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Save Our Train

August 20 at 2:52pm

Okay, folks, it's official. This past Thursday, the Mesa City Manager's office emailed me to say that if our committee doesn't raise about $60K by October 1st, the train will not get moved. This after 8 1/2 years of meetings, fundraising events, updates, planning, etc. It comes down to the Pioneer Park Re-design committee. They don't want to spend any of their public-approved bond money to move or restore the train. Nevermind that the bond proposal the public voted on in 2012 contained language stating the train would get a new home in the southern half of the park.

We've raised over $40K since this campaign started in March, 2008. Approximately $10K has gone to restore the train's whistle, bell and headlights. We currently have $32K in the bank. The physical move will cost about $26K.

The City is claiming that there are about $112K in pertinent costs to move the train. We do not dispute that here will be additional costs but the City has greatly inflated those costs estimates. Of course, that is what government does - it inflates the costs of everything just to make sure there's enough monies to go around.

The Save Our Train Committee feels strongly that Pioneer Park Re-design bond funds should be accessed to help pay for the relocation and restoration of the train. Along with the $32K we already have and additional funds we raise in the future, we should need about $30 - $40K to complete our project. There is approximately $6 million slated to re-design Pioneer Park. This means we're requesting less than 1% of the total re-design budget to cover one of the most major components of the park's makeover.

In order to get what appears to be a united front when this issue goes to Council, City Managers have given us a task that they know is impossible to achieve. In other words, they want to ask the Council to approve the Pioneer Park re-design but not move the train. They'll say that is out of the question because the Committee couldn't raise the monies the City deemed sufficient for us to do so. They don't want to address why bond funds cannot be used for our project, even though the public approved those funds back in 2012 in a proposal that included relocating the train!

Please help us by contacting City Councilmembers to ask them to listen to our part of the story also. We know most Mesans would rather see the train get moved. What we need now is a strong show of support to the Mesa City Council telling them to help us relocate our historical train to the front SW corner of Pioneer Park.
Thank you for your support!