Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
In 2019 the Queen Creek Independent covered the town and adjacent areas, offering reporting of local issues.
Issues like digging past the building permit numbers to understand the explosion of single-family homes the town has been experiencing; hearing from residents who would like train-horn-noise quiet zones at the town’s four Union Pacific Railroad crossings; uncovering in a study of intersections that there were 72 vehicle accidents in the span of a year at Rittenhouse and Ocotillo roads; being the first to report that the town and the City of Apache Junction are to be sharing a border along the State Route 24 alignment; and an investigation into brutal infractions revealing that there were more incidents of sexual assault in the Town of Queen Creek than other violent crimes.
This is how the biggest stories of 2019 unfolded.
1. Your opinions
What truly defined what the Independent offered in calendar year 2019: A voice --- for you, the reader.
No matter the issue --- big or small --- if a resident had an opinion, critical or otherwise, the hometown newspaper for more than 128,000 annual unique digital users, 24,000 receiving the newspaper monthly by mail and scores more online at yourvalley.net made sure those in power heard their perspectives.
Readers who years ago would have put pen to paper e-mailed their opinions to aznews@newszap.com or went to stories online and, while signed into Facebook, posted their comments.
Many of the online letters are also included in the monthly editions of the newspaper.
2. Encanterra annexation
The Queen Creek Town Council on Oct. 16 approved an annexation including approximately 755 acres along Combs Road and Gantzel Road. The area extends the southeast town boundary and includes the Encanterra community.
In order for an area to be annexed by the town, a majority of the property owners in the defined area must be in favor of annexation. Once the town is approached with the necessary number of property owners in favor, the Town Council considers six criteria to establish the interest in bringing the property into the town: financial, economic development, civic, planning and building, public safety and legal.
The annexation process for the area began in 2018. A submitted petition included 62% in favor of annexation.
A challenge regarding the Encanterra annexation was filed in November with Pinal County Superior Court by the “Encanterra Residents Against Annexation,” so the effective date of the annexation is being delayed until a decision is rendered by the court.
Named as defendants in case No. S1100CV201901736 are the Town of Queen Creek, Mayor Gail Barney, Vice Mayor Robin Benning and council members Jeff Brown, Jake Hoffman, Dawn Oliphant, Emilena Turley and Julia Wheatley, according to the court’s listing of cases filed Nov. 10-16.
The pending lawsuit was a topic of a Dec. 4 closed-door executive session of the Queen Creek Town Council.
3. State Trust Land
At its Aug. 7 meeting, the Queen Creek Town Council approved the annexation of nearly 4,150 acres of State Trust land from Germann Road north to the future alignment of State Route 24 and the Central Arizona Project canal west to Meridian Road.
The Arizona State Selection Board approved the town’s annexation of the property at a meeting June 11, 2018.
The Arizona State Land Department manages approximately 9.2 million acres of State Trust lands within Arizona. These lands were granted to the state under the provisions of the federal Enabling Act that provided for Arizona’s statehood in 1912. These lands are held in trust and managed for the sole purpose of generating revenues for the 13 State Trust land beneficiaries, the largest of which is Arizona’s K-12 education, according to land.az.gov.
Neighborhood planning units on 2,201 acres with the property to be annexed are to include suburban, residential, medium- and high-density residential land uses; light, general and neighborhood commercial; office mixed-use; and mixed-use.
Urban planning units are on 1,935 acres generally within a half-mile of the planned SR24 corridor and include urban, medium- and high-density residential; light, general, regional and neighborhood commercial; mixed-use; and office/industrial park.
4. Hello new neighbor
When the City of Apache Junction completes its annexation of State Trust land, the Town of Queen Creek will have a new adjacent neighbor.
The Arizona State Selection Board in July approved the annexation of 6,687 acres of State Trust land into the City of Apache Junction. The vacant property is south of Elliot Road, west of the Central Arizona Project canal and north of where State Route 24 is to be constructed.
Arizona’s state land commissioner, Lisa A. Atkins, requested approval of the annexation in T1S R8E Sections 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34, all in Pinal County, according to the minutes of the selection board’s July 17 meeting.
The south City of Apache Junction area from Baseline Avenue to SR24 is to be a master-planned community with a maximum of 20 dwelling units per acre. It is envisioned with a range of residential densities, commercial spaces, open space and industrial uses, according to proposed 2020 General Plan documents.
5. Johnson Utilities
The Arizona Corporation Commission in mid-2019 ordered EPCOR Water Arizona Inc., while acting as interim manager of Johnson Utilities LLC, to commence work on 70 projects identified in a three-year capital improvement plan.
