Vicki Wirtz said she and her husband had two reasons for moving to Dreamland Villa, a retirement community surrounded by east Mesa, nearly three years ago.

Residents of Dreamland Villa retirement community in east Mesa have filed a class-action lawsuit in a fight over what amounts to the formation of a homeowners association.

October 28, 2004

Herman Lydiatte, 89, settled into a chair this week inside his modest east Mesa home in Dreamland Villa, his financial papers spread out on a portable table in the living room.

Petre Campean, 86, moved to Mesa’s eastern suburbs in 1986 from Michigan for the clean, dry air and to enjoy the golden years of retirement.

Winter residents heading back to Dreamland Villa for the East Valley’s warm temperatures also will be greeted by a heated debate over putting an HOA in place 40 years after the neighborhood was built.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office says vandals left thousands of dollars in damage Sunday to a senior community in Mesa.

Maricopa County sheriff's deputies have arrested one suspect and named another in connection with Sunday's burglary and vandalism of a Mesa senior citizens community center.

It’s one thing to move into a neighborhood with full knowledge you’re also buying into a homeowners association with certain regulations and fees attached.

A woman was taken to a hospital and treated for smoke inhalation following a Sunday morning apartment fire in an east Mesa county island.

The cancellation of a Friday court hearing in the fight over creation of a homeowners association in an East Valley retirement community left a courtroom of lawyers and spectators bewildered.

“How can we save the Grand Hotel in Apache Junction? It’s such a shame to lose so much history.”

The singer Tom Waits once wrote in a song about a dying love affair that “you can’t unring a bell.” Trying to unravel the legal morass that has enveloped Dreamland Villa may be just as difficult, but to us it appears to be the only way to resolve the discord that has cast a cloud over one of the East Valley’s oldest retirement communities.

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Barely 300 yards from a busy east Mesa intersection, residents enjoy walking along a tranquil path - an oasis of desert vegetation full of prickly pear cactuses and mesquite trees. The only sound comes from birds chirping.

A man died early Sunday in a house fire near Power Road and University Drive, officials said.

Mesa’s Ross Farnsworth spent several decades as chairman and CEO of various Farnsworth Companies developing land and real estate projects, driven by his desire to help people and the community he loved.

An old pickup pulls over on Mesa’s East Main Street and dumps out a woman wearing tight clothing. The thin woman walks near the Miles Motel and Apartments.

An old pickup pulls over on Mesa’s East Main Street and dumps out a woman wearing tight clothing. The thin woman walks near the Miles Motel and Apartments.

An old pickup pulls over on Mesa’s East Main Street and dumps out a woman wearing tight clothing. The thin woman walks near the Miles Motel and Apartments.

A house fire that killed an East Valley man may have been deliberately started, a Maricopa County sheriff's fire investigator said Monday.

“I think that the Pinal County officials who are going after that San Tan Flat restaurant are being ridiculous. That is far from a dance hall... Actually, if they go to church, they can dance in the aisles at church if they want to.”