Shout Out = A Proclamation from Mayor John Giles Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month Here in Mesa

With some friendly good-natured persuasion Mayor John Giles signed a Proclamation [ See document farther on in this post - please note there is no version in Spanish ] in a timely manner yesterday to honor and recognize diversity in this city of over 460,000 people including hundreds and thousands of citizens from countries in Central and Southern America who have established families, homes and businesses here.

Some joined indigenous native peoples hundreds of years ago along with later pioneer arrivals to settle here creating their futures through decades of development on the land.
Together we can build a stronger diverse future . . .
Conjuntos Todo Es Possible

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH
During National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) we recognize the contributions made and the important presence of Hispanic and Latino Americans to the United States and celebrate their heritage and culture.
Hispanics have had a profound and positive influence on our country through their strong commitment to family, faith, hard work, and service. They have enhanced and shaped our national character with centuries-old traditions that reflect the multiethnic and multicultural customs of their community.
Hispanic Heritage Month, whose roots go back to 1968, begins each year on September 15, the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico, Chile and Belize also celebrate their independence days during this period and Columbus Day (Día de la Raza) is October 12.
The term Hispanic or Latino, refers to Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

On the 2010 Census form, people of Spanish, Hispanic and/or Latino origin could identify themselves as Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or "another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin."
Today, 55 million people or 17% of the American population are of Hispanic or Latino origin.

Here in Mesa it is 25%.

This represents a significant increase from 2000.
Share in this special annual tribute by learning and celebrating the generations of Hispanic and Latino Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society

Here is the English-only Proclamation

A Very Curious Case of Cat Toy Arbitrage in E-Commerce

Episode 724: Cat Scam

NPR Podcast September 14, 20164:14 PM ET
Fred and Natasha Ruckel invented a cat toy called the Ripple Rug. It's like a scrunched up doormat with holes in it, and for cats it's like Disneyland-level fun. When the Ruckels put it up for sale on Amazon, it started selling well. It was a solid business. Then one day, Fred noticed that the Ripple Rug was also on sale on eBay—for twenty dollars more.
It looked like his product. It looked like he was selling it. But he had never posted it on eBay. IT was a case of cat toy arbitrage.

Fred was pissed—the eBay sellers weren't changing the original Ripple Rug, and he didn't think they were adding any value.
They were just jacking up the price and pocketing the difference.
This is a classic middleman scheme.
It's also a scheme that could only happen on the Internet.
But the Internet was supposed to get rid of the middleman. Consumers can buy directly from manufacturers at wholesale prices. They can book flights themselves on sites like Kayak—no more travel agents, no more unnecessary fees. Or, that was one of the hopes anyway.
Of course, it didn't work out that way. Instead, middlemen are stronger than ever. The biggest companies on the internet are middlemen . . .  http://www.npr.org/sections/money/

And it's all about this

1 Minute Read? Road Networks Visualized

The World's Road Networks, Visualized As Beautiful Flowing Fractals

If cities are living things, roads are the veins that keep them alive, even at the mathematical level."

Jessica Leber 09.14.16 3:00 PM

Traffic - Understanding and fixing early problems in your city

A guide to understanding what causes early traffic problems and how to overcome them

By Από Maestro

Introduction

Unless you're a veteran to city building or just really good at traffic planning, you're bound to make mistakes when building your cities. We've all done it: built a great looking city block or estate and then realised that it's just not compatible with good traffic flow and we end up with nightmare gridlock and lots of frustration. If you build dense and imperfect, it's really hard to rectify problems without destroying parts of your city so it's important to plan ahead when you're building and leave room for further expansion of your road network.
In this guide, I intend to highlight some of the more common problems faced early on if you don't plan, help you to use the tools available to you to analyse the problem and show you what solutions work and what don't. And more importantly: why.

"Raw materials come from outside your city to your industrial estates. Your factories make them into finished goods which are transported via truck to the commercial district. Goods also get exported out of your city. CIMs travel to both of these places to work. CIMs will travel to the shops to buy stuff. Note that I've used a thicker line to indicate this is more people! Your CIMs will commute to their own place of work - some will work in factories and some will work in shops. However ALL of your CIMs will want to shop. In addition to this, every zone will require services - more and more as the game progresses. These services will need access to some or all of your zones depending on the service.
This flow of people and goods is vital when considering your transport infrastructures. But more on that later, we have a city to build, right? "

 

Read the entire findings >> here

 

Here are some other bits of information from two different sources

 

The Dynamic Behaviour of Road Traffic Flow

Stability or Chaos?

David Jarrett, Zhang Xiaoyan

Abstract

This paper is a report on work in progress on a project concerned with models of road traffic flow. Results for two such models are described and illustrated. One model is the classical car-following model. A number of numerical simulations were carried out, but no evidence of chaos was found. The other model concerns trip distribution. Here a dynamic formulation of the model results in some solutions which appear chaotic, and evidence of a period-doubling sequence of bifurcations is found.

Find it >> here

 

The Recipe for Economic Development

Miramar, Florida > growth so fast and rapid . . .keeping up with the  quality of life

Published on Sep 15, 2016

Views: 5

Located a short distance from both Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Fla., the City of Miramar was founded as a “bedroom community” in the 1950s. Since 2000, however, the city has charted a new path, doubling its population and significantly growing its economy. But like a lot of cities, the economic downturn of 2008 forced the city to think creatively about maintaining the services residents and businesses demand despite decreasing revenues. In this Big Ideas for City’s talk, Mayor Wayne Messam discusses how the community has leveraged its unique assets with economic development strategies to keep the city moving forward.

Mesa Morning Live- September 2016 Ep. 54 - Full Show

NO NOTICE AT ALL OF NATIONAL HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH OCT 15- NOV 15
Guest Cindy McCain

Published on Sep 13, 2016

Views: 10

Mark Cordes welcomes a variety of guests for the September Show, including featured guest Cindy Hensley McCain.

This episode of Mesa Morning Live is sponsored by Salt River Project. Learn more about them at: http://www.srpnet.com

Council Study Session - 9/15/2016 EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

Pay Attention > CITY EMPLOYEE BENEFITS PROGRAM --- it's very generous
Catastrophic claims with six over $100,000 in 2016 so far

Creative Place Making for Lifelong Learning Here in Mesa

Mesa Arts Center Awarded Creativity Connects Grant for Arts and Aging Projects

September 15

9:18 PM

The arts can connect with other sectors, including education, healthcare, social justice, and the like, that want and utilize creativity.
Mesa Arts Center Creative Aging: Expanding on a Foundation will further develop programming the organization has in place for lifelong learning opportunities for senior citizens living independently as well as in various assisted-care facilities.
Read more >> here