Mesa Morning Live December 2017 Sponsored by Wells Fargo Date:December 8, 2017
Time:6:45 AM - 8:30 AM MST
Please join the Mesa Chamber of Commerce with a great lineup for the December show
Fees/Admission:
Pre-Registration Fee: $20
At The Door Fee: $30
HOLD ON! Bob Worley + Wells Fargo??????
QUITE A PAIR: Is this a "hands-in-hand" deal where you're known by the friends you keep? Wells Fargo doesn't have the best reputation in banking circles or for all kinds of disclosures they certainly don't appreciate that sent the company stock tumbling... have they recovered from negative publicity, if you want to call it that - have they cleaned up their act?
Or all these funding arrangements un-disclosed??? Bob Worsley likes to use money as long as its not his.He's lucky to be married to be married to a woman who has has a 'Sugar Daddy' in Salt Lake City with lotsa moola..Hey! U didn't hear that from here.
Featured Guest: Arizona Senators Sean Bowie and Bob Worsley
Location:
Crescent Crown Distributing 1640 W. Broadway Rd. Mesa, AZ 85202
This proactive, risk-based air quality forecast is part of a statewide effort to help Arizona meet health-based standards. ADEQ produces this forecast, valid for areas within and bordering Phoenix, Monday through Friday. For details about this forecast and to learn more about ADEQ statewide forecasting, visit: http://www.azdeq.gov/programs/air-quality-programs/airforecasting
Maricopa County Forecast
Air Quality Dust Risk ISSUED ON: Mon. Nov 27, 2017This report is updated Monday through Friday and is valid for Maricopa County, Arizona
Tuesday 11/28/2017
MODERATE
Winds:Light winds becoming southerly in the afternoon. Stagnation:Morning and overnight stagnation.
Wednesday 11/29/2017
MODERATE
Winds:Light winds. Stagnation:Morning and overnight stagnation.
Thursday 11/30/2017
MODERATE
Winds:Light winds. Stagnation:Morning and overnight stagnation.
Friday 12/1/2017
MODERATE
Winds:Light winds. Stagnation:Morning and overnight stagnation.
Saturday 12/2/2017
MODERATE
Winds:Light southwesterly winds. Stagnation:Morning and overnight stagnation.
Synopsis & Discussion Forecaster: -R. Nicoll
With fairly light winds and stagnant mornings and evenings this week, particulate levels will accumulate. As a result, we forecast a Moderate dust risk to continue through the forecast period. Check back tomorrow for the next update.
HUD AND CENSUS BUREAU REPORT NEW RESIDENTIAL SALES IN OCTOBER 2017
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau today jointly announced the following new residential sales statistics for October 2017:
NEW HOME NEWSALES
NEW HOME SALES
Sales of new single-family houses in October 2017 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 685,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. This is 6.2 percent (±19.0 percent)* above the revised September rate of 645,000, and is 18.7 percent (±23.5 percent)* above the October 2016 estimate of 577,000.
The median sales price of new houses sold in October 2017 was $312,800. The average sales price was $400,200.
FOR SALE INVENTORY AND MONTHS’ SUPPLY
The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of October was 312,800. This represents a supply of 4.9 months at the current sales rate.
New Residential Sales data for November 2017 will be released on Friday, December 22, 2017.
In interpreting changes in the statistics in this release, note that month-to-month changes in seasonally adjusted statistics often show movements which may be irregular. It may take three months to establish an underlying trend for building permit authorizations, six months for total starts, and six months for total completions. The statistics in this release are estimated from sample surveys and are subject to sampling variability as well as nonsampling error including bias and variance from response, nonreporting, and undercoverage. Estimated relative standard errors of the most recent data are shown in the tables. Whenever a statement such as “2.5 percent (±3.2 percent) above” appears in the text, this indicates the range (-0.7 to +5.7 percent) in which the actual percentage change is likely to have occurred. All ranges given for percentage changes are 90 percent confidence intervals and account only for sampling variability. If a range does not contain zero, the change is statistically significant. If it does contain zero, the change is not statistically significant; that is, it is uncertain whether there was an increase or decrease. The same policies apply to the confidence intervals for percentage changes shown in the tables. On average, the preliminary seasonally adjusted estimates of total building permits, housing starts and housing completions are revised 3 percent or less. Explanations of confidence intervals and sampling variability can be found at the Census Bureau’s website.
* The 90 percent confidence interval includes zero. In such cases, there is insufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is different from zero.
A guided tour of Mesa's development along the light rail corridor.
