Get to know the 2016 cohort of Flinn-Brown Fellows--introducing themselves and sharing their visions for civic leadership in Arizona. Visit http://www.azcivicleadership.org to learn more about the Fellows, the Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy, and the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.
The Arizona Center for Civic Leadership, administered by the Flinn Foundation, was launched in 2010 to strengthen civic leadership throughout Arizona. The Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy is sponsored in partnership with the Tucson-based Thomas R. Brown Foundations.
According to this source " the alarm was caused by a barrage of Fedspeak and the feared Fedspeak to come ahead of the September 21st pronouncement from the U.S. Federal Reserve on monetary policy. After the dust settled, financial markets still expressed disbelief in the September rate hike scenario. The odds for a hike in December surged from 51.4% to 59.2%. September has been a wild month already with rate hike expectations going from December on to December off/March on and now December on again as economic news and Fedspeak have crossed up markets.
DrDruru's best guess is that the Fed scheduled the current barrage of chatter to begin convincing markets that a rate hike is coming in December no matter what. The Fed will NOT hike rates in September against the market’s expectations. The renewal of excited media speculation over a September hike serves the Fed purpose to set up a long runway to a December hike. Imagine the (temporary) relief that will come after the Fed fails to hike rates in September while at the same time signals a near certain December hike: “yay – only one rate hike this year instead of two!”. That meeting will likely be yet another great opportunity to fade volatility.
Often-uninformed city leaders struggle with the decision, and taxpayers pay the price for their lack of financial knowledge. by William Fulton | August 2016
About the Author: Here's a guy that's been inside government, like a lot of current members of the Mesa City Council, who now holds a position as a director of urban research. He thinks that city leaders are often uninformed to make decisions . . .
William Fulton is the director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University and the author of Guide to California Planning and The Reluctant Metropolis. Fulton came to Rice from California where he served as the planning director for the City of San Diego. He formerly served as mayor, deputy mayor and a member of the city council in the City of Ventura, California.
All his columns reported in Urban Notebook can be found here
Why is your MesaZona blogger writing this post?
To get right to the point [and borrow a phrase] The future of Mesa is on the line. . . . from what yours truly has seen and heard and watched at multiple Mesa City Council meetings and study sessions and so-called "citizen advisory boards and committees" for planning and zoning and economic development, whatever the intentions and interests may or may not be for constituents or special interests, those elected or nominated to serve and members of the public oftentimes are un-informed on issues under consideration for discussion.
Case in point directly related to the question posed by columnist Bill Fulton is the action taken by the Mesa City Council to approve a taxpayer-funded item appearing on the November ballot in the General Election for a $100 Million ASU/Downtown plan that would radically transform a central public space into a campus for transient students.
Two other institutions for higher learning have been attracted here with financial incentives and subsidies. In five years neither one has succeeded in enrolling more than 400 students.
One - Benedictine University - was handed leases on two vacant city-owned buildings, has invested what they claim is $13 Million downtown, and while attracting more students into certain programs and athletics, is still far short of what was initial projected growth.
Taxpayer-approved Bond Issues - in the last few elections - have increased the chunk of the city expenditures budget pie where debt service payments already take out about 25% or $380 Million of last year's FY2015/16 Total City Budget.
You can see that about another $75 Million above that amount - or about $375 Million - is spent on "Personal Services".
Let's translate that for you: salaries + benefits, including health insurance and pension for city employees, including Police and Fire.Medical.
Since the city is reluctant to face more scrutiny and take on more debt service obligations draining the budget, or to take any action to revise or reduce city employee benefits including retirement, or to make real estate developers pay the cost for services residents need where they build houses, every taxpayer will get hit with an increase in sales taxes for almost every purchase transaction they make.
Projected sales tax income resources for this 2016/17 are tagged at $192.8 Million, while city income from sales and charges for services provided is the biggest chunk of income: over $408 Million.
Now the City of Mesa wants to hit taxpayers with an increase in sales [TPT] taxes to foot the bill for a questionable "Pie-In-The-Sky" plan ???
At the same time tangling up that scheme with funding for increased expenses for Police-Fire/Medical services?
They listen to their 'tribes' [close circle of friends] with high tech mobile social media that is supposed to expand the universe of ideas and information.
Published on Jul 2, 2016
Views: 416
Featured Ideas Festival Scholar includes Liz Plank. A robust fourth estate is central to the education of an engaged citizenry and healthy democracy. It informs us, shapes our thinking, and holds our leaders and institutions accountable. But if Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump agree on one thing this election season, it’s that political media is malfunctioning. On television, rating-driven programming fixates on certain candidates and looks past others, declaring “breaking news” on a few stories too many. And on the Internet, clickbait, automated aggregation, and sponsored content confuse and compromise informative reporting, too often within partisan echo chambers. Yet great reporting lives on across all platforms, and new technologies continue to redefine who’s reporting and how. Join us for a conversation about how the current media landscape is impacting our democracy. What’s broken? What’s new? And what does the future hold?
Mike Allen Tucker Bounds Campbell Brown Michael Dimock Mickey Edwards Julia Ioffe David Leonhardt, Moderator Derek Thompson, Moderator
Watch Sally Jo Harrison say "It's all about money" - that's not the case at all. The City of Mesa is responsible for compliance to the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA and has conveniently not enforced it, at least with over 5300 downtown parking spaces, until these lawsuits were filed. The AZ Attorney General has now had to intervene
Published on Sep 6, 2016
Mesa small business owners have been target by lawsuits claiming they are in violation of ADA laws. Visit MesaChamber.org for resources to help.
