Neighborhood feud simmers over Chandler park

A south Chandler neighborhood park is leaving relationships between neighbors on shaky grounds.

Residents near Pinelake Park northeast of Arizona Avenue and Chandler Heights Road are concerned about the park's usage as an area for organized team sports to practice. Some say their children's usage of the park has been limited, while others say visitors are not being respectful to nearby residents.

"Parents come to the neighborhood and don't respect it, they leave trash and tire tracks in our driveways," neighbor Ruben Guerrero said Tuesday.

Chandler officials are holding a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Chandler Police substation on Chandler Heights Road. A mediator from the Leadership Centre is being brought in to try to help the feuding neighbors resolve the conflict.

Issues were first brought up in February when neighbor Kelly Cassiere became fed up with people entering her front lawn.

"Parents of teams would park in front of my house, and when they turned around they wouldn't just go over the curb, sometimes they ran over my lawn," Cassiere said.

She approached city officials to try to handle the matter herself by raising the curb, but they told her that it would be too expensive.

"They said that if I raised the curb, then I would have to raise my driveway as well," Cassiere said. "I can't exactly do that," she said.

Cassiere circulated a petition around the neighborhood in mid-February that asked visitors to be more respectful and to park on the side of the street adjacent to the park, not in front of the houses, said Elizabeth Howard, who has three children and lives across the street from the park.

After this issue was brought to the city's attention, officials posted signs stating that organized sports teams are not allowed to play at neighborhood parks.

"I signed the petition to be helpful," Howard said. "Having signs put up discouraging practices wasn't the intention."

On Feb. 28, park officials kicked practicing teams off the field. Neighbors said that's when things turned ugly.

Resident Denise Mikesich, who lives across the street from the park, said she had several conversations with Cassiere about harassment she received after the petition resulted in sports teams getting banned from the park.

According to Chandler police reports, Cassiere's house has been egged, her bushes have been poisoned and a gopher's severed body was thrown in her yard.

Guerrero signed Cassiere's petition and said he stands behind her.

"I thought she went about it the right way," Mikesich agreed.

Neighbor Steve Gosselin, a coach of a baseball team that was thrown off the field, started his own petition to regain use of the park.

Gosselin, who could not be reached Tuesday, has recently circled the neighborhood in hopes of garnering signatures for his petition, to persuade neighbors to remove their names from Cassiere's list.

Craig Younger, a representative from the Community Service Department of Chandler, said the park is designed primarily for use by people who live nearby.

"As far as I know, the use of the park and parking have been within the rules," Younger said.

Howard said she "thought this was just a parking issue," not a campaign to stop children from using the the park.

"When we built our homes we knew they were by a park," Howard said. "It goes with the territory."

Resident Kylan Johnson said he didn't take issue with the teams playing at the park.

"I don't see a problem with organized teams using the fields as long as they don't take over the entire thing," he said.

But Mikesich said sometimes there would be up to four teams playing on the field at once, which leaves no space for other children to play.

"All we ask for is a little respect for the people who live here," Cassiere said.