Mesa Mayor John Giles: More Under-Handed Signals for #SOTC17?

What will the future hold for John Giles? It's in his hands to show in the upcoming $50-buck tickets - "a limited number" are now still available for next week's local extravaganza State-of-The-City Speech III.
Last year it all started with his running onto the stage from the back-of-the-room re-living no doubt his track career as a college athlete.
Though who wrote the script remains a mystery, appearing with a costumed character named "Sparky" for the key cornerstone of his campaign somehow didn't work out ...

In fact the Pie-In-The-Sky half-baked plan to locate a satellite ASU campus here downtown never had a chance to get off the ground- voters rejected the direction Giles wanted to take the city.
So what direction will this personal injury and accident law attorney-turned politician
go in next?

Spinning his wheels in the mud, or "Keep Climbing" and trying to get traction on an upward slope only to reach flat-lined growth and then coasting downhill for his NextMesa challenge?

Can John Giles lead or is he just a cheerleader on the sidelines?

Final Meeting Agenda for Mesa City Council Meeting Mon 23 Jan 2017 @ 5:45 pm

CITIZEN PARTICIPATION All citizens are permitted and encouraged to speak on agenda items including and preceding “Items from citizens present.” If you are interested in speaking on such an agenda item, please fill out a blue card in the back of the room and give it to the City Clerk.  When the Council considers the item, you will be called to the podium to provide your comments.

Council Chambers 57 E. First Street
Mayor John Giles
Councilmember Mark Freeman - District 1
Councilmember Jeremy Whittaker - District 2
Councilmember Ryan Winkle - District 3
Councilmember Chris Glover - District 4
Councilmember David Luna - District 5
Councilmember Kevin Thompson - District 6

Meeting Agenda - Final
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION All citizens are permitted and encouraged to speak on agenda items including and preceding “Items from citizens present.” If you are interested in speaking on such an agenda item, please fill out a blue card in the back of the room and give it to the City Clerk.  When the Council considers the item, you will be called to the podium to provide your comments.
The City of Mesa is committed to making its public meetings accessible to persons with disabilities. 
For special accommodations, please contact the City Manager’s Office at (480) 644-3333 or AzRelay 7-1-1 at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting.
Si necesita asistencia o traducción en español, favor de llamar al menos 48 horas antes de la reunión al 480-644-2767.
CONSENT AGENDA

• All items listed with an asterisk (*) will be considered as a group by the City Council and will be enacted with one motion.
• There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a Councilmember or citizen requests, in which event the item will be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered as a separate item. 
• If a citizen wants an item removed from the consent agenda, a blue card must be completed and given to the City Clerk prior to the Council’s vote on the consent agenda.

Source: http://mesa.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

1 Selection of the Vice Mayor

2 Take action on all consent agenda items.
Items on the Consent Agenda
17-0072 Approval of minutes of previous meetings as written.*3

4 Take action on the following liquor license application:
17-0061 Abate of Arizona Inc. 
This is a two-day charitable event to be held on Friday, March 31, 2017 from 12:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M., and Saturday, April 1, 2017 from 10:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M., at 922 South Country Club Drive. (District 4)
*4-a

5 Take action on the following contracts:
17-0055 Three-Year Term Contract for Engineered Wood Fiber for the Parks Recreation and Community Facilities Department (Citywide)
This contract will provide the engineered virgin wood fiber that is used to refurbish the safety surface under and around playground equipment at various park playgrounds throughout the City. 
The Parks Recreation and Community Facilities Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing a three-year contract with the lowest, responsive and responsible bidder, Canyon Country Mill & Resources Inc., at $43,134 annually, based on estimated requirements.
*5-a
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January 23, 2017City Council Meeting Agenda - Final

