Cubbies Spring Training Opening Day Marred By Racist Comments From Right-Wing Billionaire Joe Ricketts

Not a whiff of this scandal here in Sloan Park - the $240-million Wrigley Field sports complex at Riverview financed in 2012 on the backs of debt burden of Mesa taxpayers for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family who own the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise - until a press conference yesterday.
The story broke 9 days ago in Splinter News .

(The post was produced by the Special Projects Desk of Gizmodo Media. )
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Once again, who's responsible and accountable for playing fast-and-loose with millions of taxpayers' money/debt obligation service bonds to finance another Field of Schemes for billionaires:
City Manager Chris Brady
[Image credit AZ Central Picture Gallery 09.20.2018] 
 
We need a scandal to throw some light on these schemes
Here it is:
During the 2012 elections, Joe Ricketts spent an obscene amount of money trying to unseat Obama, who, he wrote in an email, was an “ideologue” and a “cheat.” He was also, concurrently, reading and ruminating on the sorts of chain emails that would foreshadow our current political apocalypse: hysterical birther memes, anti-Muslim screeds, frustrated takes on the “Multicultural and Diversity aspects of our culture.”
When initially contacted by Splinter, Joe Ricketts chose not to comment on the emails that appear below. However, shortly after this story published, he posted a statement on his personal website, writing:

I deeply regret and apologize for some of the exchanges I had in my emails. Sometimes I received emails that I should have condemned. Other times I’ve said things that don’t reflect my value system. I strongly believe that bigoted ideas are wrong.

Ricketts is one node in the establishment that created the Republican Party in its current form: Obsessed with tax cuts for the rich and wary of the impending “welfare” state, savvy enough not to cop to racialized terror in public, but fearful of what it considers a hostile takeover of Christian culture. Any other elderly Nebraskan might take this all-caps xenophobia and half-truth, mix it in with their existing political ideas, and take it to the voting booth.
Guys like Joe Ricketts take their ideas somewhat further.
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YOU CAN READ MORE OF THE RACIST-INSPIRED EMAILS here > https://splinternews.com/here-are-the-racist-conspiracy-emails-rotting-right-win-1831199766 
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On-Stage @ Mesa ConCenter Last Week: Take-A-Deep-Breath > Exhale

Jivin' John Giles and High-Salaried ASU President Michael Crow teamed-up last week for another over-the-top hoopla of hype where Crow got the best blurb about the much debated and controversial ASU campus that emerged as the Mesa City centerpiece, with ASU President Michael Crow sharing center stage with Mesa Mayor Giles. Crow said after his remarks on-stage that "research and innovation in Mesa will be consistent with other innovation districts in Singapore, Sydney, Australia and New York. . . "
"We are very excited about this facility,"  Crow said.*
Those lines were published in an article by the East Valley Tribune's staff writer Jim Walsh on February 10, 2019, five days after the annual State-Of-The-City Speech on February 5.

Did you see how the hands moved?

Walsh wasn't just beat-out by a late write-up/recap, but it looks like he tried to understate the hype from Crow:
"If you travel around the world, there are a few significant digital innovation centers that exist - Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York City. We're building one for the Western United States here in Mesa"
That's taken from an earlier article  in ASU Now that got published the same day as the SOTC2019 Speech on February 5, 2019.
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*Blogger Note: Michael Crow should be more than really very excited for at least two reasons:
1. Mesa Mayor John Giles appears to have been told to clean up his clown-act posing with Sparky, the ASU mascot, to kick-off a $500,000 privately-financed public relations screw-up that blew up in their faces when Mesa taxpayers rejected a $200-Million Debt Obligation Bond proposal two years ago.
However, they did succeed in 2018 to trick taxpayers into debt-service financing a $198-million "Grab-Bag-of-Goodies-For-Everybody" that included about $75-million or more to build facilities for ASU around City Hall Plaza. If ASU wanted a campus downtown they could have financed it.
2. So far, interest and scrutiny of the land-and-financing deals made with city officials for ASU downtown has not attracted the attention of the Arizona State Attorney General, unlike a current lawsuit over land-deals and conflicts-of-interest by the Arizona Board of Regents at the main campus in Tempe.  

3. Readers of this blog - and anyone who's really interested - might want to note ASU hired revolving-door influencer peddler and U.S. Congressman Matt Salmon as a lobbyist earning a $250,000/year just before he decided to resign from public office. He's seen appearing in this image >
with AZ State Senator Bob Worsley in February of last year, who admitted publicly that he had been gambling in downtown real estate speculation while holding elected office. . . Conflict of interest
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Here for your viewing pleasure - 53 minutes of #SOTC2019
After listing all business achievements, Giles sounded a bit like a high school football coach.
“We will need your energy to get where want to be a community,”
“Let’s get to work.’’
"I consistently hear the words 'AUGMENTED REALITY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND 3-D DESIGN . . . Mesa is very excited about what is now the reality of ASU coming to our downtown innovation district."

>> Thanks to Mesa Taxpayers for falling for the PR Trick! < <

[Blogger comment]



 

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Other segments uploaded for special attention
1:03  

SOTC 2019: #WhyiLiveinMesa

Duration: 63 seconds.

