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Best of the Best Special Section
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS..................................
14
Massive development eyed near Gateway.
BUSINESS.........................
25
Where to stock up for trick-ortreaters
36
Anything goes with this desert.
COMMUNITY...................... 19
BUSINESS.............................25 OPINION...............................27 SPORTS................................ 29
GETOUT............................... 34
CLASSIFIED........................ 39
Sunday, OCTOBER 27, 2019
Failed veterans park leaves Gilbert taxpayers big bill BY JORDAN HOUSTON GSN Staff Writer
O
peration Welcome Home AZ, a Gilbert nonprofit dedicated to recognizing veterans and their families, is abandoning plans to build a highly-anticipated memorial park after failing to secure the funds and leaving taxpayers stuck with a big tab. The proposed park was set to sit on a 7.7acre plot at the southeast corner of Gilbert Road and Civic Center Drive, and would have featured an 80-percent-scale replica of Washington, D.C.’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Plans for an education and resource center for public outreach and veterans’ assistance were also in the works. But after unsuccessful attempts to raise the roughly $3 million needed to build the park, the organization was forced to dis-
see WELCOME page 8
A fence, a sign and a big plot of dug-up desert are all that remains of the efforts by a Gilbert nonprofit to establish a veterans park that was supposed to have been completed two years ago. (Pablo Robles/GSN Staff Photographer)
Gilbert Chamber head to retire, seek council seat BY PAUL MARYNIAK GSN Executive Editor
FOOD..............................
Perry High grad star Sun Devil PAGE 29
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ne of Gilbert’s most prominent business community leaders has announced her retirement – and what she wants to do next. Kathy Tilque, president and CEO of the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, last week said she would retire from her job of 23 years next June and simultaneously announced her candidacy for one of two Town Council seats up for grabs in August. With former council member and Realtor Joan Krueger as her campaign chair and Councilwoman Brigette Peterson as one of her political mentors, Tilque enters the race with a high name recognition in Gilbert’s business and philanthropic communities. But she also admitted that she and her campaign workers will be using a lot of shoe
leather in the coming months as she collects election petition signatures – and introduces herself to perhaps thousands of voters who may be unfamiliar her role in helping to shape what downtown Gilbert is today and building the Chamber into one of Arizona’s largest. “It just feels like the right time,” she said in explaining her decision to leave the Chamber. “The Chamber’s at the best place it’s ever been,” Tilque added. “I can look around and see so many things we had our hands in. I just felt like if I was going to leave, this is the time to do it. When I was making those decisions, I realized I can’t not be involved. So, the time just felt right to run for a council seat.” With a campaign slogan of “Because Getting It Right Matters,” Tilque said she wants to serve on council to help Gilbert deal with the implications of the town’s approaching build-out.
She said that the town’s infrastructure is aging and there’s a need to “invest now and make the right decisions” because “when that last house gets built, we won’t have any more growth money coming in and we're going to have a big old darn bill.” Given her long history in one of the nation’s premier business organizations, Tilque not surprisingly is stressing low taxes, efficient government and maintaining Gilbert’s high quality of life. That last platform plank has as much to do with her history, however, as it does with her position in the business community. The daughter of an Army chief warrant officer who had been a POW, Tilque moved around a lot when she was growing up. She came to Gilbert from Tennessee more than 25 years ago, when the town’s population
see
TILQUE page 3