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.
DISTRICT 1
Raymond Grim
Surprise is already a huge destination spot for youth baseball tournaments. In fact, I’ve volunteered to keep score for some of these tournaments over the years. I’ve met parents of kids from all over the state, Hawaii, California, and Utah. If we made the investment in a soccer complex, pickleball complex, or another youth baseball complex, we could attract more national tournaments. This will be a big opportunity if we decide to be aggressive with our parks.
What if we built a riverwalk in City Center? A river walk would not only make us a destination for out-of-town guests, but would attract a lot of people from around the valley to come and do something unique on a night out, company event, or group activity.
With the beautiful White Tank Mountain park close by, I believe there is a huge opportunity for a golf resort located close to the park. The West Valley doesn’t have very many resorts. Surprise would be a beautiful destination for one.
Lew Guyn
The tourism office is looking into various events to provide for tourism to the city. The city has hosted tennis tournaments, and there are various other events being considered – a Rib Cookoff/Concert, consideration of swimming tournaments, looking for a way to have pickle ball tournaments, etc. have all been publicly discussed. Our outstanding weather lends itself to a variety of activities that can be considered in addition to spring training. Which ones to host will need to be reviewed; for example, a swimming tournament will require a competition sized pool facility, for pickle ball, we don’t currently have enough courts to host a tournament at this time, etc. We need to consider multiple and various events for tourism to “fill in” the times outside of Spring Training, and I’ll support appropriate efforts to improve our tourism capability.
