On Main Street: No Big Blockbuster Development - Ice Cream & Cookies For Now

New and small start-up business owners are taking advantage of events that attract people downtown [Yes, Hello People! the streets of Mesa need people on the sidewalks one way or another] by scheduling their openings when they know there will be more than the usual low counts of people on the sidewalks.

First Friday Nights Out is one of the low-cost event strategies in the Urban Redevelopment Tool Kit to bring more people to revitalize downtown areas outside of regular daytime business hours.

Way to Go Mesa + 
Way to Go Small Business Owners

MesaZona blog readers are encouraged to read other local online sites about the regeneration of The New Urban Downtown Mesa to find out more details that highlight new businesses that are opening On/Off Main Street.

Smitholator Cookies Creator

If you hover over or touch you screen on top right just below the navigation bar on the homepage out slides a vertical bar with LINKS FOR YOU TO USE: two of the best of those are a link to Ryan Winkle, who works with NEDCO, and a link to Build A Better Downtown, whose mission, funding and objectives are to encourage and promote the attractiveness of the downtown area for both budding entrepeneurs, residents and visitors alike.

I'm just one guy in a parallel universe encouraging the regeneration of downtown with more of individual citizens and downtown residents getting involving who isn't probably "mainstream" and who can't be everywhere all the time . . . it isn't a job for me.

The image to the right is taken from Build A Better Downtown Mesa

  . . . next, how about a corner grocery convenience store for people who live downtown? 

Unless there's a certain density of people living downtown with the required demographics that are used by national franchises to decide to open a new profit-making location, those that want "something like Trader Joe's" or "Sprouts" or "Fresh & Easy" will either have to wait until the downtown population increases increases by at least 500 or economic spending patterns tip the balance in favor of locating downtown, or crowd-fund or kick-start what they want. 
Hey! That's an idea isn't It? . . . 
Crowd-Funding or Kick-Starting a local neighborhood grocery/convenience store that's unique to The New Urban Downtown Mesa

The New Urban Downtown Mesa: Ideas City?

This posting is about another artist who is A SOCIAL ACTIVIST. [Readers of this blog are encouraged to read and watch Theaster Gates on a screen that pops up in an earlier post]. 

Readers are likewise advised that your blogger enjoyed life for many years inside The Big Apple, leaving Manhattan shortly after the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers - circumstances one could hardly imagine happening, but they did. He was there during the events of 2001 - What a Space Odyssey that was! - and now I'm here.

Too often we skim over or quickly scan words or initials: take for example "ozone" or "smog" or "HPA" or "precusors" or "ultraviolet radiation" - words and initials you see in an ADEQ Press Release, again in an earlier post on this blog. 

Sometimes it takes "a political stunt" by an artist to create a visceral response to a common man-made phenomenon: that HPA from ADEQ is one of many High Pollution Alerts

An Edible Geography piece from Nicola Twilley, the mastermind behind the smog meringue endeavor, offered a more compelling explanation for the whimsical treats:
"Our hope is that the meringues will serve as a kind of 'Trojan treat,' creating a visceral experience of disgust and fear that prompts a much larger conversation about the aesthetics and politics of urban air pollution, as well as its health and environmental effects

From The Huffington Post > Smog: A Frivolous Affair?

It's a Wonder-filled life: LRT reducing emissions of carbon monoxide - ya know, like from all those cars on the freeways getting to work by commuting from long-distance sub-urbs. 

Anybody ever think about 

what a day without cars might look like?

Jump Into The Jurassic! here in the New Urban Downtown Mesa? ... Get Off My Cloud

