Let's check on that what is asserted as an historical truth, parts of it taken piecemeal from a phrase --- there's nothing like a highly selective narrative published by a Church-owned media enterprise
Identifying as “a Republican in the spirit of Ronald Reagan,” Giles says
the Republican Party has left him — not the other way around — and that
he feels compelled to vote for the best candidate, the one most willing
to tackle tough problems and make needed compromises, regardless of the
“D” or “R” standing by their name.
Is Mesa’s Latter-day Saint mayor John Giles leaving or leading the GOP? - Deseret News
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(Mesa Mayor John Giles stands for a portrait among saguaro and cholla cacti while on a morning hike at Usery Mountain Regional Park in Mesa, Ariz., on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022.)
"It’s 50 degrees outside — polar by Mesa, Arizona, standards — and America’s most controversial conservative mayor, John Giles, is out for a hike clad in a gray ball cap and low-cut boots.
Framed by cacti and the scattered light of a crisp winter sun, Giles is surveying the eastern half of Arizona’s third largest city — the one he has led for the last eight years. His asymmetrical smile communicates “small-town farmer” more than “big-city mayor” — an observation reinforced by an aide who describes him as a man who “is never in a hurry.”
But as we work our way up the base of Pass Mountain, Giles sets a pace that makes it hard to keep up. “I feel like this job is kind of a calling,” Giles, the 20-time marathon runner, says, as we reach a point overlooking the Salt River Valley, the area early Mormon pioneers settled some 145 years before.
He smiles: “I love waking up knowing I’m working in a calling.”
As one of only five Republican mayors in America running a major city of over half a million residents, Giles has forged his own trail, walking a line between fiscal responsibility and ambitious public investment, all while navigating the needs of a diversifying and politically polarized population.
Giles has faced recent criticism for his willingness to cross party lines in support of local Democratic candidates as well as COVID-19 stimulus bills and an ordinance balancing LGBTQ rights and religious freedom protections. But Giles believes he’s disrupting traditional partisan strictures in pursuit of a pragmatism and pluralism that’s defined Mesa since its founding. . .
Mesa’s past and future momentum
As we travel back to town, Giles is acting simultaneously as my tour guide and interview subject, describing an old picture of the Latter-day Saint pioneers who came to Mesa in the late-1870s. He searches for the right words before landing on the phrase: “The kind of people that just don’t die.”
One of the bearded, stone-faced settlers described by Giles was Daniel W. Jones, the rugged leader of Brigham Young’s final expedition, who crossed the Salt River into what is now modern-day Mesa in March 1877. Jones had previously been tasked with translating the first sections of the Book of Mormon into Spanish and directing the first church missionary efforts to Arizona and Mexico from 1875 to 1876. Jones had been home only one month when Young told him to return and establish a settlement in the “far south.”
Despite some misgivings, his response was, “Yes, I will go.”
Upon arriving in the Salt River Valley, some of Jones’ bedraggled company of 84 Saints were disappointed by what they found. But the next day, Jones started work on an irrigation ditch and before long had hired Native Americans from the neighboring tribes to help.
Like Jones, Giles explains he was initially reluctant about being mayor. He thought his stint in local government was over after serving on the city council. But when Mesa Mayor Scott Smith resigned in 2014 to launch a gubernatorial campaign, Giles was approached repeatedly by various community leaders urging him to run.
“Once I opened my mind to it, I realized there’s nothing I would love to do more,” Giles said. . .
An unexpected calling
Born in 1960 in Southside Hospital on Mesa’s Main Street, Giles remembers with fondness a childhood that revolved around the town’s public spaces — the library, swimming pool and school where his father was principal and where Giles hoped to someday take his place.
Though Giles never followed in his father’s professional footsteps, instead becoming a personal injury and accident attorney after studying political science at Brigham Young University and law at Arizona State University, much of his adult life was centered around community involvement in Mesa.
But it was at BYU, after serving a two-year
proselytizing mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in South Korea, that Giles’ political ambition began to take
form. “He had bold ideas,” Dawn Giles, the mayor’s wife of 40 years,
told me. . .
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Giles’ desire to enter the world of city government was fueled in part by his enthusiasm for what Smith had accomplished during his time in office. Even as Mesa continued to be the most conservative large city in America, Smith had worked to elevate its reputation from a sprawling suburbia with little opportunity for new business growth to an attractive destination for large and small companies centered around a revamped downtown.