• 5 views

2:03  

SOTC 2019: Who is Mesa?

Duration: 2 minutes, 3 seconds.

• 12 views

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Time-To-Pay > The-Pied--Piper Moment for Mesa City Manager Chris Brady

What does he who pays the pied- piper mean?

Looks like all those Pie-In-The-Sky schemes pushed by Mesa City Manager Chris Brady and the city's Office of Management & Budget during the past four years in that big beautiful "Grab-Bag-of-Goodies" for everybody that tricked Mesa taxpayers to go into more debt in the November 2018 ballot proposals are getting a heavy dose of REALITY . . . Better late than never

East Valley Tribune staff writer Jim Walsh barely hit the nail-on-the-head or scored any points to tell the public what's really going down here in Mesa. He covered "amenities" only, not getting a grip on the tough stuff that's hard to swallow:
Mesa voters approved virtually every sort of municipal amenity in last fall's
$196-million bond issue - from a new library and public safety station to athletic fields and walking paths to new parks and even a dog park . . . One important consideration in adding the new facilities is whether there is enough money available . . . "

WHOA!! Why worry now after all their projections and cost analysis  were wrong? 

"We are concerned as we get to the later part of it, when we deliver big parks and libraries, that will put a lot of strain on the budget"

-- City Manager Chris Brady

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SCAMMING THE VOTERS:

Not just so-called "amenties" - ASU is the bigger scam-scheme.

One new building ASU @ Mesa City Center estimated to cost $63,000,000 in preliminary fast-plans to get it started - a scaled -down $200-million "satellite ASU campus" that Mesa taxpayers rejected two years ago - now requires extensive investigation according to a City Council Report last week.

Back to the drawing boards - need a new architect!

All the plans presented for that one new 118,000 sq ft building now require awarding a new $800,000 contract to hire not only a new architect and a new developer but also a designated CMAR [Contract Manager At Risk] who can guarantee a Maximum Cost and  issuance of an RFQ for a design consultant with an estimated project cost of $6,000,000 to fully renovate all floors of an existing 26,500 sq ft city-owned building at 59 E First Street for what's called "The Studios @ Mesa City Center"

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Conflict Of Interest Questions Arise In Mesa ASU Project Votes

May 28, 2018 ADI News Service

Source: Arizona Daily Independent

 

A $120 million “handout” to ASU by the City of Mesa has two City Council members crying foul. Mesa City Council members Kevin Thompson and Jeremy Whittaker are questioning a series of decisions and statements involving the funding of new facilities for ASU
" . . . Elected officials on every level of government in Arizona are expected to adhere to ethical standards. Those standards include disclosing and avoiding any actual or apparent conflict of interest. Conflicts of interests would involve voting on issues involving entities in which an official would have a pecuniary interest. This conflict exists even for public officials who have recently left a job in an entity whether public or private.
As a result, votes cast in favor of the ASU deal by council members Glover and Luna have raised eyebrows. Ironically Glover teaches “Organizational Ethics” at ASU, according to the University’s website. Luna “also spent time as an adjunct professor for both Arizona State University and Mesa Community College,” according to the City’s website. ASU’s website shows that Luna last taught there in 2017. Luna was clearly employed by the University in 2016 when the project was first proposed. . . In a letter dated May 4, 2018, Mesa resident Gene Dufoe, the head of Keeping Mesa Great, advised the mayor and council members of the group’s consideration of filing a lawsuit in response to the funding scheme and what they believe is an inappropriate use of utility revenues.
Dufoe’s group gave the City until June 5, to “cease its unlawful practices.” Defoe wrote, “If such confirmation is not received by June 5, 2018, we will have no alternative but to file suit and seek declaratory relief, refunding of expenses incurred in any legal proceedings, and a permanent injunction enjoining the City from issuing bonds.”
Dufoe’s group questions why the City is “choosing to raise utility rates when it has $140 million in general obligation bonds unspent in 2016.” He argues that the “tax is not needed but will enable spending without limitation.”
Other residents are rumored to be considering launching recall efforts against Giles, Freeman, Heredia, Glover, and Luna.

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For his part, Whittaker outlined his objections on his website last week due to the “ton of misinformation going around regarding the new downtown ASU project…. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on this issue but not to their own facts."

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Here's a previous post on this blog:

25 January 2018

Mesa City Budget = "Non-Issue" ?? Says Who? Mesa Is Deep In Debt

 In some comments in the opening minutes of the Mesa City Council Study Session on Monday, January 22, 2018 City Manager Chris Brady appeared relieved when the Final Budget Audit done in-house became what he called "a Non-Issue" by getting placed as an item on the Consent Agenda where all items are usually approved all at once and in one fell swoop without any questions or comments from either any member of the public or any of the six Councilmembers.

THE TAKE-AWAY:   (Bad accounting is) really undermining our democracy's ability to knowledgeably participate."

The Mesa City Council 'Squad'

Chris Brady -who is the City's Chief Executive - was cued to make some comments by Mayor John Gilesthat the audit was put on the Consent Agenda instead of facing questions or comments from any member of the public or any six Mesa Councilmembers who usually fall into step into unanimous and fast approval of the entire Consent Agenda.

