Mesa Tribune - Zone 1 - 11.08.2020

Page 1

Fighting breast cancer / P. 13

Helping Mesa's hungry/ P. 3

FREE ($1 OUTSIDE THE EAST VALLEY) | TheMesaTribune.com

An edition of the East Valley Tribune

INSIDE

Sunday, November 8, 2020

This Week

VETERANS DAY PARADE GUIDE INSIDE TODAY!

NEWS ......................... 6 Virus cases spiraling upward in Mesa, state.

BUSINESS ............ 16 Harbor Freight Tools opening state's 27th store in Mesa.

LARA SALMON ELLINGSON

JOE O’REILLY

KIANA MARIE SEARS

on to 19 percent of the vote that put her at the head of pack the six candidates vying for the three seats on the �ive-person board. She maintained that position with the latest tally released by the Recorder’s Of�ice Friday morning, just before the Tribune’s deadline. Ellingson – an MPS substitute teacher who had been a fulltime teacher in the district and the daughter of former Congressman and well known East Valley leader Matt Salmon – also held her second-place position in balloting

with 18 percent throughout the vote counting. But the third spot was nip-and-tuck between O’Reilly, a longtime MPS administrator before he becoming director of the Arizona State University Decision Center for Educational Excellence, and Cara Mae Schnepf Steiner, a retired MPS teacher and elementary principal. Both Steiner and O’Reilly held 17 percent of the vote from the �irst results release and

But what might be considered West Mesa’s most prominent dinosaur – Fiesta Mall – remains in limbo. Fiesta Village was among the city’s worst eyesores, and a source of years of fruitless negotiations and �ights between the city and the owner. Dobson Ranch Inn was only a shadow of itself, literally crumbling and attracting a shaky clientele to what was once Mesa’s premier motel, built nearly 50 years ago from one of the founding fathers of the Cactus League.

Both properties are going through a transition, with city of�icials and advocates hoping their demolition will serve to reinvigorate the area. Councilman Francisco Heredia and former longtime council member Dennis Kavanaugh anticipate the most immediate changes will occur on the former Dobson Ranch Inn site. During the next year or so, it will turn into Broadstone Dobson Ranch, a 288-unit apart-

Sears, Ellingson, O’Reilly likely MPS victors BY PAUL MARYNIAK Tribune Executive Editor

V

oters appear to have returned incumbent Kiana Marie Sears to the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board – and sent Lara Salmon Ellingson and Joe O’Reilly with her, according to unof�icial results from last week’s election. From the time the �irst batch of results were released by the County Recorder, Sears held

��� ELECTION ���� 8

West Mesa rebirth slowly begins with 2 relics razed

OPINION ................. 17 What I learned this election season. COMMUNITY ............................... 13 BUSINESS ..................................... 16 OPINION ....................................... 17 PUZZLES ...................................... 18 CLASSIFIED ................................. 21 Zone

1

BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer

W

ith no fanfare, two decaying and troublesome relics from a longgone past disappeared from west Mesa in recent months. The demise of the boarded-up Fiesta Village shopping center at Southern Avenue and Alma School Road and the once fashionable Dobson Ranch Inn on Dobson Road near US 60 was much anticipated – and a long-time coming.

��� WEST ���� 2


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.