17-0068 Purchase of 22 Height-Adjustable Workstations and Seven Tables for the Mesa Fire and Medical Department (Citywide)
This purchase will provide 22 height-adjustable workstations with monitor mounts, 6 stationary work tables, and 1 conference table for the new Regional Fire and Medical Dispatch and Emergency Operations Center facility.
The Fire and Medical Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing the purchase from the contract with WIST Office Supplies, at $40,839.32.  This purchase is funded by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community 12% Contribution Gaming Grant.
*5-b
17-0069 Three-Year Term Contract for Interpreter/Translation Services for the Police Department, Municipal Court, City Clerk, and Community Services Department (Citywide)
This contract will provide multiple qualified foreign language (certified interpreters and/or translators) to provide interpretation/translation services to the City on an as-needed basis to include in-person, over the phone, as well as document interpretation, American Sign Language, and/or translation services.
The evaluation committee recommends awarding the contract to the highest-scored proposals from:  AZ Language Solutions LLC; CyraCom International, Inc., dba Voiance Language Services, LLC; Finger Works, Inc.; Language Connection; Language Line Services, Inc.; Spanish Media & Translation Services, LLC (a Mesa business); and Topete/Stonefield, Inc.; cumulatively not to exceed $100,000 annually, based on estimated requirements.
*5-c
17-0023 Three-Year Term Contract for Microfilm Conversion Services for the Police Department (Citywide)
This contract will provide services to convert Police Department data from microfilm to digital media. The microfilm is becoming worn and damaged and the equipment to read the microfilm is outdated. This service will create redundancy and a recovery process in case of disaster. The conversion will also reduce the need for storage space and make records readily available for viewing.
The Police Department and Purchasing recommend awarding the contract to the highest-scored proposal from ICM Conversions, Inc., dba ICM Document Solutions, for a total contract amount of $300,000, based on estimated requirements.
*5-d
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January 23, 2017City Council Meeting Agenda - Final
17-0060 Purchase of Modular Furniture, Workstations and Chairs for the Police Department, Superstition Substation (District 6)
This purchase will provide updated modular furniture, workstations and chairs for the sergeant, CIU/SCU and report writing areas of the substation.
The Police Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing the purchase using the State of Arizona cooperative contract with Arizona Furnishings at $81,604.42.
*5-e
17-0054 Three-Year Term Contract to Provide and Install Traffic Delineators for the Transportation Department (Citywide)
This contract will provide a preformed curb and delineator system to be used as part of the establishment of separated bike lanes on City streets where identified. 
Transportation and Purchasing recommend authorizing a three-year contract with the lowest, responsive and responsible bidder, Five G Inc., at $165,000 annually, based on estimated requirements.
*5-f
17-0070 Dollar-Limit Adjustments for Solid Waste Disposal, Recyclable Material Processing, and Vegetative Waste Processing Services as requested by the Environmental Management and Sustainability Department (Citywide)
An increase is needed for the 2016 term (1/1/2016 to 12/31/2016) to pay the December 2016 invoices for tipping fees for solid waste and green waste, and recycling fees.  Environmental Management and Sustainability completed a tonnage analysis for the 2017 term (1/1/2017 through 12/31/2017), and is requesting a contract limit of $7,325,000, which includes the vendors’ rate increases, ranging from 1.64% to 2.3%, for refuse and green waste disposal, tonnage volume increases of 3%, as well as a contingency of 3%.
The Environmental Management and Sustainability Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing a dollar-limit increase of $155,000 for 2016, increasing the annual contract amount from $6,800,000 to $6,955,000; and authorizing a dollar-limit for the 2017 term contract in the amount of $7,325,000; with Salt River Commercial Landfill Company, dba Salt River Landfill; Republic Services, dba Allied Waste Transportation, Inc., Allied Transfer Services of Arizona, LLC, Allied Waste Transfer Services of Arizona, LLC; Waste Management of Arizona, Inc.; ReCommunity; United Fibers, LLC; and Waste Technologies, LLC, dba Right Away Disposal; based on estimated requirements.
*5-g
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January 23, 2017City Council Meeting Agenda - Final
17-0051 Three-Year Term Contract to Repair and Refurbish Metal Bins and Roll-Off Containers for the Environmental Management and Sustainability Department (Citywide)
This contract will provide repair and refurbishment of the metal bins and roll-off containers used to service commercial and residential solid waste customers. These bins and containers become damaged over time due to normal usage, wear and tear.
The evaluation committee recommends awarding the contract to the two respondents: Wastebuilt LLC, and Colby Welding & Radiator Inc., cumulatively not to exceed $150,000 annually, based on estimated requirements.
*5-h
17-0033 Kleinman Park Renovation - Construction Manager at Risk (District 4)
In 2012, Mesa voters approved a Parks Bond Program.  Included in this bond program was the Kleinman Park Renovation Project. Through community outreach, the project was programmed to include the removal of the existing tennis concession building, removal and replacement of three existing tennis courts due to extensive concrete cracking,  four new pickle ball courts, replacement of perimeter court fencing, replacement of the existing asphaltic wheels court with a new lighted turf area, light emitting diode (LED) lighting upgrades, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) parking upgrades, ADA restroom renovation, new drinking fountain, new ballfield backstop and dugout fencing, and ADA concrete pavement improvements.  
Staff recommends awarding the contract for this project to D.L. Withers Construction in the amount of $1,243,748.10, based upon a Guaranteed Maximum Price of $1,184,522, plus an additional $59,226.10 (5%) as a change order allowance.  This allowance will only be utilized for approved change orders. Funding is available from the 2012 Parks Bond Program.
*5-i
6 Take action on the following resolution:
17-0058 Z16-058 (District 6)  6442 East Test Drive.  Located west of Power Road and south of US Highway 60 (1 ± acres).  Site Plan Review. 
This request will allow for the development of an office building.  Paul E. Gilbert, Beus Gilbert PLLC, applicant; FCA Realty, LLC, owner. 
Staff Recommendation:  Approval with conditions P&Z Board Recommendation:  Approval with conditions (Vote:6-0)
*6-a
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January 23, 2017City Council Meeting Agenda - Final
7 Introduction of the following ordinance and setting February 6, 2017 as the date of the public hearing on this ordinance: 17-0052 Z16-057 (District 5)  The 3200 to 3300 blocks of Red Mountain Drive (west side).  Located east of Power Road and north of the Loop 202 (13 ± acres).  Rezoning from RS-90 to RS-9-PAD; Site Plan Review.  Paul Dugas, Blandford Homes, applicant; Desert Vista 100, owner.
Staff Recommendation:  Approval with conditions P&Z Board Recommendation:  Approval with conditions (Vote:6-0)
*7-a

