Sunday, April 22, 2018

Another True Story: The FBI Moves In On Mixing Religion & Politics

Let's throw some sunlight here in Mesa about a story by AP Reporter Brady McCombs on March 8, 2018 about two small towns on the Utah-Arizona that's just a little more fundamental than the FBI Sting true story published on this blog last week. It does involve the LDS Church and what McCombs refers to as "a polygamous sect" carefully avoiding and without mentioning the acronym LDS.
(The opening image is the flag of the City of Mesa)

It does, however, suggest only a few degrees of separation from what got busted-up by the FBI when an entrenched majority who happen to hold in common certain religious beliefs,controlling city government for generations, as well as the police and fire departments.
Readers of this blog might want to note that current mayor here in Mesa is, almost without exception, one in the long line of 40 Mormons since 1878 who have gotten elected and held onto the office for about forty years, even though they are now a demographic minority.
The top echelons of salaried employees inside Mesa City Hall, including the City Manager who is the unelected city's chief officer, almost all attended Brigham Young University.
Just like the towns on the Utah-Arizona border with populations of 3,000, this city of over 480,000, many people in city government and city politics and serving on various boards and committees, many have the same last name or are related by marriage.
It's more than likely that's not a coincidence.

Here are the consequences and outcomes of FBI action on the Utah-Arizona border outlined from this report:
Most municipal workers quit in Utah polygamous sect town

Brady McCombs, Associated Press

Updated 5:00 pm, Thursday, March 8, 2018

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — "The new mayor of a mostly polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border is finishing off a complete overhaul of municipal staff and boards after mass resignations when she took office in January to become the first woman and first non-member of the polygamous sect to hold the seat. . . Six of the seven Hildale, Utah, town workers quit after Mayor Donia Jessop was elected . . . They were joined by nine members of various town boards, including utility board chairman Jacob N. Jessop. All were members of the sect, the mayor said. . . ."

PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS STATEMENT: ". . . Jacob Jessop said his religious beliefs prevented him from working for a woman and with people who are not sect members, according to resignation letters obtained Thursday by The Associated Press through a public records request. The mayor's husband is distantly related to Jessop in the town of about 3,000 people where many have that last name.

"It has come to a point where I have to choose between my religion and participation in city government, and I choose my religion," he wrote in his letter dated Jan. 25. "My religion teaches me that I should not follow a woman for a leader in a public or family capacity."
. . . The new town leadership is the latest sign that the community's demographics are shifting as it begins to resemble a typical town in the U.S. West, not a cloistered religious community. . . The town government and police are being watched closely by court-appointed monitors after a jury found them guilty of civil rights violations. . . More changes could be coming . . . Later this year, elections in the sister city of Colorado City, Arizona, could bring in outsiders, including to the mayor's seat. . .
Donia Jessop said she has filled the positions that include town recorder, clerk and treasurer . . New hires should help the community, said Jared Nicol, a new town council member, . .
"It's going to ensure that everybody in the city is being considered and represented,"
he said.
LINK > https://www.chron.com/news
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* Your MesaZoner blogger met Brady McCombs one day in Kino Springs, Nogales, Arizona a few years ago while he was reporting on the construction of surveillance towers and border issues for the Arizona Daily Star
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Cannabis: Centuries-Old Biggest Cash Crop In The World Transformed By Science & Innovation

Some hyper-local news about 420: other than the fact that here in Mesa the conservative law firm Shumway Udall, with Mormon roots and where both Mesa Mayor John Giles and Mesa City Council District 4 representative Christopher Glover did their internships in the practice of law, has entered 12 new areas of law, here's

The 2018 Leafly Buyer’s Guide to 4/20
Part 3, Arizona 4/20 Cannabis Deals

The Leafly Buyer’s Guide to 4/20 is here to help you take full of the very best deals near you. Find holiday bargains alongside each shop’s top recommended cannabis strains and products to make this year’s 4/20 one to remember. (All deals while supplies last.)

