[poll id=”29″]Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
First let me recognize and thank this city council for approving Phase I of a permanent West Branch Library currently under construction. However, Heroes Park is far from complete. It’s a twenty year commitment by Glendale still not met. Heroes Park still lacks its Recreation & Aquatics Center (a la Foothills), its water feature, a dog park, a Phase II expansion of the library and its ball/soccer fields.
Heroes Park Concept Plan
It drives me nuts when I pick up the paper and read that Phoenix will invest between $80 and $100 million to upgrade Margaret T. Hance Park (also known as the “Deck Park”) to include a jogging loop, a skate park, a splash pad area, enhancements to its events area and more trees for shade. Or that Avondale will spend $12 million to upgrade its Festival Fields Park with a lake, dog park, splash pad, ramadas, new lighting, restroom and playground equipment replacement and volleyball, pickleball and basketball courts. Or that Goodyear is investing in a 30-acre park with a recreation center and an outdoor aquatic facility.
I accept that Glendale faced enormous fiscal adversity and the decisions of the current councilmembers and mayor were critical in reversing those problems. I accept that Glendale, as every other city, weathered the Great Recession. But now Glendale is facing a bright financial future and the completion of this park is a moral debt owed to the citizens of south and west Glendale.
They have waited for 20 years…marking a full generation of children that never had the opportunity to use Heroes Park. This is a city council promise that must be fulfilled for all of the people that bought homes in the area on the reliance that there would be a park nearby.
What angers south and west residents is that Foothills Recreation & Aquatics Center was placed into the city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) in Fiscal Year 98-99 (the same year as Heroes Park) as a Multi-General Center North and in addition in Fiscal Year 01-02 a Recreation & Aquatics Center was also added. In Fiscal Year 03-04 both projects were merged into the Foothills Recreation & Aquatics Center. Groundbreaking occurred in 2005 with completion of the project in 2006. It took 7 years from identification in the CIP until it was opened for business. And yet Heroes Park remains in large swaths of dust, dirt and weeds. It is not only an eye sore but an embarrassment to all.
Until this park is completed with all of the elements of its master plan, people will continue to believe in a sentiment I have heard expressed often and bitterly. They point to Foothills with its library and recreation & aquatics center and say, north Glendale is placed before the rest of Glendale and there is some truth to that belief.
In the 1980’s the Hunt brothers had acquired most of the land known today as the Arrowhead area. Their plans were to develop a master planned residential community. However, the brothers attempted to corner the silver market resulting in their bankruptcy. The leaders of Glendale at that time made a commitment to save the dream of Arrowhead pouring at least $70 million into the area to guarantee its development. Their action saved Arrowhead but at what cost? Dollars that would have been used throughout Glendale were instead diverted to Arrowhead. For several years Glendale’s financial resources were targeted up north while the rest of the city’s needs were unanswered. That well intentioned action caused tremendous citizen resentment that persists to this day.
Sometimes that resentment becomes exacerbated when over 1,000 citizens sign a petition to moderate the proposed Stonehaven residential project and their voices are ignored or when O’Neil Pool, waterless and no longer useable remains a gaping scar for years within O’Neil Park. People shrug their shoulders with a palpable sense of embitterment and defeatism.
Fixing the O’Neil Pool problem and completing Heroes Park will go a long way to restoring peoples’ faith that the city will treat all of its areas with some sense of equity. No longer would south and west residents have cause to believe that they are step children, often ignored.
Everyone acknowledges that these promises – Heroes Park and O’Neil Pool — were not made on the current senior management’s or council’s watch but now that Glendale is back on track financially it is incumbent upon them to finally fulfill these promises. These two projects will restore a sense of pride in their city for south and west Glendale residents.
Every district within Glendale has its “Points of Pride,” those recreational amenities created for the use of our residents.
- Cholla district has the Foothills Library, the Foothills Recreation & Aquatics Center and Thunderbird Conservation Park.
- Sahuaro district is proud of its Paseo Racquet Center & Park; Skunk Creek Park and Thunderbird Paseo Park.
- The Barrel district can point to the Adult Center, the Main Library and Sahuaro Ranch Park.
- The Cactus district residents enjoy the Elsie McCarthy Sensory Garden, the Rose Lane Aquatics Center and Manistee Ranch.
- The Ocotillo district claims the Velma Teague Library, the Civic Center and Murphy Park & Amphitheatre.
- The Yucca district has the Grand Canal Linear Park and …???? An unfinished Heroes Park.
When will our promise be fulfilled?
© Joyce Clark, 2018
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Thank you Joyce for speaking up for the citizens in West Glendale. With you and our Mayor living in the area and supporting Heroes Park finally something is being done.
My family was looking forward many years ago to fishing in the lake and playing ball in the fields but now they are all grown except for our 16 yr old grandson. I took pictures of the latest dust storm at the park wearing a mask. You could barely see the water truck out in the field of dirt. Hopefully the lake will be next and the ball fields so kids can enjoy the park before they are grown. Hopefully I will still be alive to see it.
Thanks again Joyce
Thank you Joyce for being a voice for the rest of us. My wife and I bought at Missouri Ranch during the grand opening of the subdivision, and a large part of that decision was based on the prospect of Heroes Park. That was in 2002. Since then we have started a family and my kids are now ages 10,11,12 and 13. As Heroes Park is still being slowly pieced together, my family and I drive to Peoria’s Pioneer Park to enjoy the amenities and recreational offerings available in that location. I can’t tell you how extremely disappointed I am to have bought in South Glendale. After weathering the Great Recession with the City of Glendale, I now see West Gate beginning to flourish, which amounts to tax dollars, that are being directed to other parts of the City of Glendale. It’s not that we feel like south Glendale is the stepchild…it IS the fact that we ARE the stepchild. Currently, my wife and I are considering a move to NW Peoria or Anthem, where our family will have some recreational infrastructure instead of large expanses of dirt fields to remind us of a promise never kept by the City of Glendale. Again, thank you Joyce for being a voice for us.
Frustrated,
Tony Long
Wow Joyce, you sure hit a nerve! In your piece above, you mentioned a lot of spending and various cities, but, forgot our next door neighbor Peoria…it also drives me nuts how they can complete two beautiful park complexes and announce a third in less than 20 yrs and we are still looking at dirt at Heroe’s Park with no end in sight from the current council.
It also bothers me when I hear Foothills Rec and Aquatic Center has a lazy river ….as opposed to O’Neil Park, which doesn’t even have a pool much less a lazy river! Really….a lazy river ….hard to understand Council’s thought process at the time to build an amenity like that in a location far from the vast majority of Glendale residents. That thing should be dismantled and rebuilt in the O’Neil Park area where it’s drastically needed for the kids in that area. I would imagine a great percentage of homes in the Arrowhead area already have pools and loss of the lazy river wouldn’t be a huge imposition.
At some point I would hope our City debt and promises made to the Cardinals will soon be filled. Over the past couple years I am aware the City of Glendale has invested in excess of $40 million dollars in land and asphalt for parking lots to benefit University of Phoenix Stadium and the Cardinals. Monies that could have gone towards completion of Heroe’s Park, but didn’t!
The park issue has become tiring. Not sure why and who in the City of Glendale is against completion. It can’t be because park facilities aren’t used enough. Existing amenities at Heroe’s Park are well used most nights and weekends indicating the need for more. I personally have been through a couple of city studies that recommend construction of the park. Definitely don’t need to waste anymore City money on studies. What I do know is without you and your efforts there will be no park as there is no one in this City that will care or push the issue. History has shown that.