In his 2014 campaign, Giles pledged to build on this brand of big-city conservatism, what Politico called a “blend of fiscal pragmatism and no-nonsense competence” — an approach that turned out to be in high demand. Giles won his 2014 election 73% to 27% against the more economically conservative Danny Ray.
Over the subsequent eight years, Giles aimed to build on Smith’s accomplishments, overseeing the construction of data centers by Apple, Google and Meta, extending the city’s light rail system and securing the construction of ASU’s new film and media production school just behind city hall.
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These and other successes played a role in the decision made by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to reconstruct the blocks surrounding the historic Mesa Temple to include hundreds of new living spaces, according to Julie Spilsbury, the most recently elected member of the city council.
Giles said the church’s investment, in turn, led directly to the construction of hundreds of other high-density housing units by developers who saw the church’s investment as yet one more sign of the future viability of downtown Mesa. For Giles, each successful investment, whether it be public or private, is a falling domino that increases the likelihood another similar success will come. If a city wants to thrive, he reasons, it must invest in itself.
But the implementation of Giles’ vision has not been without controversy from both the left and the right. . .
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Daniel Webster Jones (August 26, 1830 – April 20, 1915) was an American and Mormon pioneer. He was the leader of the group that colonized what eventually became Mesa, Arizona, made the first translation of selections of The Book of Mormon into Spanish, led the first Mormon missionary expedition into Mexico, dealt frequently with the American Indians, and was the leader of the group that heroically wintered at Devil's Gate during the rescue of the stranded handcart companies in 1856.
| Daniel Webster Jones | |
|---|---|
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| Personal details | |
| Born | August 26, 1830 Howard County, Missouri |
| Died | April 20, 1915 (aged 84) Mesa, Arizona |
| Resting place | City of Mesa Cemetery 33.4384°N 111.8329°W |
| Notable works | Forty Years Among the Indians (autobiography) |
| Spouse(s) | Harriet Emily Colton |
| Children | 14 |
| Relatives | Fay Wray (grand-daughter) Jeffrey M. Jones |
| Signature | |
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Early lifeEdit
Jones was born August 26, 1830 in Booneslick, Howard County, Missouri. Orphaned at the age of 12, he joined a group of volunteers to fight in the Mexican–American War in 1847. Following the war, he remained in Mexico for a number of years, learning Spanish, and while taking "part in many ways in the wild, reckless life that was common in that land," still he longed for something. When a sheepherding expedition bound for California departed in 1850, he left with them.
Latter-day Saint Movement Edit
While camped along the Green River in 1850, his pistol went off in his holster, piercing through fourteen inches of his groin and thigh. His companions left him, lame, but alive, with a Mormon settlement in Provo. There, he studied Mormon doctrine and was baptized by Isaac Morley on January 27, 1851.[1] The next year, he married Harriet Emily Colton, daughter of Philander and Polly Colton.. .
Upon returning, he was commissioned by Brigham Young to start a settlement in the Salt River Valley of Arizona.[2] The settlement party left the Utah Territory from St. George, and arrived at the site in March 1877. Jones' invitation to local Native Americans to live with them became a point of controversy, and half of the initial colony left, moving on to found St. David, Arizona.[3] Originally called Jonesville, the settlement was later renamed Lehi,[4] and was eventually incorporated into Mesa, Arizona.[5]
AutobiographyEdit
After some conflict with the other settlers, Jones moved to the Tonto Basin area, where his wife and 14th and youngest child were killed when a shed fell on them during a storm in 1882. In 1890, he published his autobiography, Forty Years Among the Indians: A True yet Thrilling Narrative of the Author's Experiences among the Natives, published by the Juvenile Instructor Press in 1890. In it, Jones details his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his experiences during the rescue of the handcart companies during the winter of 1856, his work with the Native Americans and Mexican people, and the early settlement of what became Mesa, Arizona. It is a valuable resource for historians and storytellers in describing events and conditions in Western and Mormon American history.
DeathEdit
Jones died on April 20, 1915 at the age of 84 years, of gangrene after an accident, and was buried in the City of Mesa Cemetery.[6]
LegacyEdit
Jones was the grandfather of actress Fay Wray (King Kong (1933)) and father of Daniel Philemon Jones, four-time member of the Arizona House of Representatives, Arizona's Speaker of the House from 1923 to 1924, and member of the Arizona State Senate. He was the great-great-great grandfather of Jeffrey Jones, the first Mormon senator in Mexico.
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