Cantor: How can Scottsdale better meld entertainment district, southern neighborhoods

And if you think about it a little more you might wonder why the folks who live in the SSCPA are never asked about how the fringes of their area and the fringes of the Downtown/Old Town/Fifth Avenue and the bar district will come together. And what could the city do to make it a better fit?”

Nancy Cantor, Scottsdale resident

Parents should be active in the schools their children attend and it will help their child to be a successful student. I still believe that, but my trip has taken me on a few detours.

Getting involved in PTA, a safe harbor, led immediately, before our first PTA meeting was held, to our PTA at Hohokam School being asked by parents and neighbors to do something about the topless bar that opened over-night on the corner at 87th Street and McDowell Road where the neighborhood bar used to be.

I couldn’t find that topic in the PTA goals and objectives nor could I find the mom who said she would “co-chair” the group with me. No one I called knew what to do except to say, “My goodness!”

That same evening I went to City Council. When the meeting was over I asked if they --- a city councilman, Mr. Bill Walton, an assistant city manager and Police Commander Jim Kershner --- knew what was going on and how can we change that?

Now here was a learning event about zoning, land use and construction permitting, police work going on in the area, property maintenance and people: senior citizens, kids, young parents, parents of older kids, neighbors, mom and pop business owners, police officers and their families, teachers and principals and students and the head custodian at school......deep breath......because that one corner impacted all of those people and all of those places. (Notice I made no mention of adult entertainment.)

A neighborhood is not defined by the single person who owns the business on the corner or the grocery store or the gas station or the car wash or the shopping center. It is defined by the people who trade there with confidence and respect, understanding that they will be treated with the same in return.

The Southern Scottsdale Character Planning Area, covers everything south of the first Master Planned Community Development in Scottsdale, McCormick Ranch. Its northern boundary is Indian Bend Road, and the area from there to McKellips Road, Pima Road to the borders with Phoenix and Paradise Valley, east to west.

The mature neighborhoods that gave rise to Scottsdale as many know it today, from businesses that are national and international entities to the long standing mom and pop businesses that might have one other site in our city (think of Paul’s Hardware). Even Mayor Lane lived down here at one time.

And right in the middle of the SSCPA, completely surrounded by the SSCPA, is Downtown/Old Town/Fifth Avenue and the bar district. (Sounds like a line from “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree Sung in Four-Part Harmony”. Everybody sing! Thank you, Arlo.)

If you think about it long enough you might see some conflicts on the horizon.

And if you think about it a little more you might wonder why the folks who live in the SSCPA are never asked about how the fringes of their area and the fringes of the Downtown/Old Town/Fifth Avenue and the bar district will come together. And what could the city do to make it a better fit?

And if you give that a bit more thought you will wonder why there is no one representing residential neighborhoods on the Planning Commission or the Development Review Board. Just folks from fields like architects, construction, real estate, engineering, developers, nobody who will have to live next to what is being built.

And now that you have done all that thinking the day is shot so you might as well go to a City Council meeting and get really confused and upset.

Editor’s Note: Nancy Cantor is a Scottsdale resident.