Received an announcement in the MesaZona inbox the other day from Kevin Christoper, City of Mesa Office of Public Information:
Your blogger's immediate question was: Why is an educational non-profit institution owned by The City of Mesa - or "literally owned" by the public - part of a pre-release media advertising campaign for a Hollywood movie? No one's impressed by dinosaurs anymore . . .and rather than jumping back into The Jurassic ... how about a jump into forward-thinking here in the New Urban Downtown Mesa?
. . . With reports of worldwide record-breaking revenues from the weekend opening I guess ya gotta say "We live in Jurassic World", Huh?
Mesa, AZ – Arizona Museum of Natural History, 53 N. Macdonald in Mesa, is celebrating the opening of the ‘Jurassic World’ movie with a special “Jump into the Jurassic” program Saturday, June 6 from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  Try your hand at the Wheel of Time with our paleo-educator for a free ‘Jurassic World’ mini poster.  The museum will have children’s craft activities and a dinosaur touch cart available, plus lots of fun facts about the Jurassic Period!  We will have an enter to win contest featuring a prize pack including four free passes to the preview opening of ‘Jurassic World’ on June 9.  The contest will be in the lobby and no purchase is necessary.
Regular museum admission rates apply and members are always admitted free. Plan to come and enjoy a cool indoor afternoon jumping into the Jurassic! 

LOS ANGELES — In “Jurassic World,” scientists create a living theme park attraction called Indominus rex [a female dinosaur] by splicing the DNA of two very different species.. 
They are ecstatic. Behold!  
The glorious future, a ticket-selling machine.

But there are naysayers. 

Madness! 

This Franken-beast monster may draw crowds, but it is not natural. You cannot be two things at once.

excerpt from a review in The New York Times June 3, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/movies/in-the-shadows-of-a-giant-and-dinosaurs.html?_r=0

Mayor John Giles: What A Diverse Guy! Spotlight on Light Rail One Day + Spotlight On Hunger on Saturday+Family Dollar

Your blogger is a regular patron of Citizen Thrift. A couple of months ago something amazing happened - it just became better under new management. Walked in today doing the usual re-think/recycle/re-use/re-imagine routine, buying some marble pieces at a buck a piece to turn into cutting boards or cheese boards - other people were buying them to make countertops or resurface floors and walls. The salesperson said stop by for our Re-Opening ... the mayor will be here.

When new management took over, space in the back became a food pick-up area, the details of which I didn't know until a conversation was started with the manager remarking about the transformation.

You can pick up on all the details and good deeds from "People of Good Will" - no NOT Goodwill Industries - by reading an entry on Mayor John Giles blog with his monthly 
Spotlight on Hunger > NextMesa: the Mayor's Blog

The building is located on the SEC of Stapley & Main Street. 
For history buffs that is the same location as one of the first "shopping centers" that began attracting customers away from Main Street. You can see the adaptive-reuse of one of Mesa's first shopping centers.
Another Re-Opening: On the way there if you're heading from downtown, take notice of the new location for Family Dollar at the SWC of Miller & Main.

Mayor Giles is DA MAN: Rubbing elbows with Apple Execs in Cupertino, California, mixing at National Mayors' Conference in Washington, D.C, and now making the time with a Spotlight On Hunger - earning frequent flier miles in some cases, and earning political points showing concern for those on the other end of the economic spectrum - in his own words "Doing Good Stuff"

Way to Go, Mr. Mayor: Great Show for Valley Metro Light Rail Transit

Here's the MUST-SEE REVEAL promised in the Press Release from Valley Metro for the 5th Milestone Celebration of the Central Mesa Extension Project that took place in front of City Hall Plaza at 9:00 this morning.

With a great deal of hoopla and fanfare, John Giles summoned four members of the City Council  to appear with him and shout out "Move That Train!

John Giles, Downtown Cheerleader

Members of the Mayor's Youth Corps had been stationed on the platform hidden between an eastbound light rail car and one headed west. When the City Council and mayor gave the shout, sure enough the eastbound train moved out of the station to reveal "the secret announcement" to the roar and pleasure of the crowd at City Hall Plaza.

John Giles is gaining points in showmanship and getting media savvy for being such a mild-mannered and calm guy. He rises to the public celebration fulfilling the promise of light rail transit made under his predecessor Scott Smith with his tactic of "Under-Promise & Over-Deliver" . . . The contractor for Valley Metro's CME received a significant incentive bonus for getting the job done way ahead of schedule.  Who knows? The New Urban Downtown Mesa might become the Arts & Entertainment District that so many stakeholders, both public and private, have invested in already. Light rail is one part of the infrastructure as a people-mover for visitors [who arrive and leave] to attend events. The big institutions can do visitor counts in the millions to attractions downtown, but admittedly increasing a higher-density, low-impact regeneration of downtown Mesa's resident population of about 3,000 deserves some attention with everything else.

