Agenda for Mesa City Council Meeting @ 5:45 Mon 16 Oct 2017

Link to entire agenda > http://mesa.legistar.com with one item extracted: a mixed-use project to include "residential and commercial land uses with a parking structure" - it is File 17-1068 - with blogger notes included for an infill project with that plans call for a seven-story mixed-use commercial building,190 apartments in a 3-story building on top of an existing parking garage, and 14 townhouses / row houses to be built on the downtown site  

 

HEADS UP!

Blogger's Notes:

 

> 1 The disposition of this parcel of land, located between BenU campus at 225 East Main and the Wells Fargo Building on the SWC of Main Street/Mesa Drive was discussed in a closed-to-the-public Executive Session on May 17,2017

Convene an Executive Session. ES-014-17

Discussion or consultation for legal advice with the City Attorney. (A.R.S. §38-431.03A (3)) 

• Discussion or consultation with designated representatives of the City in order to consider the City’s position and instruct the City’s representatives regarding negotiations for the purchase, sale, or lease of real property. (A.R.S. §38-431.03A (7)) 
• Discussion or consultation with the City Attorney in order to consider the City’s position and instruct the City Attorney regarding the City’s position regarding contracts that are the subject of negotiations. (A.R.S. §38-431.03A(4))  

Sale or lease of approximately 2.75 acres of City-owned property located at the southwest corner of Main Street and Pomeroy.

 

> 2.. More details were provided in a report by Mike Sunnucks on June 6, 2017

 

"A new development could be coming to downtown Mesa and the East Valley city’s Main Street.

The city of Mesa and development firm 3W Management LLC have inked a memorandum of understanding to bring new housing and commercial development to a 2.75-acre property at Main Street and Pomeroy.

Jeff McVay, downtown transformation manager for the city of Mesa, said plans call for

• a seven-story mixed-use commercial building
• 190 apartments in a 3-story building on top of an existing parking garage
• and 14 townhouses / row houses be built on the downtown site.

 

The commercial building could house office and retail while the planned apartment building would be three stories and built on top of an existing parking garage.

The development also looks to bring 80 housing units for students at Benedictine University which is next to the city-owned properties slated for development.

> McVay said the city and Arizona-based 3W Management still need to finalize their deal for the property.

> He said construction could start by the end of the year if the deal is finalized.

 

The properties sit along the Metro light rail.

Mesa is extending light rail from Mesa Drive to Gilbert Road

Mesa is working to redevelop empty, underused, old and closed car dealerships and some rundown properties along Main Street as it connects into Tempe.

 

The downtown area is home to the Mesa Arts Center and a number of coffee shops, stores and restaurants. The city hopes to bring more housing and residents to the area."

 

 

File #:

17-1068

Type:

Ordinance

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council

On agenda:

10/16/2017

Title:

ZON17-00184 (District 4) The 0 to 100 block of South Pomeroy (west side). Located west of Mesa Drive south of Main Street (1± acres). Rezone from T5MS Transect to T5MSF Transect.  This request will allow for the development of a mixed-use project to include residential and commercial land uses with a parking structure.  Jeff McVay, City of Mesa, applicant; City of Mesa, owner.   Staff Recommendation: Approval with conditions   P&Z Board Recommendation: Vote: 5-0

Attachments:

1. Staff Report, 2. Ordinance, 3. Ordinance Map, 4. Vicinity Map, 5. Site Plan, 6. Minutes, 7. Submittal Documents

 

If Trump Gets Tossed, Get Alarmed About Who's Next in The Line-of-Succession

Damn. There's some really good reporting out there if you don't have a short attention span or an attention-deficit disorder and are keen on telling details and phrases - like this from Jane Mayer, a reporter with a checkered past, who snapped 16 pages in The New Yorker - it's way more than yuk-yuk good when she says about VP Pence 
"A devotional gaze rarely seen since ... Nancy Reagan"
Thanks again to Mike Allen aka axios.com  - it's #3 on Mike's Top 10 this morning

Letter from Washington

October 23, 2017 Issue

The Danger of President Pence

Image credit: Illustration by Todd St. John

Stephen Bannon, the former White House strategist, worries that Pence would “be a President that the Kochs would own.”

Farther along in the 16 pages, Mayer describes Pence as "the prim Indiana evangelical".

 

 

A New Yorker profile of Vice President Pence by Jane Mayer gets 16 pages in the new issue ... "The Danger of President Pence: Trump's critics yearn for his exit. But Mike Pence ... poses his own risks":

• "Two sources ... recalled Trump needling Pence about his views on abortion and homosexuality. During a meeting, ... [a] legal scholar had said that, if the Supreme Court did so, many states would likely legalize abortion on their own. 'You see?' Trump asked Pence. 'You've wasted all this time and energy on it, and it's not going to end abortion anyway.'"
• "When the conversation turned to gay rights, Trump motioned toward Pence and joked, 'Don't ask that guy — he wants to hang them all!'"
• "Marc Short, the head of legislative affairs in the Trump White House, credits Pence for the Kochs' rapprochement with Trump. 'The Kochs were very excited about the Vice-Presidential pick,' Short told me. 'There are areas where they differ from the Administration, but now there are many areas they're partnering with us on.'"
• Over the fireplace in the Vice-President's residence, he has hung a plaque with a passage from the Bible: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

Keep reading.

