Believing in Scott Smith

It couldn't have been coordinated better. Mayor Scott Smith got a significant boost from the latest study from the Mesa Chamber showing the current economic conditions of Mesa and how it compares to the rest of the Valley.

All of this information came out at once, with an accurate assessment of the economic base feeding into his campaign platform transforming Mesa from a bedroom community into a high wage job development center. This story helps boost his credibility when combined with his well-timed op-ed in the Republic on the same subject as part of their Mesa at a Crossroads series, and the Tribune editorial touting his emergence as a leader a week after they criticized his stance on residential north of Gateway.

After reading the stories and his own editorial, you come to find that there is a lot to believe in. He is right, Mesa does a great job educating its kids, but where do they go once they finish college? For the most part, their jobs aren't in Mesa. Heck, people driving in from Queen Creek aren't even working in Mesa - they are driving through to Phoenix, Tempe, or Scottsdale. When Google came knocking, people withing the region nearly laughed out loud at the notion of a progressive company like that coming to Mesa.

Hopefully, these are the types of things that can change. The results of the chamber study show that the large majority of jobs in Mesa are retail and the average job wages are lower. One of the commenters said it best:

"Mesa does not need another Food City, check cashing store or pawn shop."

The City needs to look at the sustainable economic opportunities that are going to drive our future, not another shopping center or call center. This is going to take a good look at the development of East Mesa, but it also requires a thoughtful plan for redevelopment in West Mesa as well. People aren't going to want to drive through a run-down part of town just to get to a good part. I don't know the last time you drove on Broadway, but that is certainly the case now.

Council cuts back the bond package

Finally, we have a council that not only looks at the bureaucratic view of Mesa's operations, they also look at the poltical reality that they are facing with the voters. The council has asked staff to cut back the current bond package, and cut they did, getting it down to $158 million. The Republic focuses more on the cutting aspect of it.

We are now facing a much smaller proposal that only lasts two years and makes much more sense based on the current economic climate we are facing. The front page of the Trib today says that the state is officially in a recession. I am glad to see that the council saw past the notion of asking everyone else to sacrifice because gas is $4 bucks, but they move forward with a giant package. Hopefully they will come out with a broad education effort to get people behind this - something that was sorely lacking from the original proposal.

This is going to be the first true test for the new council and their effectiveness in the future may depend on the outcome of this vote. I believe that voters truly have a lot of hope, but it will be completely dashed if they perceive that this council is no different from the last. For example, the commenters are already questioining placing more Fire stations in developed parts of the city.

I understand why it is done: there is more demand in the developed areas and it helps reduce response times across the board, but I don't think most people get the distinction. Its going to take a road show from the councilmembers themselves to get that point across. Having staff go out and explain this package is not going to work.

Rates are going up

One final present from the old council: increased rates on our water, sewer, gas and everything else. Gasoline is only $4 bucks a gallon, rice has doubled in price, and we can't eat any tomatoes, but thank goodness we will be able to get financial relief from the city... oh wait. Nevermind.

The city is also going to "tier" water use for big consumers which, if they get their water from the city, may be a double whammy to Golfland if they are able to stay open. All in all, its supposed to raise another $6.5 million in revenue from the city. Combined with the couple more million that they have gotten from decreasing the rental exemption from 3 to 2, shouldn't be about time that the city's budget is balanced?

If its not, shouldn't they be going back through and looking for a few more cuts? At this point, it seems like they have no prodded and squeezed every dollar they could out of the residents. Isn't this where some of that change is supposed to come in?

Golfland hit by Employer Sactions Violations

In the news today, Golfland, Waterworld, and Big Surf were hit with a simultaneous search by the Maricopa County Sheriff's office. The story says that 104 of the 198 people (that's 52.5%) who work for Golfland have problems with their social security number. That seems to be a pretty big deal.

They arrested a couple of employees on a tip from a former employee. One guy even ran away, which is always a good way to prove your innocence. It will be interesting to see if the sheriff's office goes after the company this time.

What is most interesting to me is that when you look at a story like this, it always has 40 or 50 pages of comments attached to it. No other topic comes close to immigration in getting people fired up. Especially in parts of Mesa where the day laborers are standing on the street corners and people's houses are being broken into, having something like this is only going to add fuel to the fire.

First Look at the Legislative Races

Well, it looks like September is going to be another interesting Election marked with a couple of heated primaries and some new faces representing Mesa at the Arizona Legislature. It will be fun to watch and see how things go over the next couple of months. If you are interested, you can look up all of the candidates on the Secretary of State's page.

District 18
Senate: Russell Pearce, Kevin Gibbons - Republican, Judah Nativio - Democrat
House: Cecil Ash, Steve Court, Kanani Henderson, Ron Middlebrook - Republican, Tammie Pursley - Democrat

District 19
Senate: Chuck Gray - Republican
House: Kirk Adams, Rich Crandall - Republican, Kathy Romano - Democrat

District 21 (Partially in Mesa)
Senate: Jay Tibshraeney - Republican
House: Warde Nichols, Steve Yarbrough - Republican, Phil Hettmansperger - Democrat

District 22 (Partially in Mesa)
Senate: Thayer Vershoor, Eddie Farnsworth, Joe Bedgood - Republican
House: Andy Biggs, Adam Armer, Bob Brown, Laurin Hendrix - Republican, Glenn Ray - Democrat

The two hot spots are District 18 and District 22. Both are marked by some open spaces to fill on the house side and a heated primary race for the Senate seat. In District 22, you have two known commodities who will be battling to see who can get further to the right.

