Seniors pin hopes on ‘Promchella’
Pandemic a big wedding crasher
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FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Gilbert postponing $465M transportation bond BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
G
iven the current economic situation and the uncertainty surrounding the future, Gilbert Town Council will hold off going to voters this November with a $465 million transportation and infrastructure bond. Instead, an ad hoc Citizens Transportation Task Force recommended Gilbert put the bond on the Nov. 2, 2021 ballot. Council would take a formal vote in June 2021 to do so. Postponing the bond election would delay project design by six months, which is not a significant impact, Public Works Director
Jessica Marlow told the Council at last Thursday’s financial retreat. The planned all-day retreat hit a snag shortly after the lunch break when the WebEx system crashed across the West Coast while the Council was almost half way through the agenda items. The Council was scheduled to finish its retreat at 8 a.m. Wednesday, April 22. Town Manager Patrick Banger said staff will take a deep-dive into COVID-19’s impact to Gilbert’s fiscal year 2021 budget at this Tuesday’s regular Council meeting. The retreat’s topics last week included the bond, future public safety needs and longterm infrastructure needs of town assets. Council was in the middle of a discussion on
challenges with the North Water Treatment Plant when the retreat abruptly stopped. The town’s funding for its transportation projects come from a combination of sources, including Proposition 400 funds, the Highway User Revenue Fund, town enterprise funds and bonds. Proposition 400, a statewide half-cent sales tax earmarked for transportation, and bond monies make up a big chunk of the town’s funding for transportation projects, Marlow said. The $465 million bond would cover roughly 85 percent of the cost for the 43 proposed transportation and infrastructure projects over a decade, she added.
see BOND page 4
Not what they envisioned Pandemic’s ticking timebomb: child abuse
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
T
his Thursday, Gilbert’s iconic Water Tower will light up blue for three days in recognition of National Child Abuse Prevention Month. And a possible fallout of COVID-19 is an uptick in children being abused or neglected parents lose their jobs and the country remains on lockdown. “We are anticipating with economic stressors and social stressors there will be increases in child abuse,” said Dr. Shawn Singleton, a pediatrician who works at the Banner Health Cardon Children’s Medical Center in Mesa and Thunder Medical Center in Glendale. “Some areas of the country have seen increases of cases. “Right now, we have not had any cases of child abuse in our centers, which is a good thing.”
see ABUSE page 10
Melody Pati, a staffer at Archway Arete Preparatory Academy in Gilbert, arranges bags filled with students’ belongings for parents to pick up in the aftermath of statewide school closures. It wasn’t the kind of end she or any other school envisioned for the 2019-20 school year, (Pablo Robles/GSN Staff Photographer)