By YourValley
Candidates for the Surprise City Council answer questions each week leading up to the Aug. 2 primary election. There are three candidates in District 1 and two incumbents running unopposed in Districts 5 and 6.
THIS WEEK: What is Surprise’s biggest recent missed opportunity?
DISTRICT 1
Raymond Grim
The biggest missed opportunity for our city is not investing in new parks. A few years ago we passed a bond for public safety. That paid for two fire stations, an evidence center and land for a future police substation. We also passed a bond for expanding the roads of Greenway, Waddell, and Cactus east of the 303. Unfortunately we didn’t add money for the area of 163rd and Grand area which needed it as well. But we should have asked the voters if they wanted to invest in a new park. Peoria has a beautiful, recently opened Paloma Park off of Lake Pleasant Parkway. Goodyear just opened an 86 acre recreation campus with pools, fields, and a top tier recreational facility. Mesa recently opened a 350 acre complex called Bell Bank Park which will host numerous sporting events. It is projected to host about 5.5 million guests a year. Glendale just announced that there is a huge park that will have multiple pickle ball courts, indoor and outdoor event space, and multi-use fields east of the 101 & Glendale. What Surprise could have done is secure the land and start developing a new park piece by piece as the funding is available. My goal is to keep this to the front of the priorities for our city. It’s time to take a missed opportunity and make it a city asset.
