Decked out for the holidays PAGE 12
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS....................................3 Planning Commission OKs 165-home development.
SPORTS............................22 Perry High football team still a champ with coach.
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, December 9, 2018
EV group offers $18M cash to save Chinese center BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
A
n informal group calling itself the East Valley Cultural Coalition has come up with an $18 million cash offer in private money to buy the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix – the focus of a long-standing controversy involving a Scottsdale company. For the past year the center’s fate has been tied up in court after 668 North LLC – a private equity firm that’s part of multinational Truth North Cos. – purchased 95 percent of the site in June 2017 for $10.5 million with the intention of removing the rare Chinese artifacts and converting the site into its company headquarters and a technology campus.
Protests led by the Chinese-American community and multiple lawsuits have ensued. But now members of the East Valley Cultural Coalition are offering True North the $18 million to end the litigation and rescue the center. “It’s an 80 percent profit margin for what he’s paid for it a year ago,” said Felicia Vandermolen, founder/CEO of Nitro Live Ice Creamery in Gilbert and group chairwoman. “If he sells, all the lawsuits go away without prejudice.” Greeting visitors to the complex on 44th Street is a pair of pi xiu granite statues – mythical creatures of good luck and fortune made of hand-carved stone shipped to Phoenix from the same quarry that was used to build the Forbidden City in Beijing during the Ming dynasty.
For more than two decades, the center’s imperial-style roof tiles, prayer garden and woodwork crafted by master Chinese artisans stood as a representation of the country’s 5,000-year cultural history. But that could soon come to an end if the East Valley coalition can’t make a deal. The proposal was sent to David Tedesco, True North company founder. He has until Dec. 30 to accept the offer. Company spokesman Jason Rose said last Thursday he has not seen the offer. “We appreciate and respect the thoughts and good intentions of everybody in the community,” Rose said. “But this is something
see CULTURAL page 5
The show goes on for blind theater director BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
S
GETOUT......................... 24 British cartoon hit coming to Valley.
COMMUNITY.................. 12 BUSINESS.......................18 OPINION......................... 21 SPORTS.......................... 22 GETOUT......................... 24 CLASSIFIED....................27
Photographer blends activism, art PAGE 18
(Kimberly Carrillo/GSN Staff Photographer)
Tracie Jones, left, can give directions to actresses like Katie Wright and actors at Gilbert's Tuscany Theater even though she is blind, relying on sounds to figure out where thespians are on stage and what they are doing.
eated mid-row inside Gilbert’s Tuscany Theatre, artistic director Tracie Jones shouts out directions to her cast of young actors, relying mostly on touch and sounds to guide them. Jones, 38, of Mesa, is legally blind, able to see only shadows. She relies on her other heightened senses – touch and hearing, and her memory has sharpened to where she can retrace her steps in new surroundings effortlessly. But the show must go on and Jones’ blindness hasn’t stopped her. It is week seven of rehearsals for the Actor’s Youth Theatre, which
is staging the Broadway musical “Annie” – the popular musical about the adventures of a little red-haired orphan, her dog, Sandy, and her wealthy benefactor, Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks – the next two weekends. “Here we go Annie, you are coming down the stairs,” Jones calls out. “Take a minute, look up at the other side, look back at your room and think about all the stuff you’ve done in the house. Walk over to the red chair.” Jones wasn’t always handicapped. “I started having really bad headaches last New Year’s,” she said. “I had pneumonia so I
see BLIND page 4