What is Mesa AZ known for?
"Mesa is the ultimate desert playground for incredible, sought-after outdoor adventure. Plan for an inspired Arizona getaway on the region's canyon-carved waterways and endless trails. As the third largest city in Arizona, this modern-day desert urban retreat offers fun for everyone from foodies to adventure seekers!"
Pioneer Park is not properly located inside the grid of the original One-Square Mile where the eastern boundary is Mesa Drive. It's just east of that across from the Mesa LDS Temple Area and the public park takes its name from a dedication of a statue in 1987 honoring four Mormon families sent by Joseph Smith from Salt Lake City to colonize Arizona. That Pioneer Monument is what you see arriving on Main Street at the entrance.
< Take the time to read it
"Early in 1878 with a straight edge and a spirit level they proved the feasibility of using the ancient Montezuma Canal to bring life-giving water from the Salt River to the desert sands. On February 14th work began on the project, A survey was made and stakes driven, May 16, 1878 to plat the townsite according to the "City of Zion" Plan given by Joseph Smith. the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. Elijah Pomeroy was the first bishop and A.F. Macdonald was the first mayor."
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BLOGGER NOTE: Ever since then there's a direct pipeline from the religion of the Pioneers where their descendants who are bishops and the leaders in LDS stakes and wards get elected to become mayors or elected/unelected power brokers in a closely-connected network of cohorts in Government, Finance, Insurance and Real Estate.
The pipeline still produces results from A.F.Macdonald the first mayor > the 40th mayor John Giles was also "a bishop'"
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Other than that, no other mention in the public park for the two indigenous cultures already living on the land for centuries before the arrival of The Pioneers in the late 19th Century.
Is that in any way a respect for the well-documented history or two earlier first peoples - Spanish-Mexican and the Hohokam/Salt River Pima Maricopa - or is it a skewed and flawed a one-dimensional interpretation?
Here are former mayor Scott Smith and current city manager Chris Brady in 2012 making a sales-pitch to get the Cubbies Spring Training Facility financed on-the-backs of Mesa taxpayers to the tune of over $200,000,000 for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family who bought the sports franchise in 2009.
From what we know now it was a shake-down [Use the search box on this blog for more]
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– “It’ll be totally fine if our family gets involved in politics. No one will ever find out about it so it won’t be controversial at all.”
– “Now that we own the McDonald’s across the street from Wrigley, I’m going on an all Quarter Pounder diet. Please don’t tear that place down Tom. I’m sure any hotel we put up there won’t do nearly as much business as the McDonald’s. Plus, where will all the rats go?”
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> Donald Trump's $14 billion Cabinet
#2 Todd Ricketts @$5.3 Billion
Ricketts is a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and CEO of Ending Spending, an organization “dedicated to educating and engaging American taxpayers about wasteful and excessive government spending,” according to its site.
[Reference: https://www.cbsnews.com ]
Here in Arizona in what we now call The Salt River Valley, ancient indigenous cultures created a vast system of canal networks over the centuries before the arrival of new 'Pioneers'. They expanded the open canals to supply natural water resources, converted to private-ownership or municipal control to build vast fortunes for agricultural lands and ranches. After World War II those same lands were needed to create large tracts of housing for Suburban Sprawl and shopping centers and for new industries. Irrigation districts had to be created. Water usage increased. Groundwater had to be tapped into. Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants had to get built. Planning for the future, the city of Mesa once owned 11,400 acres in Pinal County called the Mesa Water Farm. That acreage - and the water-rights - were sold off to Saints Holding Company.
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Readers of this blog can also note there is a very distinct different pattern of what are defined as water rights in the nation's westward expansion.
Homesteading and Water Settlement Acts were the federal government incentives to lay claim to tracts of lands and territories. More than anything else, that's what led to the colonizing of Mesa and The Salt River Valley by family groups in wagon trains sent by Joseph Smith from Salt Lake City.
Their mission was to expand the Kingdom of Deseret here to create The New Zion.
COVID-19 relief funds paid for crime surveillance and more in Arizona
"Mesa allocated $3.3 million of federal pandemic relief funds to create a citywide crime surveillance program called the Real Time Crime Center.
- The center allows officers to use security cameras on roads and in public spaces to have virtual eyes around the city.
How it works: Detective Richard Encinas tells Axios Phoenix the center is used to deliver information to police in real time, allowing them to quickly identify and apprehend criminals and respond to "suspicious activity."
- He says center operators witnessed a serious rollover vehicle accident at the intersection of Stapley Drive and Southern Avenue recently and were able to deploy police and fire officials to the scene before a witness called in the accident, saving "precious minutes."
- Glendale operates a similar program.
State of play: Mesa is one of hundreds of cities across the nation, including many others in Arizona, that are using some of the funds they received from the American Rescue Plan Act to supplement their law enforcement operations.
- Cities and counties across the country received $350 billion total through ARPA and have allocated about $101 billion so far.
- The money was meant to help alleviate the impacts of the pandemic, but few limitations were put on local governments, so municipalities are using it for a range of projects, Axios Phoenix found through a partnership with the Marshall Project.
Zoom in: Many Arizona cities allocated the funds to pay for police officer salaries or bonuses.
- Phoenix dedicated $29 million for up to $2,000 in bonuses for full-time essential employees, including officers.
- Chandler allocated $750,00 toward hiring incentives for sworn police officers, detention officers and dispatchers.
- Scottsdale plans to spend all $29 million it received to pay for police and fire operations.
Zoom out: A new Marshall Project report found that localities across the country have allocated around $52.6 billion so far for "revenue replacement," a vague catch-all category.
- Nearly half of that went to projects that mentioned police, law enforcement, courts, jails and prisons.
Between the lines: President Biden is embracing the law enforcement spending and using it as evidence that Democrats don't want to defund the police.
Of note: Cities and counties also allocated hundreds of millions of dollars on other categories that don't directly relate to the pandemic.
- Phoenix will spend up to $10 million on the rehabilitation of its 27th Avenue Recycling Facility.
- Maricopa County allocated $3 million to improve drinking water infrastructure at county parks.
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