24 June 2019

How Does Mesa Mayor John Giles Measure-Up For Urban Transformation?

Here's John Giles with South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Both were on a panel forum at New York University in April of last year
At forum, mayors depict city government as locus of action
The “Urban Transportation Forum:
Mayors Changing Cities”
was held at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.
The sponsors were the US Conference of Mayors, the David Bohnett Foundation, and NYU Wagner.
Urban Transformation Forum:
Mayors Changing Cities
Published on May 9, 2018
Views: 111
On Wednesday April 18, NYU Wagner together with the US Conference of Mayors and the David Bohnett Foundation sponsored a panel event called "Urban Transformation Forum: Mayors Changing Cities."
Four leading mayors came together to discuss how they’re changing their respective cities to meet today’s unique challenges—bringing forth big, bold, and inventive ideas to tackle today's most pressing issues.
[Left to right: Eleanor Randolph, Mayor Nan Whaley, Mayor John Giles]
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WHO'S EMERGED INTO THE NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
FOR BIG BOLD AND INVENTIVE IDEAS?
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg
Clue: It's not Mesa Mayor John Giles, standing in the middle of an empty Main Street with two of the principals in the Caliber Wealth Creation Fund for private wealth-creation in Opportunity Zones that are qualified for deferred capital tax gains investments in The TCAJA 2017.
The rampant real estate speculation in downtown was fueled by a campaign push by Mesa Mayor John Giles to get Mesa taxpayers to pay for an ASU campus downtown. In February 2018 it became a public controversy when the AZ State Senator Bob Worsley admitted at a City Council meeting in February 2018 that he was gambling millions while holding public holding for his own private gains. His business partner in a number of holding companies, W Tim Sprague is shown at far left. They scooped-up more than ten commercial properties on Main Street before the end of 2017   
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From left to right: Mayor Toni Harp, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
New Haven, Mayor Harp said, she and other officials have honed community-based policing with new communication technologies and driven down homicides, nonfatal shooting victims, and shots fired—to dramatic effect. Separately, South Bend’s “Mayor Pete” is laying the groundwork for a 21st century city. . .
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Former New York Times editorial board member Eleanor Randolph, who is working on a book about former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, moderated   the conversation and fielded questions from the audience in the room and others watching the livestream and using Twitter.
“Mayors are actually the most interesting people in politics, mostly because they have to get stuff done—they don’t have much time for real extremism, they have to be pretty pragmatic,” said Dayton, Ohio Mayor Nan Whaley.
Joining a lively panel discussion on April 18, Whaley drew a picture of proactive local-government responsiveness and effectiveness, along with
John Giles of Mesa, Arizona
Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana
Toni Harp of New Haven, Connecticut
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Mesa, meanwhile, is a politically conservative border city with 485,000 residents, one-third of them recent immigrants. The long national debate over immigration, Mayor Giles said, threatens to force Mexican-Americans into the shadows. It has also had a negative effect on inter-border trade discussions, and could dampen the Census count, critical to future state aid levels for the fast-growing city.
Giles and other local officials in his city are redoubling efforts to rebuild trust among immigrants—“the people we shop with, go to church with, that our children go to school with."
“If you’re bringing in someone to talk about immigration, you might ask why it is not Jeff Flake, John McCain, or somebody who actually deals with the issue. I would suggest to you that just like opioids, where the issue is being dealt with is at the local level—far more effectively and in a more meaningful way—than at the national level,” the Mesa mayor said. “Folks don’t move to ‘America,’ they move to neighborhoods, they move to cities."
 
 
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