That's what works here in Mesa when so few people in the community of almost 500,000 are actively engaged in participation in their elected government or even bother be interested in what city officials are doing - the hidden cost? Every taxpayer's debt burden is almost $6,000 

There's some excellent research and attention to details in this report published yesterday by AZ Republic reporter Jessica Boehm, updated just this afternoon 25 Jan 2018 at 2:06 pm MT
Blogger's Note: There are numerous posts on this blog going back to last year and before about these accounting methods, unfunded liabilities, and the dangers of increasing Bond Debt that bankrolls the costs of Suburban Sprawl
Phoenix, Mesa earn 'D' grades in financial-health review due to pension debt

"The Valley's two largest cities earned "D" grades in an annual review of government financial health because they don't have enough money to pay their bills.

Truth in Accounting, a national fiscal watchdog non-profit, released its "Financial State of the Cities" report this week, which analyzes the financial audits of the 75 most populous cities in the country. . . "

Mesa's shortfall is $784.6 million, or $5,900 per taxpayer.

Mesa also has a hefty unfunded retiree healthcare liability of $646 million, which adds to its problem, Truth in Accounting CEO Sheila Weinberg said.

"We can't ignore that," Weinberg said. But cities have tried to in the past, she said.

'Phony government accounting'

Apparently it wasn't Mesa City Manager Chris Brady who got put on-the-hook by the reporter:

"Mesa Chief Financial Officer Michael Kennington said the city responsibly manages all of its expenses, including pension and retiree health-care costs.

"While we applaud the Truth in Accounting group’s effort to provide ‘easy-to-understand’ financial information about local governments, we don’t agree with the methodology used or with several of the subjective assumptions made and don’t really understand the purpose of this report," Kennington said in a statement. 

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What voters should know

Weinberg said

it's critical that residents are educated about their city's financial health and understand the consequences of growing debt.

"If they knew the city was running deficits, maybe they would have voted for somebody different," she said. "

(Bad accounting is) really undermining our democracy's ability to knowledgeably participate."

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Link to the source > click here

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OK. . . How's the City of Mesa's credit and how's the Mesa City Manager's Credibility?? 
In the over 12 years of Chris Brady's high-salaried tenure as the city's chief executive officer, the public debt has risen drastically from less than $40M in 2006 to over $750 today in 2018

June 14 2018 Mesa City Council Study Session

On agenda:

6/14/2018

Title:

Hear a presentation, discuss, and provide direction on general obligation bond items for the 2018 election including funding mechanisms, and operations and maintenance costs for public safety, parks and cultural projects, and the Mesa Plays project.

Attachments:

1. Presentation - Bond Projects, 2. Presentation - Mesa Plays Project Financing

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Follow-up question: Do you trust and have confidence
in city manager Chris Brady? 

Meeting Name:

City Council Study Session

Say No To Pie In The Sky

Mesa AZ taxpayers got tricked to approve "Pie-In-The-Sky" schemes in the November 2018 General Election.
THE REALITY of escalating costs based on the wrong economic projections from the City's Office of Management & Budget did the trick.
The underlying assumptions of Pie-In-The-Sky are presented at-length in this 42-minute vid. 
Published on Jan 16, 2016
Views: 12,803+

Transparency In The City of Mesa Government: Who's The Richest?

Your MesaZona blogger is not going to tell you . . .It's a new year and we have one new elected member serving the public trust on the Mesa City Council and five other members previously elected, some in their second terms and some in their first terms.
Fortunately, there are required Financial Disclosure Statements submitted to the City Clerk's Office by each of the six members on the City Council. What do we know?
Your MesaZona blogger is not going to tell you . . .
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OPEN GOVERNMENT
Salaries [Earned Income]

City Manager Chris Brady $260,666

$600/month Vehicle Allowance
$110 Cellphone

City Councilmembers earn salaries for the jobs they do:
The mayor earns a full-time salary.
The other six members earn a part-time salary
[Councilmembers got a salary-increase last year.
The Mayor did not receive an increase in salary]
Current Mayor John Giles served previously on the Mesa City Council for one term, 1996-2000, returning to become interim mayor in 2015. His first elected term started in  2015.
Nearly all councilmembers have "other jobs" accounting for earned income or own businesses/investments for income.
Two have been long-term city employees: One for more than 27 years in the Mesa Public Schools and one for more than 31 years in the Mesa Fire Department.
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Why didn’t you sell out? Scott Ritter tells real Iraq story

Published on Feb 11, 2019

Views: 3,882+

COMMENTS: 65+

Scott Ritter could have made millions of dollars as a defense contractor, instead he chose to tell the truth. Rick Sanchez asks why

Mesa City Council Meetings [2] Mon 11 Feb 2109

Worth 10 minutes of your time to see the council hear and approve the entire Consent Agenda in about eight minutes.
NOTE HOW FEW MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC ARE PRESENT
Published on Feb 11, 2019
Views: 1! 
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STUDY SESSION before . . .