Gilbert Mayor Brigette Peterson left the door open for an ordinance that may limit rail in town, though Town Council rejected a strict prohibition against the use of town resources on the subject.
Peterson expressed disappointment after the 4-3 vote that the proposed ordinance was not tabled until the language could be further worked and clarified. Peterson pushed for that outcome, but Council Member Chuck Bongiovanni called for the question to be decided, at which time it failed.
New council members Bongiovanni, Jim Torgeson and Bobbi Buchli requested the item be put the ordinance on the agenda and voted for it.
“The ordinance as it stands this evening fails to pass, but we can work on an alternative and bring it back so that we are more clear and that we don't hinder business for the future of the time of Gilbert,” Peterson said after announcing the vote result. “I'm disappointed that we took it to a vote, but we'll move on to our next item.”
The notion of rail coming through town drew fury from some residents last fall after a feasibility study on commuter stations was proposed. The result was some of the most heated council meetings in years as residents attacked council members for considering putting rail in town, objecting to the costs and the crime that would come with it.
That prompted then-Vice Mayor Aimee Yentes to propose the anti-rail ordinance that would prevent the town from spending money or using any town resources to further light or commuter rail or stations in town.
After council studied Yentes’ proposal in August, a modified version came back to council in September that eliminated the prohibition on using town resources and limited the ordinance to assessing any new tax or fee in support of rail. But council tabled that proposal after confusion as to which proposal could legally be considered.
The ordinance that Torgeson, Bongiovanni and Buchli brought back was Yentes’ original proposal. Yentes, who did not run for reelection, was among the residents who spoke in favor of it.
Peterson and Council Member Yung Koprowski argued against the ordinance as too strict in its prohibitions, particularly as it relates to staff time.
“A big part of the leadership and why we sit up here as a representative body is to plan for our future residents,” Koprowski said. “We can't plan in a vacuum or without the full spectrum of information. And we talk a lot about public engagement, but public engagement occurs during the planning process and during these planning studies. That's a big part of why they're done. To cut off the discussion about the future needs really shortchanges our citizens and the voters that we're elected to represent.”
Peterson said the ordinance would prohibit the town from listening to a proposal from Amtrak, for example, even if the town opposed the proposal and wanted to express that.
“We can't be involved in those conversations,” she said. “And that concerns me from a planning perspective for the future of this community.”
Council Member Scott Anderson said it would be bad policy for the town to be unable to even study what economic opportunity might come around a station.
The three supporting council members argued that the town could still have commuter stations on land the town owns in Cooley Station and in the Heritage District but not include rail. Both parcels are against the railroad tracks.
Torgeson argued that rail has been a money-losing proposition wherever it goes.
“We've been told that commuter rail is not coming,” Buchli said. “We need to vote yes on this and make sure that if somehow it does get here in the future for us, for our children, for whoever, that no town money, no town funds will be spent on a commuter route.”
Town officials have uniformly opposed light rail as wrong for Gilbert. The Maricopa Association of Governments, of which Gilbert is a member, has studied a possible Tucson-to-Buckeye commuter rail that would run on tracks already going through Gilbert, but there is no active proposal or funding source.
Yentes, in her public comments to council, noted that Gov. Katie Hobbs’ budget proposal includes some money that could perhaps fund further studies and federal monies also could be made available. She urged the council to act proactively in cutting off the possibility of the line stopping in Gilbert.
“One thing is we need to be honest about whether we think this is really something that could come to the community,” she said. “And I think 100% that we need to be truthful of the fact that the powers that be in the jurisdictions involved in making these decisions absolutely are putting the pieces together to have this line that runs from Tucson up through Queen Creek and Gilbert to Phoenix come to fruition.”
Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on Twitter. We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
town of Gilbert,
Gilbert Town Council,
light rail,
commuter rail,
Brigette Peterson,
Yung Koprowski,
Jim Torgeson,
Chuck Bongiovanni,
Bobbi Buchli,
Scott Anderson,
Aimee Yentes
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