Items not on the Consent Agenda

8 Items from citizens present.  (Maximum of three speakers for three minutes per speaker).
9 Adjournment.

Trump Plays The Table With A Bad Hand > We Need A New Deal Yanis Varoufakis

We need an alternative to Trump's nationalism . . . It isn't the status quo

Only a third insurgency promoting a New Deal that works equally for Americans and Europeans can restore to a billion people living in the West sovereignty over their lives and communities.
The answer to neoliberalism’s Waterloo cannot be the retreat to a barricaded nation-state and the pitting of ‘our’ people against ‘others’ fenced off by tall walls.

A clash of two insurgencies is now shaping the West. Progressives on both sides of the Atlantic are on the sidelines, unable to comprehend what they are observing. Donald Trump’s inauguration marks its pinnacle.

One of the two insurgencies shaping our world today has been analysed ad nauseum. Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and the broad Nationalist International that they are loosely connected to have received much attention, as has their success at impressing upon the multitudes that nation-states, borders, citizens and communities matter.

However, the other insurgency that caused the rise of this Nationalist International has remained in the shadows: an insurrection by the global establishment’s technocracy whose purpose is to retain control at all cost. Project Fear in the UK, the troika in continental Europe and the unholy alliance of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the surveillance apparatus in the United States are its manifestations.

Yanis Varoufakis 
The era of neoliberalism ended in the autumn of 2008 with the bonfire of financialisation’s illusions. The fetishisation of unfettered markets that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan brought to the fore in the late 1970s had been the necessary ideological cover for the unleashing of financiers to enable the capital flows essential to a new phase of globalisation in which the United States deficits provided the aggregate demand for the world’s factories (whose profits flowed back to Wall Street closing the loop nicely).
Meanwhile, billions of people in the ‘third’ world were pulled out of poverty while hundreds of millions of Western workers were slowly sidelined, pushed into more precarious jobs, and forced to financialise themselves either through their pension funds or their homes. And when the bottom fell out of this increasingly unstable feedback loop, neoliberalism’s illusions burnt down and the West’s working class ended up too expensive and too indebted to be of interest to a panicking global establishment.Thatcher’s and Reagan’s neoliberalism had sought to persuade that privatisation of everything would produce a fair and efficient society unimpeded by vested interests or bureaucratic fiat. That narrative, of course, hid from public view what was really happening: a tremendous build up of super-state bureaucracies, unaccountable supra-state institutions (World Trade Organisation, Nafta, the European Central Bank), behemoth corporations, and a global financial sector heading for the rocks.
After the events of 2008 something remarkable happened. For the first time in modern times the establishment no longer cared to persuade the masses that its way was socially optimal. Overwhelmed by the collapsing financial pyramids, the inexorable built-up of unsustainable debt, a Eurozone in an advanced state of disintegration and a China increasingly relying on an impossible credit boom, the establishment’s functionaries set aside the aspiration to persuade or to represent. Instead, they concentrated on clamping down.
In the UK, over a million benefit applicants faced punitive sanctions. In the Eurozone, the troika ruthlessly sought to reduce the pensions of the poorest of the poor. In the United States, both parties promised drastic cuts to social security spending. During our deflationary times none of these policies helped stabilise capitalism at a national or at a global level. So, why were they pursued?
Their purpose was to impose acquiescence to a clueless establishment that had lost its ambition to maintain its legitimacy. When the UK government forced benefit claimants to declare in writing that “my only limits are the ones I set myself”, or when the troika forced the Greek or Irish governments to write letters “requesting” predatory loans from the European Central Bank that benefited Frankfurt-based bankers at the expense of their people, the idea was to maintain power via calculated humiliation. Similarly, in America the establishment habitually blamed the victims of predatory lending and the failed health system.
It was against this insurgency of a cornered establishment that had given up on persuasion that Donald Trump and his European allies rose up with their own populist insurgency. They proved that it is possible to go against the establishment and win. Alas, theirs will be a Pyrrhic victory which will, eventually, harm those whom they inspired. The answer to neoliberalism’s Waterloo cannot be the retreat to a barricaded nation-state and the pitting of ‘our’ people against ‘others’ fenced off by tall walls and electrified fences.
The answer can only be a Progressive Internationalism that works in practice on both sides of the Atlantic. To bring it about we need more than fine principles unblemished by power. We need to aim for power on the basis of a pragmatic narrative imparting hope throughout Europe and America for jobs paying living wages to anyone who wants them, for social housing, for health and education.
Only a third insurgency promoting a New Deal that works equally for Americans and Europeans can restore to a billion people living in the West sovereignty over their lives and communities.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/22/trumps-nationalism-response-not-globalization

