A hiker who has shown up at Echo Canyon at 4:30 AM for years — the way hikers do, to beat the desert heat — now finds the gate locked for another thirty minutes, standing in a spot the Town of Paradise Valley doesn't allow anyone to wait in. A trail named for Lori Piestewa, a member of the Hopi Tribe and the first Native American woman killed in combat while serving in the U.S. military, was marked on the City's own engineering drawings for obliteration to make room for a bridge nobody approved. A park still carries the name of a man facing credible sexual harassment allegations while a formal request to rename it for a different Phoenix resident, four-time Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, sits unanswered. Each of these is a small decision. Each was made the same way — without the public process mountain preserves and city parks are supposed to guarantee.
Phoenix has built that guarantee into both the charter and the ballot. City Charter Section 3 requires City Council approval before any construction in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. The 2008 ballot renewal of the Phoenix Parks and Preserves Initiative — a one-tenth-of-one-cent sales tax — conditioned its passage on three promises: a restricted purpose, an independent citizens' oversight committee, and an annual public audit, with a mandated 60 percent parks / 40 percent preserves split. Both protections exist because voters didn't trust that, left alone, the City would hold the line on its own.
In summer 2025, the City replaced the Piestewa Nature Trail at the Ocotillo Trailhead with a steel-and-concrete footbridge — the one piece of the site's work, Parks and Recreation Director Cynthia Aguilar admitted by email, that fell outside the Council-approved 2016 Master Plan. No Council vote preceded it. No permit was disclosed. No environmental assessment was performed, and no notice went to the Piestewa family. A citizens' coalition that includes GOOD|GOAT filed an Arizona Attorney General complaint on August 11, 2025. Six months later, in a hold letter served on the City on February 10, 2026, GOOD|GOAT's counsel concluded separately that the City had used 3PI preserve funds — including a $1.85 million Papago Golf Course debt payment — for a purpose never disclosed to voters, and had replaced the ballot-mandated annual audit with a management-controlled attestation. And on the parks side of the same fund, Echo Canyon's opening time moved with no vote, no notice, and no explanation.
The Jesse Owens petition carries no dollar figure, but the same absence of process. On April 23, 2026, GOOD|GOAT asked the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Board to rename the park now named for Cesar Chavez in honor of Owens, who made Phoenix his home from 1972 until his death in 1980, helped establish the first medical facility in South Phoenix, and ran the ARCO Jesse Owens Games for the city's kids. The Board has not yet acted.
GOOD|GOAT has matched a mechanism to each of these: an Attorney General complaint on the footbridge, a pre-litigation hold letter and a public-records demand on 3PI, a formal renaming petition for Jesse Owens Park, and a published call for an explanation on Echo Canyon. Each asks the City to do what charter, ballot language, or basic notice already requires.
If you use these trails or these parks, follow the matter that affects you — GOOD|GOAT is still collecting documentation on all four.
4 Matters
The City quietly pushed back Echo Canyon's opening time from 4:30 AM to 5:00 AM with no public notice, leaving hikers stuck waiting outside the gates — some of them illegally, per Paradise Valley rules.
Citizens’ coalition AG complaint over a steel-and-concrete footbridge built on protected Phoenix Mountains Preserve land — without Council approval, without a disclosed permit, and without the environmental assessment required by the City Charter.
GOOD|GOAT is petitioning the City of Phoenix to rename Cesar Chavez Park in honor of Jesse Owens, who made Phoenix his home from 1972 until his death in 1980.
Pre-litigation hold letter served on the City of Phoenix. Counsel concludes 3PI funds were used for golf-debt retirement contrary to ballot language, and the voter-mandated annual audit was replaced with a management-controlled attestation.
