Gilbert will continue work on two parks, despite public complaints about the price tag.
The Town Council voted 5-2 Sept. 15 to approve roughly $99 million for the expansion of Gilbert Regional and Desert Sky Parks.
Councilmembers Jim Torgeson and Monte Lyons voted no.
Months earlier, the town paused funding for Gilbert Regional Park, and a newly elected slate of town councilmembers called for a pause on all new park spending
.The vote came after public backlash and mistrust of town officials over their handling of the Gilbert Goons case and the recent 25% water rate increase, and after four new councilmembers were elected and three incumbents voted out of office.
Speakers at the Sept. 15 meeting generally supported of the need for more and better
parks, but some raised concerns about how the expansions would be funded.
"Just because we have a charge card, doesn't mean we have to use it," said Alan Taylor, a 31-year Gilbert resident.
Taylor referred to Gilbert's April 2026 water rate increase, saying town's debt burden got out of control.
Both projects would be funded by bonds issued by Gilbert's Public Facilities Municipal Property Corporation, which pays for larger scale construction projects capital improvement projects by issuing bonds typically paid back with development fees.
The debt for the second phase of the two park projects will be paid back with funds raised from a local half-cent sales tax, Town Manager Mario Paniagua said.
Several high school students spoke in support of the project, saying Gilbert teens need places where they can hang out and feel safe.
Lakshmi Patel, a student at Gilbert Classical Academy, said she and her friends like to hang out at the mall or In-N-Out after football games.
"But as we've seen over the past couple years, sometimes those have just gotten into spaces where we don't feel as comfortable and safe," Patel said.
The In-N-Out burger location in the San Tan Village shopping complex was the site ofmultiple Gilbert Goon attacks between 2022 and 2025.
Gilbert's ranks very low for providing parks
The expanded parks would address Gilbert's need for more safe teen spaces highlighted by a 2024 community engagement taskforce on teen violence, Parks and Recreation Department Director Michael Elliot said.
Parks are a place where Gilbert becomes a community, he added.
"For a town like ours, that quality of life is the foundation that everything else is built on," Elliot said.
The Trust for Public Land, a non-profit organization that ranks cities and town's park networks, gave Gilbert a score of 33 out of 100 for per resident park spending and 29 out of 100 for total park acreage.
Elliot also argued delaying the projects would increase Gilbert's costs by roughly 5 to 15%. Just one month of delay could cost Gilbert roughly $3.9 million, he said.
Those costs include maintaining the sites, controlling any dust generated by site grading and potentially having to restore some of the flood capacity of Gilbert Regional Park.
Disagreement over delay
Councilmember Lyons disputed that assertion.
At a March 2026 council retreat, town staff said Gilbert could complete the design work for Gilbert Regional Park without having to move forward construction, he reminded his colleagues.
Ryan Blair, Gilbert's Capital Improvement Plan Manager, said the council approved a package in June that funded mass grading work on both sites.
If the town paused developing the parks now, it could be at risk of having to undo some of that grading work due to Maricopa County Flood control rules, Blair said.
But Torgeson challenged the town's thinking in a phone interview. He said the town widened the scope of the second phase of the project, which led him to oppose the $99 million funding package.
"I wasn't going to vote for anything more than basically ballfields," Torgeson said.
There was discussion about splitting up parts of Phase 2 following the March retreat, but town staff deemed it infeasible, town spokesperson Joanna Guzman said in an email.
Torgeson pushed back.
"They cited no major cost to halting in the spring. Now there's a cost?" he wrote in a text.
Gilbert's council-elect casts doubt over park spending
Councilmember-Elect Bill Spence texted that the information presented by town staff displayed "callous disregard for the desires of the residents who feel increasingly powerless against Gilbert’s tyrannical spending and debt machine."
Separately, he added he was in support of completing the work on Desert Sky Park, but that Gilbert Regional needed more scrutiny.
Gilbert Regional Park should be revenue positive for the town, and it should be done through a partnership between the town and a private developer, Spence said.
Councilmember-Elect Beth Goulden accused Town Manager Mario Paniagua of continuing a culture that ignores the concerns of Gilbert residents.
"Come January, the questions will get harder, the scrutiny will get stronger and decisions made both past and present, will have to be defended to the taxpayers who are paying for them," Goulden said in a text message to the Republic.
Councilmember-Elect Joel Coen celebrated the funding of Desert Sky Park while echoed Spence's calls for more scrutiny of Gilbert Regional Park.
"Parks are undeniably essential to a great quality of life, and we must apply a clear methodology that distinguishes what we absolutely need to pay for from what we can realistically afford at any given time," Coen said in a statement.
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Reporter Harrison Mantas, who covers Mesa, Gilbert, Queen Creek and San Tan Valley, can be reached at hmantas@azcentral.com. Follow him on X @HarrisonMantas or Instagram @harrisonmantas.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mistrust clouds Gilbert's $99M park expansion decision
