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Wednesday March 10, 2021
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Big changes for 2 local golf course communities Club West elections heighten Wilson Gee plans to reopen Conservancy, Edge rivalry Ahwatukee Lakes this fall BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
BACK TO CLASS
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RALLY READY
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COMING SOON
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he struggle to determine a future for the Club West Golf Course enters a new phase this month after four residents opposed to houses on the site won seats on the HOA’s sevenmember board. In voting tabulated Feb. 4 during the Foothills Club West Association’s annual meeting, four incumbents whose board service spanned between eight and 20 years got the boot following a contentious campaign involving 11 candidates. But the biggest loser wasn’t on the ballot.
The Edge, which bought the course last year from Wilson Gee, now must deal with a board dominated by candidates backed by the Club West Conservancy. The CWC was organized a year ago by homeowners appalled by The Edge’s initial plan to restore the 18-hole course by selling three parcels to a homebuilder for construction of 164 homes. When that plan collapsed within weeks after its unveiling in January 2020, The Edge and a subsidiary, Community Land Solutions, crafted a still-undisclosed plan to turn the course into a park – and left open the possibility of
Audit details Kyrene, TU classroom spending
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BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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fter a seven-year legal battle with homeowners, Wilson Gee is working toward a Nov. 1 reopening of the Ahwatukee Lakes Golf Course. He has settled a $1.2 million tax debt on the 101-acre site that he closed in 2013 and is now planning to reopen a year ahead of the deadline set last October by a Superior Court judge in a contempt hearing. “I have a different attitude,” he told AFN. “I’m not �ighting. They beat me up. I’m good, my partners are good. They say, ‘look, it is what it is. Let’s just move on.’ And that’s
what we’re doing.” Tim Barnes, the attorney who has represented homeowners Linda Swain and Eileen Breslin in a legal �ight that went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court and almost before the U.S. Supreme Court, said he is reviewing Gee’s infrastructure plan. He also said he doesn’t know if the course’s long-dormant irrigation system is still in a usable condition, although Gee said he’s not worried about it. “I’m basically putting back the course,” Gee said. “Even though people said we butchered and destroyed it and took everything out
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And how her garden grows
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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omewhat different portraits of classroom and overall spending by Ahwatukee’s two public school districts emerged in the state Auditor General’s annual report on school �inances released last week. During the 2019-20 school year, Kyrene exceeded its counterparts and the statewide average for instruction spending and registered administrative costs well below comparably sized districts and the average for all districts. Tempe Union, on the other hand, was a bit different, according to the report.
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Leslie Lauren Honaker recently held a Tomato Fest at her Lakewood garden but she’s growing a lot more with her new business, Lauren Brooks Life. See what the Master Gardener plans on page 30. (Pablo Robles/AFN Staff Photographer)