Leafly Staff April 17, 2018

Bursting with sunshine and incredible Grand Canyon views, Arizona packs a punch in its own right. What can possibly make this stunning state even better? Fantastic cannabis deals, of course! Check out our guide to Arizona dispensaries offering the best of the best when it comes to quality strains and products at a price tag you’ll love.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Regular Mesa City Council Meeting Mon 16 April 2018

NOTE HOW FAST the entire CONSENT AGENDA gets read by Kevin Christopher and approved!
Do most people who live here in Mesa even know anything about any of the items???
Entire meeting agenda can be found by visiting this link > It's been posted in advance on this blog
https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2018/04/tonights-mesa-city-council-meeting.html
Published on April 17,2018

Council Study Session Mon 16 April 2018

^^ HEADS UP^^
There's a lot on this study session's agenda - take a look at the link below before you watch the one-hour streaming video uploaded from YouTube
Published April 17, 2018
Please Note: This is BUDGET REVIEW TIME for the proposed items and figures for the next fiscal year. There are reasons why this meeting starts off the way it does >>>
Strategic Data Analytics Team starting with intro by Candace Cannistraro.... with area map for incidence call volumes.

You can see the entire agenda by visiting this link >
https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2018/04/todays-mesa-city-council-study-session.html

Friday, April 20, 2018

True Story: City Officials + Real Estate Developers Get Stung in FBI Undercover Investigation

Your MesaZona blogger missed 'the buzz' about this one sent by an unidentified source from August of last year, but did bookmark it for future reference just in case too many similar coincidences tended to bumble together and start to get sticky here. Let's get it all out and on the table.
There's one difference though - things just don't get sticky here in Mesa when you have the same group of people and friends-in-high places acting as a monopoly in almost everything including government and politics, the media, finance, insurance and real estate in multiple jurisdictions.
They've run the show for generations. The public doesn't care, getting effectively un-engaged and not involved.

That's easy-to-do when no one cares. When someone does care, gets interested and starts asking questions, there's always a way to deal with it: keep it off the radar screen, create a fog around it, or make it a non-issue somehow. . . or say 'it's just the way-we-do-things' until the game gets disrupted or busted-up.
Much too frequently, entrenched corruption has a self-perpetuating life of its own for the chosen few with the right friends-and-family affiliations.
Add religion to the mix and the faithful benefit.

The tattle-tale of two cities (the other name of one is revealed farther on in this post) involves what you see in the inserted image to the left: money, real estate, city officials and city government.
Now remember that the City of Mesa formed an Ad Hoc Downtown Vision Committee whose members were nominated by Mayor John Giles to create a vision for the transformation of downtown. What we got instead are unsolicited developer proposals.
HERE'S A FEW CLUES THAT MIGHT MAKE THIS TWICE-TOLD TALE LOCAL
Reference Points: Site 17, Brown & Brown Chevrolet/Auto Nation, Community Facilities Districts, Bogus ASU Satellite Campus in 2016 General Election, Southwest RDA + Expansion into Central Business District + GPLETS, Recent MOUs and IGAs with Unsolicited Developer Proposals, Innovation Districts and Opportunity Zones, Land Annexations by The City of Mesa

