Response received from Office of Mayor and Council on the Price Park Wall

For Hearthstone residents, especially:

I received an email today in response to the one I sent earlier this week expressing my strong disapproval of opening a pedestrian access through the Price Park wall. I'll paste my letter below, unaltered, for your consideration, followed by the letter I received in response:

First, my letter, sent out on Thursday:

To: The Honorable Mayor Boyd Dunn
and Members of the Chandler City Council

RE: The Price Park Wall and the Hearthstone Community

June 8, 2006


Dear Mayor Dunn and City Council Members,

I am writing to respectfully express my extreme disapproval of the recent motion introduced by Dave McDowell, assistant community services director, to add a pedestrian access through the wall now separating the Chandler Mall and Price Park.

As a resident of the Hearthstone subdivision, we negotiated in good faith with the city and with Westcor, the mall developers, to have a continuous wall separating the park and the Mall. This was done for many key reasons, chief among them was to minimize the disruption to our neighborhood that would come with the introduction of a major new shopping mall in our back yards.

The city and the developers agreed to this, as well as the diversion of the road between the Mall and our subdivision, too. The result has allowed us both to coexist in harmony, with minimal negative impact from auto and foot traffic through our neighborhood.

Now, I am extremely displeased to learn of suggestions to open the wall to facilitate foot traffic to and from the mall from our neighborhood. I know there have been a few vandals who have not appreciated having the wall there and have caused damage to it. But this is most certainly not a valid argument for relenting to their vandalism and opening the wall!

We agreed in good faith with the city and the developers, and now that they have established themselves, they're trying to change the agreement. That's not honorable, and it threatens the safety and calm of our neighborhood by inviting pedestrian traffic into our neighborhood.

If the city is concerned with the vandalism that has occurred to the wall from a few vandals, I shudder to imagine the increase in disruption and crime that will be occurring in our neighborhood if there is ever a door put in the wall and many, many more people begin traveling through our subdivision to and from the Mall, as well as having idle folks from the Mall roaming through our neighborhood.

We are counting on you to safeguard our community interests, and I respectfully urge you to reject the motion to open the wall.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

George Gregg
Resident and Homeowner in the Hearthstone Subdivision
Chandler

Now, the response I received from the Office of the Mayor and Council today:

Dear George,

Thank you for your email to the Mayor and Council. I will ensure that they each receive a copy of your correspondence. I have also forwarded your comments to staff in our Community Services Department and Office of Neighborhood Programs.

On Tuesday, June 6, the Parks and Recreation Board heard the concerns from residents of the Hearthstone subdivision. The Parks Board recommended that we create a task force comprised of Hearthstone residents and City staff in order to discuss alternatives for addressing vandalism in the park.

Please feel free to contact Stefanie Garcia, Neighborhood Program Administrator at (480) 782-2234 if you have any additional questions regarding this issue and the upcoming task force.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your concerns.

Sincerely,

Melanie Sala-Friedrichs
City of Chandler - Office of the Mayor & Council

See previous posts on the Price Park wall issue here:

1. A Call to Action!
2. Parks and Rec agree with residents.