HELP PROTECT US FROM GILBERT, AZ TOWN COUNCIL

Help protect us from the Gilbert, Arizona Town Council.  Gilbert has become the FIRST town out of 111 cities with 150 go-kart tracks to approve placement in the middle of a neighborhood (actually 3 neighborhoods!).  The outdoor track with 21 gasoline powered go-karts will be 250 feet from our bedroom windows and will operate from 8:00am to 11:00pm weekdays and to Midnight weekends, 7 days a week.  The EPA says a go-kart produces the same emissions in ONE HOUR as a car driving 750 miles.  This will destroy our quality of life with air pollution, light pollution and noise pollution.   A lease for town owned land was signed in 2017 with no town public announcements, no public hearings and no public knowledge.  Please help!

Please call the council members and say NO to this neighborhood destroying project.  Their names and email addresses are shown below.  

Call Gilbert Town Hall (Sorry, GFM does not allow phone numbers) and follow the prompts or ask for each council person or email them.  Sorry, GFM does not allow email addresses to show:

Mayor Brigette Peterson   emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov
Yung Koprowski    emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov
Scott Anderson    emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov
Laurin Hendrix    emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov
Scott September    emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov
Kathy Tilque    emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov
Aimee Yentes    emails are all first name.last name ( @ sign) gilbertaz.gov

Here's the full story:
Our story in Gilbert, AZ is one of a growing number of neighborhoods that have been discarded as irrelevant and an obstacle for investors who are gradually taking control of our planning commission and town council.

A former council member has been approved to build an amusement park nestled between 3 neighborhoods and a dog park. It was rubber stamped without any consideration to the disruption it will cause for hundreds of neighbors. The carnival-like atmosphere running 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, 360+ days a year is 250 feet from our bedroom windows, yet we are told that 21 gasoline powered go-karts “will be quiet as a library” by the former councilman turned investor and spokesman. We've heard neighbors plead with the planning commission that prior weekend carnivals on the same town owned land have disrupted their children's ability to sleep at a reasonable hour. Now it will become full time, starting at 8:00am every day of the week.

A Google Earth search showed 111 cities in the Southwest with 150 go-kart tracks said NO to tracks near neighborhoods, but Gilbert said YES.   This is a family community where parents who put children to bed expect them to be well rested for school, but instead will have to listen to the sounds of engines, squealing tires, screams, music, and simulated plane crashes from the different venues until at least 11:00pm, 7 days a week. Their lease even allows them to turn up the music volume to try to cover the noise from the go-karts. When you complain bout noise, they now measure inside your house with every window closed, rather than outside your home as previously done.  Because developers count in Gilbert, residents don't. Families who have invested in their communities for years had every reason to believe that they would enjoy their retirement years amongst the friends and neighbors they've come to love and welcome as family. The financial hardship this now presents to the retired members of our community cannot be underestimated if they have no recourse once the former councilman forces the completion of Santan Amusement Park across the street from us.

Reasonable appeals have gone unnoticed and we've been ridiculed by investor and spokesman Ben Cooper, often sweeping away our questions with “It’s in the lease”.  He knows the years he's spent as a councilman hiring key officials in Gilbert and forging friendships among other council members and commissioners has given him a considerable advantage. Without your help, we can't stop this councilman's ill-conceived project from being completed. It's going to take legal expertise to fully expose the unethical practices that have led to this project being approved without the neighborhoods' knowledge.

We have hired attorney Tim La Sota and need your help to expose the wrongdoings of public officials in our efforts to stop construction before it begins. Tim will guide us through the appeal process and a lawsuit if necessary.  Our legal costs are mounting. It's shameful to know that a community has to absorb the legal costs to remind our elected officials that they are expected to support and protect our communities by conducting themselves with integrity, not greed as is on full display here. If they are allowed to go through with this project and destroy the very quality of life for hundreds of our neighbors without being held accountable, then they will continue the same practices in other neighborhoods in Gilbert. We need your help. Anything you can contribute is greatly appreciated.

We will continue to update you on our efforts and what we learn along the way, our appeal date is coming up. We want a reasonable, respectful approach to building out Gilbert and we are not seeing this happen. A so-called family fun center with an outdoor go-kart track has NEVER been allowed in neighborhoods in the Southwest, yet here we are.  Our current council members have gone so far as to turn off our microphones when we've tried to speak out against the project at a town council meeting.  Please  call or to write a letter to let them know this does not belong in a neighborhood. They don't believe you care enough to stand up to them and do anything about it. Please help us today with whatever you can afford to support our legal efforts in sending our planning commission and town council a message that this is not acceptable, not here or in any neighborhood in Gilbert.