The story line for the other city goes like this - let's call it 'The Honey-Trap' set by the FBI.
1. A rich developer comes to town willing to spend millions to revitalize downtown as the city ached to rebrand itself as a place open for business, spinning his grand plans to redevelop under-used blocks of land in the shadow of a major existing asset.
2. He met with local city officials, hot-shot developers, burgeoning ranks of up-and-coming entrepreneurs all the time wooing the town’s politicians over lunches and dinners.
3. He got into what appears to be a massive, multi-year investigation of local politicians, their friends and millions of dollars in taxpayer redevelopment money. In the crosshairs may be some of the state's most ambitious political climbers, including its mayor, who has his sights set on the Governor’s Mansion.
4. Whispers of corruption - and 'Crony-Capitalism' and 'The Old Boys' Network - are commonplace in the one-degree-of-separation governments in between adjoining cities and towns, teeming with the loyal faithful, lobbyists and public relations firms, academic professors and political sophisticates, where local officials can barely keep an arms-length from those who seek to influence them. Over the years, rumored FBI investigations have come and gone without any charges.
5. Public corruption is the FBI’s chief criminal investigative priority and is something it does very well; they've got the money, resources and agents to do it and the people who understand the crime. Local governments are more vulnerable to corruption, because there are fewer eyes watching. Payments typically don’t need to go through the same approval process required at the state and federal level.
6. Really corrupt politicians deal in straight cash, but many others are willing to sell votes or other government services for surprisingly little money, and can involve city contracts, jobs, campaign contributions,appointments to boards and commissions that approve actions and membership in the Chamber of Commerce.
7. One boots-on-the-ground FBI tactic > Undercover agents are taught to ask questions and present problems for suspects to solve. The developer wanted to build outside the local redevelopment zone - who could help him get the boundaries expanded?
8. Many liaisons were facilitated by a local lobbyist, as well as others with county and city officials . . . Following years of meetings and input from government planners, the FBI sting operation got what it wanted - the redevelopment agency, made up of members of both the city and the county commissions, voted on an in-the-works plan to expand - as it happened, incorporating the land he sought to develop.
9. Some of most prominent politicians the city has ever produced are the most likely to feel political ramifications of the FBI investigation.
10. Many targets of the FBI Sting: people and companies that have been ethical thorns, campaign managers and treasurers, friends and family who reaped financial windfalls getting millions in public money to redevelop old city buildings, and groups of mostly-secret private investors mixing business, politics and friendship.
The city was accustomed to talk of the feds coming to town. Both the former mayor and school superintendent were investigated by the FBI in recent years. Nothing came of either case. . . .But in a town where cozy relationships and intertwined business interests have long fueled corruption conspiracy theories, the wide scope of the latest probe suggests it’s not a matter of if, but when charges will come down. > He turned out-to-be an FBI agent who had a 25-member staff including undercover agents, intelligence analysts, an airplane, covert vehicles, surveillance equipment and investigative techniques
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FBI agents went undercover in Florida's capital for the 'biggest investigation in years'

by Sean Rossman Published 4:31 p.m. ET Aug. 14, 2017 | Updated 12:22 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2017

Link > https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/14/fbi-went-undercover-floridas-capital-and-fallout-could-huge/566090001/

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East Valley bribery indictment may be tip of iceberg, feds say

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Service Jul 27, 2017

"Federal prosecutors are offering to tell East Valley defendants in the Corporation Commission bribery case who and what else they’re investigating – but only if they agree not to share that information with anyone else.

The proposal, made in a new court filing, comes as attorneys for former utility regulator and former Mesa legislator Gary Pierce, his wife Sherry, lobbyist Jim Norton, and Pinal County water company owner George Johnson seek details of the FBI inquiry that led to their indictment in May on multiple federal charges. The lawyers say they need that information to prepare their defense for the Oct. 3 trial

. . . But in communications with defense attorneys, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frederick Battista, who is leading the legal team, said he does not want to tip off those other targets – targets that could include not only other current or former members of the Arizona Corporation Commission but potentially executives at Arizona Public Service Co. . . "

Link > http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/arizona/politics/east-valley-bribery-indictment-may-be-tip-of-iceberg-feds/article_637acd10-7180-11e7-8737-b78bf4674a65.html

However, 'business-as-usual' in another city got disrupted

What's Next Mesa? Mesa City Hall Hiring For Community Wealth Building??

Let's put Mesa Mayor John Giles in-the-saddle and in the spotlight for this post and ask what he might be doing to include everyone in wealth building . . .is it just for a selected few in the upper 10% or 1% upper-income levels or so-called 'angel investors' throwing money into holding companies or swooping down on distressed areas for redevelopment or innovation or when nearly those who have-less and almost all minorities too often fall into an "Opportunity Gap" in so-called "Opportunity Zones" to suffer from unemployment or are pushed into low quality, service-sector jobs that don’t give them the opportunity that they need.
QUESTION: In next year's budget planning is there a strategic policy decision and funding for Community Wealth Building?

