Breaking For The Future: Ready For Prime Time? A Reporter Remembers When . . .

Gary Nelson, roving reporter before and now contributing writer for The East Valley Tribune when the City of Mesa hit the Sunday night prime-time news, caught red-handed and shamed for alleged eminent domain abuse as an urban redevelopment scheme.Legendary journalist Mike Wallace and his crew interviewed Mesa brake shop owner Randy Bailey. The city had acted to condemn and seize the property under its right of eminent domain and has offered to compensate Bailey and help relocate the shop, but the business owner fought the effort in court. 

According to a contemporary article in the same newspaper by J. Craig Anderson  on May 23, 2003, the cameras rolled and City Council members were advised by City Attorney Debbie Spinner earlier in the week not to make any remarks or comments to Mike Wallace. 
Could this imposed media black-out happen today?

That was then. The upshot was the Bailey case stirred a bill in the Legislature that was signed by Gov. Janet Napolitano designed to make it more difficult for cities to take eminent domain action.
Blogger's Note: In a disadvantaged area with little opposition from owners of homes, The City of Mesa had little difficulty condemning and seizing by eminent domain a 25-acre swath of property right in the heart of downtown Mesa.

 Site 17 that got bulldozed and cleared of homes, creating on 'open-scar'  to this day in spite of efforts by Mesa's Director of Downtown Transformation Jeff McVay in so-called 'community outreach' and 'community engagement' meetings and surveys where very few members of the public [except for an organized angry activist group of neighbors from West Mesa] participated. [to the right: the 'vision']
See > earlier posts on this site 'community engagement'
Now there are other 'legislative tricks' in the would-be urban transformer's tool-boxes but that's another story for another post.

Let's go back-to-future in the 1970's at a corner of real estate on Country Club Drive and Main Street that's the focus both then and now. First, fast-forward to what might happen in the future along the light rail corridor is the architect's rendering to the left. Nelson's report starts off like this:
 "Almost 15 years ago, Mesa landed a starring role on national prime-time TV. But it was the kind of publicity no city wants."
Now, lessons learned, the City of Mesa wants to create the narrative and the kind of media-spin publicity it wants for downtown development, fearing nothing that could mess up what city planners and special-interest groups are now trying to push through the AZ Legislature.
Here are some snippet's from Gary Nelson's report yesterday 
SPOTLIGHT        

Rail may erase one of Mesa’s deepest scars

Mar 7, 2017 Updated 22 hrs ago

Mike Wallace, the legendary – and feared – correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” had come to town to look into a nasty spat about the future of a prime corner in downtown Mesa. . .
Mesa thought the corner needed some spiffing up. So, it bought and demolished several businesses and homes there in hopes of assembling a parcel for use by an already-existing downtown hardware store. . .
Bailey’s property, however, was not for sale. And when he balked at Mesa’s offer, the city resorted to eminent domain, asserting that redevelopment – even for the benefit of another private business – was a legitimate “public use” under Arizona law. . . Eight days after the story ran, the Arizona Court of Appeals overturned a county judge’s ruling that had favored Mesa in the case. Bailey’s shop still stands, the corner’s lone surviving structure.
Now, the coming of light rail may have given Mesa a mulligan when it comes to redevelop.

A Mulligan?

Jeff McVay

The city – with Bailey’s backing – issued a request for proposals to redevelop the site in late 2015. The lone response came from Chicanos Por La Causa, a 48-year-old, Phoenix-based nonprofit with a strong interest in housing and community development.

Plans call for a five-story, mixed-use complex with nearly 17,000 square feet of commercial and retail space on the ground floor. The 200 apartments will charge market-based rents.

Bailey, who in recent years served on a citizens’ committee that advised Mesa on downtown development, said he has been in talks with the developer.

Jeff McVay, Mesa’s manager of downtown transformation, remains excited about the proposal.

“I think hindsight on that one is going to be awesome,” McVay said.
Awesome. Huh?... just like his plans for Mesa City Center and that Pie-In-The-Sky half-backed exciting scheme to radically transform and devour downtown Mesa  with an ASU satellite campus that was a major screw-up public relations fiasco.