Rob Antoniak

Events are not just what people you see in the spotlight or you see in the news. There are a lot of people "behind-the-scenes" to make sure these celebrations go smoothly.

Here's Valley Metro's Community Outreach Director for the Central Mesa Extension Project, checking up on a small detail for the sound system at today's celebration.

Davis Entertainment, a business at 37 W Main Street, set up the sound systems starting at 7:00 a.m.

Link > Davis Entertainment

Downtown Rendezvous, located in the lobby and back terrace of City Hall Plaza, provided catering and refreshments.

What's Up Mesa? . . . What's Next is Missing a Few Players: Where's The Public in Politics?

Economic Development Advisory Board Meeting June 2, 2015

Politics  
(from Greek: πολιτικός politikos, definition "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the practice and theory of influencing other people.

Citizens who don't exercise their right to vote - or even bother to register to vote - or take advantage of the fact that yes, we do have the right to participate in a democracy and, yes again, that we are free to express our opinions, to go to meetings, to exchange ideas with people in government, and support those people and ideas to move our mutual agendas forward -are missing out of what politics is all about.

Rich Adams, sitting at the center, is  the GPEC Rep who was presiding at today's meeting, remarked that he had not heard a comment from the public in the last ten years. [Apologies to the EDAB members sitting on the left side who aren't included in the image.]

The Economic Development Advisory Board "shall act as the advisory board" - got that? - to the Mesa City Council on matters pertaining to economic development, including

• setting goals
• planning strategies
• marketing the City of Mesa to attract economic development 
• recruiting, retaining and expanding economic development

 Your blogger changed the static nouns used on the city committee's webpage into active transitive verbs since the board is tasked with "shall act"

Is this "a catchy phrase"? or ready for the recycle bin?

Mayor John Giles talked at length about his proposed NextMesa campaign, encouraging people to come up with ideas.

I don't mean to be hypercritical, but it looks like a set of nesting tables - what is that?

Successive 3-tier flat-line growth on disconnected forms with a downside slope getting bigger for each next stage? 

Go to the Mayor's NextMesa blog by hitting this link: mesamayor.com

You can find who the EDAB members are, what their affiliations are, and how to contact them by going to this link: http://mesaaz.gov/city-hall/advisory-boards-committees/economic-development-advisory-board

OK ... What are you having with your cake?

Advertising Branding Campaigns - and corporate support for social justice - are coming out this month with a series of well-placed endorsements. 

Here's just one:
The Maytag Man ✔ @TheMaytagMan

Proud to be in any home. Happy #Pride Month.

7:19 AM - 1 Jun 2015

Maytag took a strong stand in favor of LGBT rights with a tweet Monday showing its beloved repairman calling for "equality and cake for all" on the first day of LGBT Pride month.

The rainbow-colored cake held by the Maytag man alludes, of course, to those bakers who have refused to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples on the grounds that doing so would violate their religious beliefs.

Way to go, Maytag.

Matt Salmon [R] AZ 5th CD

Believe It or Not:  

Arizona 5th Congressional District U.S. House of Representatives Republican Matt Salmon, who represents the City of Mesa as part of his constituency] appeared on MSNBC this morning. Recorded live at 07:09 a.m. [18:00 minutes] with link supplied by his press office

http://salmon.house.gov/media-center/videos/rep-salmon-joins-morning-joe-to-discuss-the-usa-patriot-act 

SALMON: "And -- and I think that we can have our cake and eat it, too, Joe. We have for years and years and years."

He appeared on "Morning Joe"  . . . just a coincidence that these two items were out in the media within 10 minutes of each other???

Matt Salmon, like Mesa Mayor John Giles attended public school in Mesa, Arizona . . . maybe they forgot a history lesson from The French Revolution, giving birth to  Liberty & Equality rights that were written into the U.S. Constitution?