Johnson Utilities provides water and wastewater service to the public in portions of Pinal County, including San Tan Valley.
The capital improvement plan, as proposed by EPCOR, anticipates 22 wastewater projects totaling $67,760,000 and 48 water projects totaling $61,720,000 for an overall 2019-22 capital improvement project total of $129,480,000.
The Queen Creek Town Council met numerous times in closed-door meetings in 2019 to discuss actions related to Johnson Utilities, including considering the town’s position and instructing its attorneys regarding a pending lawsuit --- Johnson Utilities vs. Town of Queen Creek.
6. School district elections
Voters in a mail-only election on Nov. 5 approved continuing the Queen Creek Unified School District’s maintenance and operations 15% budget override and two items for the Higley Unified School District.
The estimated average annual tax rate for QCUSD is $1.39 per $100 of net assessed valuation used for secondary property tax purposes. For a home valued at $131,000, homeowners will pay approximately $15 per month with the continued override. For a home valued at $500,000, homeowners would pay approximately $57 per month.
HUSD had two questions: asking voters to modify the purpose or list of capital projects authorized by previous voter-approved bond authorization and authorizing the district to continue a maintenance and operations 15% budget override.
The tax rate needed to fund the full HUSD override the first year was estimated to be $1.53 per $100 of assessed valuation. The owner of a home with a limited property value of $180,753 would pay about $23 a month to fund the override.
7. A new freeway extension
It was learned in 2019 that State Route 24 construction is to start in 2020, bringing the Gateway Freeway from where it ends east of the Loop 202 Santan Freeway at Ellsworth Road to Ironwood Drive.
Area residents who attended a meeting in November at Eastmark High School learned that the Arizona Department of Transportation, in conjunction with the Federal Highway Administration, is designing a 5-mile interim phase II section, with construction anticipated to begin in Fall 2020.
The Gateway Freeway could extend east to near Gold Canyon in Pinal County, where it would meet a proposed North-South Corridor. The latter is a 50-mile highway in Pinal County that would stretch from U.S. Highway 60 in Apache Junction to Interstate 10 in Eloy.
8. Road construction
On June 3, motorists had access to a new east-west connector in the southeast area of Queen Creek. The Riggs Road extension, from Ellsworth to Meridian, is a two-phase process with construction and costs being split between the Maricopa County Department of Transportation and the Town of Queen Creek. MCDOT completed the first phase from Ellsworth to Crismon and the town completed the second phase.
The Riggs Road extension is in the town’s infrastructure improvement plan. The Town Council-approved plan identifies $195 million in roadway needs, adding 91 new lane miles through 41 projects over the next 10 years. Projects within the plan are prioritized based on traffic volume and availability of alternate routes.
Projects beginning in 2019 and extending into 2020 include: Meridian (phase I), Combs to Cherrywood; Rittenhouse Road, 213th Street alignment to Riggs Road; Rittenhouse Bridge at the Queen Creek Wash; and Meridian Road, Combs Road to Via del Oro.
9. New schools
Two schools opened in the Queen Creek Unified School District and a principal has been announced for a yet-to-be-named elementary school being constructed.
Eastmark High School (seventh-10th grades) and Silver Valley Elementary (preschool-sixth), both opened in 2019.
Salt River Project nominated the QCUSD a “Champion of Energy Efficiency,” based on the school district’s energy savings, which came from retrofitting existing facilities as well as the energy-efficient designs embedded throughout the new Eastmark High School and Silver Valley Elementary School.
Also in 2019, Chasity Cruz was announced as the principal of the QCUSD’s newest elementary school, known as elementary No. 8.
10. Public records
The Queen Creek Independent stepped up its requests for public records in 2019 and also gleaned statistics from other reports, with stories including:
An audit of out-of-court settlements by the Town of Queen Creek.
How much Town of Queen Creek department heads and charter officers are paid annually.
The number and type of building permits that were filed in the calendar years of 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018
How much Queen Creek Unified School District department heads and charter officers, including the superintendent, are paid annually.
Priority 1 call average response times for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
The funding priorities for the Town of Queen Creek’s 2019-20 budget.
A list of the most-dangerous Queen Creek intersections, based on the number of vehicle accidents.
What is being discussed in closed-door executive sessions of the Town Council.
The number and type of violent crimes reported in Queen Creek Jan. 1, 2016-May 31, 2019.
Crimes reported on the Central Arizona College campus in San Tan Valley and at Communiversity at Queen Creek, which includes Rio Salado College, Ottawa University, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences, Chandler-Gilbert Community College and Benedictine University in Mesa.
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia, Inc.. USA, since 1987.
Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
He also is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows
By 