29 West Main StreetMesa, AZ
The guided bus tour (seen in the opening image to the left) focused on the current and prospective developments taking place as the light rail runs through historic downtown Mesa with three stops on Main Street. Valley Metro Light Rail service extended into the Central Business District beyond Sycamore Station, opening in August 2015 with three station platforms: Country Club/Main, Center Street/Main and Mesa Drive/Main. The eastward extension to Gilbert Road is in-the-works.
Hailed and praised by Mesa Mayor John Giles as "the salvation train" in his Next Mesa campaign to deliver growth and economic development downtown, there are many empty spaces to yet fill in - perhaps suggesting downtown might be like The Old Donut Hole. Nonetheless it was unusual and welcome to see some "out-of-town investors", the City of Mesa, the downtown community activist group RAILMesa, and Local First Arizona partnering up with both commercial and residential real estate brokers along for the ride.
The day before - where the same two proposals by "out-of-town investors" or their representatives were present - The Mesa Chamber of Commerce presented the Downtown Mesa Planning Charrette, with urban planners from Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah, showcasing two proposals in a lively discussion among those who showed up for the charrette. The simple take-away might have been evident in this cartoon to the left
Readers can see a post about the charrette on this blog by hitting the following link >
What was surprising to your MesaZona blogger was that - for reasons unknown - both of the properties [one owned by the city, one recently sold by the city and both using parking lots and/or parking garages as "land-banks"] leap-frogged over what might the prime site to develop on the light rail corridor through the Central Business District - an entire 10-acre parcel on Main Street between Sirrine/Hibbert to 1st Avenue Shown in the image to the right; unless there's some reason... it could be toxic in some way.
Here's a snippet from LFA's press release: "Along and around Main Street, after decades of mostly-dormancy, Mesa has begun to be awakened. Starting with the singular multicultural experience of Mekong Plaza and the new market-rate townhome development of Main Street Station, the light rail line has welcomed and enhanced affordable housing and mixed-use projects, dynamic new retail, restaurants, and breweries, and unique pop-up and adaptive re-use projects.
After a short stop and drive-by or Encore On First, Tour stops and speakers include > Mesa ArtSpace Lofts now under construction at 155 S Hilbert Street. It finally got off the ground after three years in "the development process" to use a euphemism. > El Rancho Del Sol recently celebrating a Grand Opening for the second attainable and affordable workforce housing for families done by Community Development Partners. [there's a post about this on this blog].
> The Sliver Lot, that created a sense of place for outdoor movies, and two other parcels on the other side of Main Street near the Main/Country Club Drive light rail platform station, owned by Brian Marshall and a holding company for future development.
Everyone boarded a bus after getting a presentation inside 29 W Main Street [29-35 W Main St has been vacant for years) where W. Tim Sprague (looking like an orchestra conductor playing to the choir, accidentally captured in the image to the left) presented a big proposal for development on top of a parking lot: a way-out-proportion and way out-of-scale 15-story hotel and 75 "above-market rate" apartments in pretty pictures using architectural renderings where the architects showed The Sun setting in the East. Anyone knows the sun really sets in The West if that's any hint of the accuracy of these Pie-In-The=Sky plans promoted by the developer that's now getting attention for "the next wave of investment for this vital, historic corridor".
If historical values are any standard as well as authenticity our shared vision of the Central Business District where light rail now runs through it on Main Street is compromised of two-story and three-story buildings fronting on Main Street, some of which will undergo a make-over in a Façade Improvement Project back to their original storefronts. The 3-D image to the right, done by the City of Mesa some years ago shows maximum height six-story building that would keep the balance between the old and the new and be in-proportion and in-scale to what was our authentic commercial Central Business District before getting re-invented as an "Arts-and-Entertainment District" starting in 2005 with the $100-Million Dollar Mesa Arts Center that's yet to spawn economic development here.
The Worsley/MACDev LLC 15-story building proposed to-be-built on top of the Drew Street Parking Lot [seen center left behind charter school Heritage Academy] simply does not fit in proportion to or in-scale with the historic district at all, whereas maximum six- or seven stories in height would be in balance. . . Readers of this blog might also take notice of all the parking lots and parking spaces downtown and scarcity of green open space. Shopping has shifted to the suburbs and suburban malls, creating "A Donut Hole" since the 1980's in the historic downtown central business district.
This six-story parking garage on MacDonald Street was in the past nixed due to its close proximity to the historic 2-story Alhambra Hotel located just south and to the right behind The BofA building in the bottom parking lot, in the adaptive re-use of an existing property to a student resident hall. The relative proportion of a six-story to a 2-story building is shown in the 3-D image below for scale.
