the plans to build the roundabout and reconfigure Hearne Way.
It's Santa!
see GARAGE page
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
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ilbert officials want to regulate the black, electric scooters that are popping up all over town even on the vice mayor’s front lawn. Bird, a dockless scooter-share company based in Santa Monica, California, has deployed its rentable scooters at sidewalks and other areas in Gilbert. Now, Gilbert is joining a growing chorus of East Valley and other municipalities that want to regulate their use and where they can be dumped. The Town Council will discuss regulating scooters at its ne t meeting Dec. 0. “The scooters are not sponsored in any way by the town, and ird does not have an agreement with the town or permit to allow such operations and encroachments,” spokeswoman ennifer Alvarez Harrison said. “Staff plans to go before council to discuss a potential update to the code to address public safety concerns and other issues raised by such alternative transportation business models,” she added.
see SCOOTERS page 4
(Kimberly Carrillo/GSN Staff Photographer)
Actually, little Lili Galindo has no idea that the man she thinks is old St. Nick is Gilbert resident Wesley Turner, who plays Santa for a living. You can read about how he trained and what he and his wife do this time of year on page 16.