In District 18, you have a very well known candidate in Russell Pearce running against a virtual unknown in Kevin Gibbons (who's number three result that comes up under a google search is him once owning the trademark to "inmigracion sin barreras"). I think it will be hard to come in with a pro-immigration stance in that part of Mesa.

It will be an all new slate in the house for District 18. District 22's spot became open when Eddie Farnsworth decided to challenge Vershoor in the primary.

Good news from Hohokam Park

Finally some good news in the midst of all of this economic bad news, revenue is up about $1 million from Spring Training at Hohokam last year. This is fairly impressive combined with the $30 million that is poured into the local economy, especially since the stadium is in a residential area across from a graveyard. Here is a troubling stat from the article: "the Cubs accounted for 96,000 room nights at Valley hotels, with 34,000 in Mesa." So only about 1/3 of the people coming to the games in Mesa are staying in Mesa hotels? It makes you wonder where they are eating their food and doing their shopping?

The credit goes almost completely to the Cubs, however, because without such a marquee team, Mesa would be well behind the curve in spring training. Imagine if we had the Kansas City Royals or some other team in Mesa instead of the Cubs. What would it be like then?

Also, as other cities double up on their teams, isn't it about time that Mesa does the same?

Battle over Gateway begins

And so it begins... There is a battle brewing over Gateway and the potential to put residential in the northern part of area. This is a continuation of the fight lead by the old council to push for an alternative to the plan that the city paid over $860,000 for which included high-density housing within the freeway loop. Councilman Scott Somers is against the idea of housing in the area while new Mayor Scott Smith is more open to the idea.

The battle has spilled over to the opinion pages with Somers and the Tribune taking a position against the proposed housing. We'll see if the paper gives any of the people more willing to consider the housing an opportunity to respond.

There is a lot of interesting information over at the Mesa Gateway Strategic Development Plan including links to Alternative A and Alternative B. I have attempted to put together a little graphic that shows the housing difference between A and B:

Its kind of hard to see, but the light orange is supposed to be high density residential and the light blue is business park. So, basically, option B pulled out all of the residential and put in a bunch more business park. Three observations:

1. This residential is not directly in the flight path, and its certainly got to be a lot quieter than the people who are living in the dorms at ASU Poly.

2. Option B results in NO residential on the North side of the freeway. None. Its a couple square miles of business park with some industrial and retail with no one living nearby. No one will be around at night, no neighborhood watch keeping crime down, no one caring about the area because its their home.

3. What's the use of a big park in the middle of all of that if no one is living there? Do you think the employees are going to go out and play kickball at lunch?

I think that they need to figure out exactly what they want and take their time to make the decision. Besides, its not like if they approved the plans tomorrow, they would start building apartments out there overnight.

Council gets right down to business

The council got right down to business after their swearing in on Monday and they haven't looked back since. They are already jumping right into the budget and also taking a close look at the bond issue.

I suspect that we will see a scaled back bond issue very soon. It will be interesting to see what makes it in and what gets cut. What is especially interesting is that Scott Somers is breaking ranks on the airport already while he is the one with the most desperate need for street projects in his district. Do you think that will impact the amount of bacon he is capable of bringing back to his district?

The other interesting observation is this statement by City Clerk Linda Crocker:

"We will have something in November, definitely, we just don't know the amount yet," City Clerk Linda Crocker said.

Since she is not a member of the city council, I don't really think its her call to make. I understand that she is just doing her job and getting everything ready to have another election, but I think there are still some very important decisions to be made.

I think there is a possibility that we may not see something on the ballot in November. The economy is bad, prices are through the roof, so it may not be the best time to go to the voters and ask them to raise taxes. This new council is for bold change, but I would assume that they are at least going to start with only calculated risks.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the large majority of the things they are proposing are essential to keep our city safe. However, they better have a rock solid plan put together if they are going to put it to the voters.

New Council starts tonight

Councilmembers-Elect Dave Richins, Alex Finter, Dennis Kavanaugh, Dina Higgins, and Mayor-Elect Scott Smith will take their seats on the Mesa City Council tonight after being sworn in. Then, they are going to jump right in and face adopting a tentative budget.

Also on the agenda tonight is the election of a new Vice Mayor. I would guess that one of the two seated councilmembers will get the nod. My guess is, since he has been on the council the longest, Kyle Jones will probably get the honor. However, there may be some questions:

First, there may be some people who are uneasy with giving the Vice-Mayor position to the councilmember from the district with traditionally low voter turnout.

Next, neither Jones nor Somers endorsed Smith during the General Election. Would someone like Kavanaugh end up being the pick because he has been there before, supported Smith, and technically has the longest tenure?

Finally, the mantle has long been held by someone from the West part of Mesa, so maybe they would be smart to put it on someone from East Mesa. If thats the case, you may see Somers get the title.

I am sure there was a lot of discussion behind the scenes. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Classy move by Tom Rawles

Outgoing Councilmember Tom Rawles has gathered nearly $15,000 in donations to help Maria Stenzel's National Geographic Live presentation at the Mesa Arts Center. A man of his word, in righteous and not so righteous things, he sticks to his principles to the very end. He believes that arts should be funded by donations and not by government and he puts it into action.

It is sort of an interesting juxtaposition to the article about Mayor Hawker. The article about Hawker is filled with discussion of principles versus reality and a lot of compromise made by during his time as Mayor. Apparently, he was against pretty much everything like eminent domain and tax incentives, yet he did not stop them.

It is a very interesting comparison since both men consider themselves libertarian at heart.