April 6 – 19, 2013
www.SanTanSun.com
Real estate rebounding
SanTan Sun area giving way to stiff competition by Miriam Van Scott
“Sizzling” might be the word for the SanTan Sun area’s housing market, as Chandler and Gilbert are among the hottest sales activity spots in the metro Phoenix region. Local real estate agents are seeing an increase in asking prices, a decrease in average days on the market and a surge in demand for area homes. “The East Valley market has seen the price for square feet jump from $114 to $122 in the last six months,” reports Keller Williams agent Carol Royse, rated the No. 29 Realtor in the nation by the Wall Street Journal. “There have also been instances of multiple offers on properties in price ranges from $250,000 to $750,000.” This upward trend is expected to continue through the busy summer buying season, although perhaps at a somewhat slower pace. “The outlook for the next several months is more of the same, but likely with a moderation in the rate of price increases,” says Mark Stapp of Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. “Gains will
WANTS PARK: Old Stone Ranch resident Stephanie Jarnagan and husband Tim with Kayden, 9, Connor, 6 and Kendall, 2. Jarnagan grew up in a neighborhood with a city park next to the school. She wants the same for her children. STSN photo by Ron Lang
Promised parks priority for Council, community By Tracy House
see Real estate page 6
ON THE BLOCK: This home, for sale in Cooper Commons, is part of a stronger housing market in the SanTan Sun area. STSN photo by Ron Lang
ABLOOM: Wildflowers are blooming around the SanTan Sun area, and colors abound at Veterans Oasis Park at 4050 E. Chandler Heights Rd. at Lindsay. STSN photo by Ron Lang
Parkland near Old Stone Ranch at Ocotillo and Gilbert roads should be grass covered, with playground equipment and picnic tables, but all that stands is a fenced-in dirt lot. “Citrus Vista is the vacant land adjacent to Ryan Elementary School,” says Stephanie Jarnagan, an Old Stone Ranch resident since July 2012. “It’s been fenced off since the development started.” The school campus and park are the centerpiece of the Old Stone Ranch community, which is already built out. Still, the park is unfinished. “During the downturn, I understood there’s no money,” Jarnagan explains. But now that the economy seems to be bouncing back, Jarnagan is questioning when Citrus Vista Park will be completed.
see Parks page 8
Survivor, Jewish group keep Holocaust lessons alive by K. M. Lang
Otto Schimmel will never forget the Holocaust, the man-made catastrophe that deprived him of homeland, youth, parents, brother, sister, grandmother – his entire world. The Hungary native will turn 86 this month – one week after Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 7 – and though he’s been a Valley resident for 40 years and an American citizen since 1953, it’s it’s clear when speaking to him that the tragedy of his youth is still fresh in his memory. He says he still struggles to comprehend the purpose of such unspeakable suffering. “My question to God is why?” he says. “Why was this allowed?” Schimmel’s query – one echoed
by the loved ones of an estimated 11 million Holocaust victims, including ethnic, religious, sexual and political minorities – remains unanswered. Schimmel, however, sees the disaster as a direct consequence of unchecked bigotry and hatred, including the antiSemitism he experienced growing up in Budapest. Along with religious prejudices, he recalls the hostility of dissatisfied neighbors who viewed all Jews as millionaires and movie-industry moguls. “Envy is poison,” he says simply. Schimmel was a young leather goods apprentice when he was sent to his first concentration camp at the age of 17, and he spent nearly a year and a half in the notorious
Auschwitz and Dachau camps, along with a third, smaller camp. He was liberated on May 5, 1945, when he was 18 years old, and arrived in the U.S. in 1948. His wife, Betty, who passed away in 2011, was also a Holocaust survivor, and Schimmel recalls her terrible dreams, when he would wake to find her weeping beside him, reliving the real-life nightmare of her youth. Preventing such nightmares for future generations is the goal behind Chandler’s planned Center for Holocaust Education & Human Dignity, a joint project of the East Valley Jewish Community Center (EVJCC) and the City of Chandler. The center, which will be the only see Holocaust page 9
REMEMBER: Holocaust survivor Otto Schimmel receives a standing ovation at the Chandler Center for the Arts during a recent presentation. Submitted photo
F E AT U R E STO R I E S Eddie Basha dies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . community . . . Page 4 UltraStar offers entertainment . . . . . . . . business . . . . . . Page 14 LibCon treats sci-fi, fantasy fans . . . . . . . . youth . . . . . . Page 26 Table 49 opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . neighbors . . . . Page 45 Teen Talent Fest at CCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arts . . . . . . . Page 56
Kids, concussions . . . . SanTan Family Fun . . Center
More Community . . . . . . . . . 1-13 Business . . . . . . . . . . 14-25 Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-34 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . 35-36 Neighbors . . . . . . . . . 45-51 Spirituality . . . . . . . 52-55 Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56-61 Directory . . . . . . . . . 62-64 Classifieds . . . . . . . . 65-66 Where to eat . . . . . 67-72