THE VOICE OF THE EAST VALLEY SINCE 1891 AND WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR LOCAL REPORTING
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ICAN founder dies after 20-year illness
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EAST VALLEY
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Chandler/Tempe Edition
4-legged creatures flock to Santa at Chandler mall page 11
Sunday, December 3, 2017
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS ............................. 3 At 9, Chandler girl has business and philanthropic chops
Wayne Schutsky/Tribune Staff)
Due to consumer criticism of the holiday light display, event organizers promised to add thousands of lights to the landscape in the coming weeks.
Christmas park a wonder-bust, patrons find BY WAYNE SCHUTSKY Tribune Staff Writer
SPORTS ...................... 17 Casteel uses principal’s cancer fight as motivation to state title
FAITH ........................ 20 Couple’s musical Bible study finds an audience
O
rganizers behind the Winter Wonderfest event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park are under fire following a rash of consumer complaints detailing an event that did not live up to the hype. The event – described in marketing materials as “the experience of the North Pole right here in Chandler” – consisted of several simple wooden structures, bounce houses and carni-
I Children embrace fun, dancing and singing in musical about elf
COMMUNITY.......... 11 BUSINESS.....................14 OPINION..................... 15 SPORTS......................... 17 FAITH........................... 20 CLASSIFIEDS............. 27
back the opening by a few hours on Nov. 24 to further prepare the site. “The whole damage was done in the first two hours, and we never should have opened at 2 p.m.,” Orr said. “It was dry, it was hot, it looked nothing like Christmas.” Vendors and visitors painted a different picture. “We walked in there (on Saturday) and there are vendors packing stuff up at 5:30,” Gilbert See
WONDERFEST on page 4
With no past, what future? Saving the East Valley’s historic soul BY GARY NELSON Tribune Contributor
THEATER .................. 22
val-style rides in a sparsely populated gravel lot. Visitors on the opening weekend complained about high prices, poor lighting, shoddy attractions and a lack of vendors. Event co-organizer Peter Orr blamed the event’s poor performance on several factors, including the unseasonably warm weather and his own naiveté – this is the first event he has organized. “Clearly, we were out of our depth,” he said. He said the team should not have pushed
n the early part of the last decade, Gilbert was wondering what to do with a 230-foot-tall white elephant. The town’s 1927 water tower, in the heart of the downtown Heritage District, hadn’t been used since 1985. Why not just scrap it, some said. One less thing to worry about. But a groundswell of public sentiment saved the tower, which now anchors a mini-park that opened in 2008 and stands as the most recognizable icon of the little farm town that got big. Talk to any city planner, any architect, any visionary urbanist and it won’t be long before the words “placemaking” and “sense of place” occupy center stage in the conversation. The main idea being, if you don’t know where you are, you’re really not anywhere.
Downtown Gilbert, with its grandfatherly water tower, is a prime example of “placemaking.” When you’re there, you know it. The irony of this example is that no latter-day developer had to “make” that place. It already was one. It just had to be saved. That, in a nutshell, is the reason the East Valley’s small army of historic preservationists is so busily trying to keep the wrecking See
HISTORIC
(Gary Nelson/Tribune Contributor)
Buckhorn Baths at Main Street and Recker Road in Mesa, which played a seminal role in attracting spring baseball to the Valley, is considered an endangered on page 6 historic site.