Gilbert senator’s historic fight
Panel seeks park fees
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
Happy New Year!
COMMUNITY......... 16 Ex-cop now Gilbert’s top comic.
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, December 27, 2020
Come Jan. 1, keep your hands on the wheel BY JIM WALSH GSN Staff Writer
A
fter a long delay, it’s time for drivers to finally put down their cell phones unless they want to see red and blue flashing lights in their rear-view mirror. Arizona’s distracted driving law becomes effective on Jan. 1 and police officers throughout the East Valley and beyond are planning to write citations right away, trying to break motorists’ dangerous habits of texting or checking emails behind the wheel. The law originally was passed in 2019 after a driver struck and killed a Salt River-Pima Maricopa tribal officer along the Loop
101, but it included an 18-month educational window during which officers could only issue warnings. While officers will still have discretion to issue warnings after Jan. 1, their advice is simple: don’t count on it. The new law makes it illegal to touch a cell phone while driving – or even to rest it on your lap, another habit police have noted – with a call to 911 one notable exception. Drivers are still allowed to use hands-free devices, such as Bluetooth, that are commonly built into the dashboards of most modern cars and trucks. The penalties are civil fines ranging from $75-$149 for the first offense, and $150-
$250 for the second or subsequent offenses. And a violation is considered a “primary offense” – meaning that police can stop drivers for talking on the phone alone and do not need any additional violations to pull them over. The Arizona Department of Public Safety has issued 15,000 warnings, as directed by Gov. Doug Ducey, who signed the bill into law, said Bart Graves, a DPS spokesman. “The whole reason for the law is to keep people safe on our roads. The best thing we can do is keep them from being distracted,’’ he said.
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Dose of good news It started bright, and then COVID-19 upended our year BY GARY NELSON GSN Contributor
SPORTS...................... 23 School athletes signing up for colleges.
COMMUNITY....................................... 16 BUSINESS..............................................21 OPINION..................................... 22 SPORTS....................................... 23 GETOUT.................................................24 PUZZLE....................................... 25 CLASSIFIED.......................................... 27
I
t opened brightly enough, with the customary expectations of progress and prosperity that have marked each new year in the East Valley for the past decade. Construction began on an Arizona State University complex in downtown Mesa. Cranes loomed high over downtown Tempe as, on the streets below, a new streetcar line was being born. Gilbert and Chandler sung to the tunes of hammers and saws creating square mile after square mile of homes and stores and factories. As this election year dawned, candidates were crafting their sales pitches to voters who, for the most part, were only dimly
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Dignity Health emergency room nurse Roland Deharty last week got his first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from RN Megan Edmonds at Chandler Gilbert Community College, one of five distribution centers in the county for the vaccine and one operated by Dignity Health. (Pablo Robles/GSN Staff Photographer)