$250,000 for the name they already had?

People wonder why there is a lack of trust in the City Council. Well, it might be that we are in a $12.5 million budget crunch, and the city spends $250,000 on a consultant to tell them to name the Fiesta District... wait for it.... the Fiesta District! Wow, that sure feels like money well spent.

Okay, well, maybe I am being a little dramatic. I understand that the name was chosen by an online poll and there is probably more to the plan than just picking what they already had. I am sure there will be "branding" and all sorts of fancy stuff. This is once again, one of those cases where Mesa can't help themselves from tripping when they try to put their best foot forward.

See, we are still weeks away from the branding and months away from the investment aspect of the study. But they felt it necessary to come out with the anticlimactic name change first. This seems to take the air completely out of the process and certainly casts a shadow over the final product that will be presented.

I can imagine how it happened: Poll wraps up on the website. The directions are, when the poll is done, announce the winner. So, the name is announced. A job well done. No critical thinking needed.

The fact is, when the poll came back and they saw that nothing was going to change, someone should have thought to themselves, "Gee, I wonder if we should announce this now." Or if they have a higher level of thinking, perhaps they should have thought, "Well, we are paying a lot of money for this survey, clearly, the name change is not going to be enough, so lets wait until we have a whole packaged idea to roll out."