Keeping An Eye On Air Pollution: Dangerous Levels of Ozone + PM-10

Phoenix AQ: Ozone and PM-10 forecast to be in the mid-Moderates.

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) sent this bulletin at 10/16/2017 09:45 AM MST

Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.                                           Phoenix Air Quality Forecast Issued: Monday, October 16, 2017 Ozone and PM-10 forecast to be in the mid-Moderates. [View Full Forecast] [View Detailed 5-Day Forecast] Latest Air Quality Data For Maricopa County [View Current Data] Current Weather DataLatest Radar                   [View] Satellite Imagery             [View] Weather Conditions        [View] Do you know about ADEQ's Flag Program? Learn more about how your school can participate. [Details] In the know... Organized storms: how they impact AZ Learn more about air quality   Latest Forecasts   Phoenix Air Quality   Tucson Air Quality   Nogales Air Quality   Yuma Air Quality

It Ain't Easy For An AZCIR Investigative Reporter Doing His Job

Department of Education forcibly removes reporter asking to inspect records
By Evan Wyloge and Jim Small
Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

The Arizona Department of Education physically removed an AZCIR reporter out of its Capitol Mall offices today in response to a request to inspect the latest school letter grade records.
The agency’s security guard told AZCIR’s reporter he was trespassing and pushed him out of the public building after the reporter asked to speak with ADE staff about inspecting public records.
Arizona law explicitly requires that government agencies allow “any person” to inspect public records “at all times during office hours."

Read the full story

Keeping An Eye-In-The-Sky on Air Pollution

Air quality-monitoring satellite in orbit

13 October 2017

The first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere, Sentinel‑5P, has been launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

Source > European Space Agency

 

The 820 kg satellite was carried into orbit on a Rockot launcher at 09:27 GMT (11:27 CEST) today.

 

Replay of the Sentinel-5P liftoff on a Rockot from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 09:27 GMT (11:27 CEST) on 13 October 2017.
Sentinel-5P – the ‘P’ standing for ‘Precursor’ – is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere. The satellite carries the state-of-the-art Tropomi instrument to map a multitude of trace gases such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and aerosols – all of which affect the air we breathe and therefore our health, and our climate.
Watch the full replay of the Sentinel-5P launch coverage
Watch the replay of the Sentinel-5P launch event at ESTEC
 

The mission is expected to begin full operations six months from now.

“Launching the sixth Sentinel satellite for the Copernicus programme is testament to the extensive competence we have here at ESA, from its moment of conception to well into operations,” said ESA Director General Jan Woerner.
“The Sentinel-5P satellite is now safely in orbit so it is up to our mission control teams to steer this mission into its operational life and maintain it for the next seven years or more.”
Sentinel-5P – the P standing for Precursor – is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere.
The mission is one of six families of dedicated missions that make up the core of Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring network. Copernicus relies on the Sentinels and contributing missions to provide data for monitoring the environment and supporting civil security activities. Sentinel-5P carries the state-of-the-art Tropomi to do just that.

 

Developed jointly by ESA and the Netherlands Space Office, Tropomi will map a multitude of trace gases such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and aerosols – all of which affect the air we breathe and therefore our health, and our climate.

Sentinel-5P was developed to reduce data gaps between the Envisat satellite – in particular the Sciamachy instrument – and the launch of Sentinel-5, and to complement the GOME-2 sensor on the MetOp satellite.
“Having Sentinel-5P in orbit will give us daily and global views at our atmosphere with a precision we never had before,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes.
“Our historic data records, together with the long-term perspective of the Copernicus satellite programme, opens the doors for generating datasets spanning decades – a prerequisite to understanding our ever-changing Earth. ” 
In the future, both the geostationary Sentinel-4 and polar-orbiting Sentinel‑5 missions will monitor the composition of the atmosphere for Copernicus Atmosphere Services. Both missions will be carried on meteorological satellites operated by Eumetsat.
Until then, the Sentinel-5P mission will play a key role in monitoring and tracking air pollution.

 

 

Flashback to Black Monday? The Next Machine-Driven Meltdown

Thanks to Mike Allen @ axios.com for sending a summary of this cover story. On the 30th anniversary of Black Monday on October 19,1987 the market could be at the risk of a computer-driven meltdown. . . some hear echoes of the stock market's crash," per the Barron's cover story, by Ben Levisohn:

The problem: Market players rely increasingly on computers to run quantitative, rules-based systems known as algorithms to pick stocks, mitigate risk, place trades, bet on volatility, and much more — and they bear a resemblance to those blamed for Black Monday when the DJIA shed nearly a quarter of its value in wave after wave of selling."

• Why it matters: "The proliferation of computer-driven investing has created an illusion that risk can be measured and managed."
• "But several anomalous episodes in recent years involving sudden, severe, and seemingly inexplicable price swings suggest that the next market selloff could be exacerbated by the fact that machines are at the controls."

 

New All-Time Record For Page Views

Another waymarking for independent local online publishing here in Mesa, Arizona is memorialized today:

160,174
[page views or hits]
As our friends-in-high-places like to say:
I am so thrilled
I am so excited, and thrilled to the bone - It's way beyond your MesaZona's wildest imagination and expectations when this enterprise was started at the end of February 2015.

Once again with humble appreciation

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