Yanis Varoufakis: capitalism, solution to the Eurozone crisis and Debt...

Published on Jan 20, 2017

Views: 76

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist, academic and politician, who served as the Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015, when he resigned. Varoufakis was also a Syriza member of the Hellenic Parliament (MP) for Athens B from January to September 2015.
Unite Scotland's fourth and final instalment in the Varoufakis series puts focus on the failings of social democratic political parties, the lessons we need to learn from history and the urgent need for a collective European left-wing response.

Yanis Varoufakis: capitalism, solution to the Eurozone crisis and Debt...

Published on Jan 19, 2017

Views: 171

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist, academic and politician, who served as the Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015, when he resigned. Varoufakis was also a Syriza member of the Hellenic Parliament (MP) for Athens B from January to September 2015.

Short On Details > Education The “Centerpiece” Of Governor Ducey’s New Budget

Nearly 500 East Valley business and community leaders enthusiastically applauded Governor Ducey on Thursday as he outlined a 15-point plan for improving K-12 public education in Arizona.
A pivotal part of the plan involves more financial rewards for teachers, ranging from raises to a free state university education for anyone committing to teach in Arizona.

“I want the teachers of our state to know—you make the difference. I value your work and it’s time we return the favor,” Ducey said at a breakfast sponsored by East Valley chambers of commerce and the East Valley Partnership.“I have a commitment our educators can take to the bank—increased investment in our public schools above and beyond inflation every single year I am governor,” he added.

Ducey, who gave his speech the same day he released his proposed 2017-18 budget, did not spell out details of how he would fund his plan. His budget also includes money for capital expenditures for repairs and new schools as well as an expansion of all-day kindergarten in poor school districts.
For all teachers, Ducey promised “a permanent, lasting salary increase above” whatever raises they are receiving through Proposition 123, overrides or local school district initiatives. He did not say what that raise would amount to.
He was somewhat more specific as he laid out a plan to blunt the teacher shortage: eliminating the “crushing burden” of college loan debt.
He proposed accomplishing that by having the three state universities and community college systems in the state work together to develop an Arizona Teachers Academy. Graduates of that academy would get a free education if they committed to teach in the state. He did not set a timeline for the academy’s development or indicate how long a commitment would be expected from its grads.
For teachers who sign up to work in low-income districts, Ducey proposed a $1,000 signing bonus.
He also proposed overhauling or even eliminating the state teacher certification process, noting that former U.S. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor would not qualify to teach in a public high school under current certification rules despite a long history of academic and other achievements.Virtually all East Valley districts provide all-day kindergarten through budget overrides or simple general fund expenditures and it was unclear how many would benefit from the help Ducey pledged for all-day K in low-income districts.
Moreover, the top leaders of the State Senate and House, who are from Chandler, have said previously that the state had only about $24 million in uncommitted money for the coming budget year.
Ducey made no mention of those assertions, stating:
“We have a plan to prioritize K-12 education in a serious and thoughtful way and we have only just begun.”

For Your Review and Input

Draft Bill for AZ Emissions Bank 
We look forward to seeing you at the next stakeholder meeting regarding the AZ Emissions Bank. Please find the draft bill linked below for your review and input. 
HB2152_Emissions_Bank_Updated_Draft.docx

QUESTIONS? 
Natalie Muilenberg602-771-1089
nm3@azdeq.gov

Attend the meeting in person or via conference call:
When: Tues., Jan. 24, 2017, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.Where: ADEQ, 1110 W. Washington St., Third Floor, Room 3175, Phoenix AZ, 85007
Conference Call: 1-877-820-7829 | Passcode: 228497#