Mayor speaks on Economic Downturn

Mayor Scott Smith has predicted that the economic slump will impact Mesa for at least 2 years and that the City needs a stable revenue source to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future.

In the meantime, the city is finding ways to cut costs and increase efficiency. The stories talk about how inspection, code compliance, and planning have been combined into one department. This will mean an elimination in jobs, but it will mean a new set of skilled employees who would be busy no matter what the current state of construction and the economy. This will mean lost jobs, but it will help the overall health of the city and make it more flexible in the future.

I would argue that Mesa needs to diversify before it finds a way to stabilize the revenue sources. We are a sales tax based city, so the result is that we attract stores, retail locations, auto dealerships, and others to build our revenue base. We need to start looking for opportunities to create quality jobs and employment centers in town.