Preposterous Claims From Slow Jammin' Mesa Mayor John Giles Earn Him 2 More Pinocchios

For a hyper-local news and entertainment source that your MesaZona blogger publishes after almost four years walking many times around the downtown blocks, the mayor makes it way-too-easy to poke some fun at, all in good faith of course.
We are indeed blessed to have so many opportunities to bear testimony and to witness a constant stream of revelations, even when he has a team of handlers and a chief-of-staff.

Now who could have imagined one of the best public relations stunts John Giles tried to pull-off just a couple a couple of years ago in this iconic image at his second State-Of-The-City Speech that was captured by Ivan Martinez >
John Giles: The Devil's Advocate
2 years later he's still pushing to re-package a PR campaign
to trick voters into approving about $75,000,000 for one new "virtual reality" and "gaming" building to house brick-and-mortar ASU programs for transient students in the Ozone.
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At that same SOTC speech Giles admitted publicly he needs help with getting new ideas. Last August  at the annual Summer U.S. Conference of Mayors in New Orleans, the subject of new ideas was discussed by nine of the mayors, where this was one of the topics:  
What also seems to be lacking in Washington right now is new ideas. If you could get a little time with top leaders in Washington and just shake them and say “Pay attention to this,” what would “this” be?  
Three others mayors brought up minimizing employee overtime, transportation initiatives and spending $120M for 15 new rail lines in Los Angeles, and taking on the pension crisis

John Giles (R), Mesa, Arizona: I’ll throw in a different perspective: that of a border state. NAFTA, as you know, is under real attack. That is putting a lot of border states like Arizona and California and Texas into a tizzy, because we spend a lot of time doing international-trade development. We’re coming up with some great ideas in my community; we’re talking about becoming a hub for e-commerce for Mexico by getting pre-clearance from Customs for packages leaving Mesa’s airport, and we came up with this without any assistance from the federal government. I wish they would come to our communities and figure out how to do international trade."
- From http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09
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Here again - and just on Thursday of last week - U.S. Conference of Mayors leaders say they're eager for capital to start flowing under the new economic development program.
Apparently John Giles is more eager for that Ozone wealth-creation here in Mesa: 

"Nobody's waiting," said Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, who also attended the meeting. "I think the regs will come at about the right time for people to say 'I'm going to write a check now.'"

Blogger Note: Giles likes that phrase "'I'm going to write a check now."                              QUESTION: To Who?????  

Earlier Giles stated he's been meeting in his office inside City Hall with private real estate developers who want to know how much he wants . . .

 

WASHINGTON — A group of mayors let Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin know during a meeting here on Thursday that they're itching to see forthcoming guidance for the Opportunity Zones program and offered suggestions about what they'd like it to include.
One point the mayors emphasized is that they would like to see the guidelines allow other federal and state tax incentive and economic development programs to be used in conjunction with the Opportunity Zones initiative, which offers tax breaks meant to attract private investment to low-income communities. . .
Columbia, SC mayor Steve Benjamin didn't offer specifics beyond saying "I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something meaningful this fall" when asked if the secretary gave any indication about when the guidelines might be issued. In July, a top White House economic adviser suggested the guidance would be out by the end of summer.In response to an email asking if the department had any comment on Thursday's meeting, or could offer details on when the guidance might be issued, a Treasury spokesperson referred to a tweet from Mnuchin's Twitter account that said it was "Great to discuss opportunity zones with some dedicated members of the US Conference of Mayors," but offered no other information
OZones: Mayors Are Still Waiting For "Clarity + Guidance" From The Treasury

Image posted on Twitter 

by John Giles on Sept 7 2018

Here in Mesa, AZ we are waiting for John Giles to provide the leadership unless he needs to wait for others to put words-in-his-mouth . . 5 months later after the "Opportunity Zones were announced.

- from a post here on Sat 08 Sept 2018

 
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