Indian cuisine at EV eatery
Security enhanced as school begins
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
COMMUNITY......... 12 Gilbert Rotary water project gets global attention.
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Developer cash fuels some candidate coffers BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
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evelopers and others in their trade are throwing money into the Gilbert Town Council race, backing the two incumbents who each amassed a sizable campaign war chest going into the Aug. 2 Primary, according to campaign finance statements filed July 15. Incumbents Scott September and Yung Koprowski and candidates Chuck Bongiovanni, Bobbi Buchli, Jim Torgeson, Bill Spence, Mario Chicas, Michael Clark and Bus
Obayomi are vying for the four open seats. September and Koprowski were both appointed in 2020. The election comes at a time when Gilbert still has about a decade left of growth and development and some candidates are taking a stance against building more high-density apartments in town. The fact that September and Koprowski have received so much support from the development community has already become campaign fodder for some candidates, who claim they’ve sold out. September, who sat on the town Planning
Commission before his appointment, led candidates with $39,306 raised and $3,486 spent from April 1 to June 30. To date, he’s raised $41,776 and spent $5,856. His second-quarter donors included $2,000 from Keith Blue of Kinzerini Management in Gilbert, a lessor of residential buildings; $200 from developer Jerry Davis, president of Kaplan Multifamily in Scottsdale; $500 from Mike Hoover, CEO of construction company Sundt Corp. in Scottsdale; $250 from Bruce Hart of developer
see COUNCIL page 5
Birthdays mark a miracle for Gilbert boy, 6
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
BUSINESS.............. 15 Gilbert business keeps garbage cans clean.
SPORTS.................. 19 Track club heading to national tournament. COMMUNITY........................................12 BUSINESS..............................................15 SPORTS.................................................. 19
GETOUT................................................. 22 CLASSIFIEDS....................................... 27
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fter Gilbert mom Breann Vogt gave birth to her first child, a healthy 7-pound boy, she had no reason to doubt her second pregnancy would be just as uneventful. But 23 weeks in, Vogt had an unexplained premature rupture of her amniotic sac, which protects the fetus. She was put on bed rest for five and a half weeks at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa. Doctors tried to prolong the pregnancy but nonetheless, Asher arrived at 29 weeks, weighing in at 2 pounds, 6 ounces on July 18, 2016. A normal gestation is 40 weeks. “He was tiny, less than 15 inches,” Vogt recalled. “His head was only larger than a tennis ball.” Because his lungs were undeveloped, Asher was hooked up to an oscillator machine to help him breathe. Asher spent the next eight months in Ban-
Asher Vogt celebrated his sixth birthday July 18 and he and his Gilbert family celebrate it with deep gratitude, given the fact he was born prematurely and spent nearly a year in the hospital. (Facebook)
ner Children’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and about three more months in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Vogt visited Asher every day during his nearly year-long stay except for the one time she was sick. “Everything that could go wrong for preemies, he had a bit of that,” Vogt said. “Vision problems, a little bit of a twisted bowel, he had clots (and) he had undeveloped lungs.” Asher also had a heart valve that wasn’t completely formed but luckily it developed, curtailing the need for surgery, according to Vogt, who lived in Chandler before moving to Gilbert in 2017. Two weeks after the birth, Vogt was able to hold her son. “I remembered one of the nurses there came and told me about another diagnosis,” Vogt said. “I was just sobbing and holding him for the first time and was overwhelmed.” But another NICU nurse shared with Vogt
see ASHER page 3