Here in Mesa we get AZ State Senator Bob Worsley, rarely seen in public, coming out as a private real estate deal-maker and speculator who's been working behind-the-scenes for years with close cohorts, 'friends-and-family' buying up multiple properties on Main Street to effectively get monopoly control of the real estate market downtown during the past few years making unsolicited developer proposals.

In some cities like Richmond, Virginia, there's an Office of Community Wealth Building, the first of its kind in the nation. . . a wave of cities are now responding with new dedicated government offices or programming for community wealth building, starting in the rest of Virginia.
Here in downtown Mesa - referred to in this blog as 'The Old Donut-Hole', we get Mayor John Giles with a group who have set up a wealth creation investment fund for the few, joined by W Tim Sprague at the left who's a partner with Worsley and Worsley's AZ State House campaign manager Kent Lyons in holding companies, to transform downtown into their own vision of delivering capital gains. Two years ago, taxpayers rejected paying for their ploys. Now it's a gamble and a risk
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“The first step is to call it out, . . . This isn’t fictional. Sixty years ago, there was intentionality around redlining and segregation that led to concentrated poverty. And here we are in 2018 receiving the byproduct of those intentional decisions …
It’s up to us to be just as intentional about solving these problems.”
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City Halls Now Hiring for Community Wealth Building

". . . Being intentional about what to do and who are the beneficiaries can mean combining new and old techniques for understanding how to build community wealth with the necessary intentionality. The Richmond office uses its social media presence on Facebook to facilitate conversations between constituents on topics addressing racial discrimination in housing and voting rights. They also offer an open-ended, constituent-driven weekly conference call listening session, where any resident can call in and discuss issues ranging from living conditions in public housing to the difficulties of finding a job . . .
Gordon says this community engagement helps his office move beyond the paternalism that often hinders equitable policy-making. “I wanted to add the voice of the people on a consistent basis — anyone can call,” says Gordon. “We know that people understand that if they want to express how things are going, they can speak with us … We need to trust them.”
. . . Elsewhere in New York, similar programming is underway. In New York City, the Department of Consumer Affairs recently expanded its Office of Financial Empowerment’s Community Wealth Building programming to increase the financial health and quality of life of New Yorkers with low- and moderate-incomes. . .
“This means working collaboratively to support community partners and residents and to create more opportunities for inclusive ownership for all New Yorkers,”

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

LIVE STREAM NOW

NOW STREAMING LIVE: Event

Addressing the Opportunity Gap: How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Affects People and Places

The event IS STREAMING LIVE NOW from this page >

https://www.urban.org/events/addressing-opportunity-gap-how-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-affects-people-and-places

Registration is not required to view the webcast.

> online audience can submit questions to events@urban.org.

Join the Urban Institute and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) for a discussion about how changes enacted through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 could affect the resources available to families and communities seeking to bridge the opportunity gap. We will explore

the short-term and long-term impacts on family incomes and on the behavior of small and large businesses with respect to investing in their workforce;
the legislation’s impact on the ability of investors, municipalities, and nonprofits to provide resources to revitalize neighborhoods and help families escape poverty; and
the prospects of the new “Opportunity Zones” tax incentive for investing in low-income communities.

Speakers include

Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (AL-7)
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum
Chye-Ching Huang, Deputy Director, Federal Tax Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Maurice Jones, President and CEO, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Matt Josephs, Senior Vice President for Policy, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Brian T. Kenner, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Washington, DC
Mark Mazur, Director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
Kim Rueben, Senior Fellow and Project Director, State and Local Finance Initiative, Urban Institute
Jerry Rickett, President and CEO, Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation
Brett Theodos, Principal Research Associate, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center, Urban Institute
Sarah Rosen Wartell, President, Urban Institute
Jane Campbell, Director, Washington, DC Office of the National Development Council (moderator)
Jeanne Sahadi, Senior Writer, CNNMoney (moderator)

MesaZona > Table of Contents : Here's The Menu. Enjoy