As you can see - even at six stories high - it would have dwarfed the two-story historic property adjacent to it. The other yellow form blocks illustrate some acceptable heights for that city block between Main and First Avenue. On the south side of First Avenue, Mesa Housing Associates built the first new construction downtown in over 30 years: the 5-story 80-unit RED 2014 Award-Winning Encore On First for active independent over-65 residents. Last year another 40 affordable units for persons 55+ was quickly filled. Both buildings have long waiting lists. Charles Huellmantel and Todd Marshall, investors in Mesa Housing Associates, has recently started construction on a 24-unit live-in/work spaces at market-rate rents on the SEC of First Avenue & MacDonald Street.
Here to the left is the out-of-proportion figment "pretty picture" of MACDev's team of architects for the 15-story, 75 above-market rate apartments and a hotel atop a parking lot on Drew Street behind the 2-story historic Drew Building --- it's a deception that is no way in-scale or in proportion to what a 15-story building would look like plopped down on a parking lot. In the dark on the north side is the 2-story charter school Heritage Academy enrolling over 700 students where there's already a lot of traffic from parents dropping-off/picking up their kids twice a day
Once upon a time, Mesa Mayor John Giles admitted publicly in his first State-Of-The-City speech in his first year in office that he needed help with ideas. He also admitted there was a problem with public participation in government here in Mesa. Back in January 2017 he promised a new strategy in his Next Mesa campaign: a digital community engagement that was announced eight months later in August with a 12-week closing deadline to gather the data ending on Oct 31 2017. The numbers were published as you can see.
Let's try to put this focus and see what's going on, asking first why is there a breakdown in communications between people who live here in Mesa and the leaders they elect to serve the public interests in every one of the six Mesa City Council districts, in the Office of The Mayor, and employees inside City Hall whose salaries and generous benefit packages are all paid by taxpayers? Are people holding them accountable? Are the lines of communication open? How can those questions be put aside in a representative democracy when there's a recognized disconnect in the direct network from citizens of Mesa to those who get elected? Never mind those questions for now if you can, but recognize there is a problem and that it can't necessarily get solved by outsourcing the solutions to "a start-up group" that hopes that its unique twist on social networking will help bring people back together???? FACT: In a city with a population of over 475,000 there were about 10,000 users - That's a participation rate or sampling of about 2% and includes only those who made the choice to register as a user and signed-on. Neighborlands was able, whether you knew it or not or consented to it, that every single one of the 67,000+ 'unique devices' you used were tracked. The group now owns your data . If you want to crunch the published numbers, about only 1 in 6 (17%) who used a device to access the Neighborlands survey bothered to continue as a user. In tandem and at the same time with the hired consultants, a committee was nominated by the mayor and went to work holding meetings during the twelve weeks. Thank You For Participating in Imagine Mesa!
Thank you for contributing to Imagine Mesa to make Mesa an even better place to live, work and play!
Since we launched ImagineMesa.com in June 2017, more than 65,000 people have visited the site, and 10,000 people have shared, commented or supported an idea.
. . . this is the re-directed link for Imagine Mesa on the City of Mesa's landing page: > https://neighborland.com/imaginemesa Here's what Shareable had to say about this new social network group back in April 2012:
"Neighborland, a New Orleans-based start up focused on citizen participation and city planning, hopes that its unique twist on social networking will help bring people back together. By signing up for an Neighborland account, people can share ideas and insights for their city, support ideas suggested by their neighbors, and connect with people who share similar interests. . . Once an idea has gathered some steam, the Neighborland community identifies achievable goals and fuels a discussion about how to accomplish them. "We are providing residents, neighborhood organizations, economic development groups, and municipalities with a powerfully simple platform to connect and make good things happen," writes the team. Neighborland also has huge potential for opening lines of communication between city planners and the people who actually live in the neighborhoods they're working on. Instead leaving each party to wonder what the other is thinking, Neighborland provides an easy to use online platform that encourages citizen participation and an open exchange of ideas. "We want to bring more people into the development process, help them understand it, and work with community and municipal leaders to make better places," said co-founders Dan Parham, Tee Parham, and Candy Chang. "Our job is to connect residents with the resources they need to make their ideas happen
QUITE A PAIR: Is this a "hands-in-hand" deal where you're known by the friends you keep?
Featured Guest: Arizona Senators Sean Bowie and Bob Worsley
