Jammed-Up Tenative Agenda For Mesa City Council Meeting 15 Jan 2019

Pardon your MesaZona blogger for the muffled screams when there's a 17-page agenda made public and printed 04.04.2019 for this public hearing that skips over what's on two meeting details "not yet available" for two study sessions ahead of time.
One of April 11th and another study session on the schedule just before the regular City Council meeting the same day.
Plenty of time for the dis-engaged public here to study any or all of the 66 items in the meeting's long list of details.
Who knows how-to-study these or even cares?

Here's a link farther down to the hard work ahead:
Where to start? Take a look at all it!
Aside from the mayor, there are six Mesa City members who earn their salaries representing the interests of their constituents - the people who live in  their districts.
Each councilmember has a paid staff assistant that does work assigned to them by each councilmember. Please ask your councilmember to assign tasks to their assistants for information you need to get informed and to study these issues and items that will either get individual attention, or none at all unless you ask. Otherwise they'll just slide-by you before you know it
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You might want to skip over 5 Liquor License Applications in Item 3 and get right into [count them up]
Item 4 CONTRACTS. There are 22 in that Item and + 3 more huge contracts in Item 5.
Then a slew of RESOLUTIONS - 25 in Item 6
Then more RESOLUTIONS [don't snooze at this point] added to and running on from
Item 6-z to 6-aa, 6-ab, 6-ac and 6-ad
Then ORDINANCES:
4 in Item 7
2 in Item 8
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Meeting Name:

City Council

Agenda status:

Tentative

Meeting date/time:

4/15/2019 5:45 PM

Meeting location:

Council Chambers - Upper Level

Published agenda:

Agenda

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WHERE TO FOCUS: If your choice of time is limited
Item 7 Ordinances:
District 4: one 0.9-acre commercial development
District 5: one 10.43-acre multi-residence development
District 6: four developments on a total of 493.5 acres

Item 4 Contracts: 17 Citywide:


Item 5 Contracts: 1 of 3
ITEM 5-a

File #:

19-0454

Type:

Resolution

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council

On agenda:

4/15/2019

Title:

Approving an increase in the maximum dollar amount for individual job orders under Job Order Master Contracts for the following construction services: general, landscape, utility, water and wastewater, gas line, and transportation, from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 per job order, and authorize the City Manager to approve future job orders under the Job Order Master Contracts. (Citywide) The City’s current Job Order Master Contracts that will be affected are with the following: CORE Construction, Inc. and SDB Contracting Services (general); Valley Rain Construction Corporation and Earthscapes, Inc. (landscape); Talis Construction Corporation and B&F Contracting, Inc. (utility); Garney Companies, Inc. and PCL Construction, Inc. (water and wastewater); RP Companies, Inc. (gas line); and Talis Construction Corporation and Nesbitt Contracting Company, Inc. (transportation).

Attachments:

1. Council Report, 2. Resolution

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Item 5 Contracts: 1 of 3
ITEM 5-c

File #:

19-0430

Type:

Contract

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council

On agenda:

4/15/2019

Title:

One-Year Term Contract with Two Years of Renewal Options for Five Master Job Order Contracts; three contracts for the General Utility Construction Services and two contracts for Specialty Utility Construction Services. (Citywide) Job Order Master Contracts for general utility construction services will be utilized for projects that are larger in scale, higher in cost, and require more detailed design. The specialty utility construction services will be used for projects that are smaller in scope, are repetitive in nature, and require limited, or no design. Staff recommends the selections of Talis Construction Corporation; Garney Companies, Inc.; and Hunter Contracting Company for general utility construction services. These contracts will be limited to $1,500,000 per job order; a total contract value not-to-exceed $10,000,000 for each year of the contract, per contractor. Staff recommends the selections of Hunter Contracting Company and Garney Companies, Inc., for specialty util...

Attachments:

1. Council Report

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A repeat in case you missed that:

File #:

19-0430

Type:

Contract

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council

On agenda:

4/15/2019

Title:

One-Year Term Contract with Two Years of Renewal Options for Five Master Job Order Contracts; three contracts for the General Utility Construction Services and two contracts for Specialty Utility Construction Services. (Citywide) Job Order Master Contracts for general utility construction services will be utilized for projects that are larger in scale, higher in cost, and require more detailed design. The specialty utility construction services will be used for projects that are smaller in scope, are repetitive in nature, and require limited, or no design. Staff recommends the selections of Talis Construction Corporation; Garney Companies, Inc.; and Hunter Contracting Company for general utility construction services. These contracts will be limited to $1,500,000 per job order; a total contract value not-to-exceed $10,000,000 for each year of the contract, per contractor. Staff recommends the selections of Hunter Contracting Company and Garney Companies, Inc., for specialty util...

Attachments:

1. Council Report

_________________________________________________________________________
Item 5 Contracts: 3 of 3
ITEM 5-b

File #:

19-0432

Type:

Contract

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council

On agenda:

4/15/2019

Title:

One-Year Term Contract with Two Years of Renewal Options for Two Master Job Order Contracts for Landscape Construction Services. (Citywide) Job Order Master Contracts for landscape construction services include renovations and repairs, additions, demolition, and facility upgrades for a broad range of City landscaping improvement projects. Staff recommends the selections of Valley Rain Construction Corporation and Haydon Building Corporation for landscape construction services. These contracts allow for the issuance of multiple individual job orders with a not-to-exceed limit of $1,500,000 per job order; a total contract value not-to-exceed $5,000,000 for each year of the contract, per contractor.

Attachments:

1. Council Report

_________________________________________________________________________

File #:

______________________________________________________________________

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Diversity For Pride-Day In Phoenix: Just One Day

Jennifer Duff and Kate Gallego
with "Hizzoner"

Believe it if you want to, but when two newly-elected women get used as props in a Photo-Opp side-by-side with Mesa Mayor John Giles in a post on Twitter uploaded by Hizzoner himself, ya gotta wonder how mis-guided and hijacked the #MeToo movement has become. . .
It all looks pretty "vanilla" to me after living in New York City for more than 22 years - and completely staged when women submit to stand next to a guy who only pays "lip-service" to protecting the rights of everyone by the force-of-law here in Mesa. . . but hey! "It's the right to do". When is that?

Is Mesa City Manager Now Punching-Above-His-Weight-Class In 2019??

Back in 2012 with former Mayor Scott Smith standing behind him, Chris Brady launched one of the first hard-fisted sales pitches for what was then the biggest $200M jab on the backs of Mesa taxpayers to pay for Municipal Debt Bond Obligations for the Republican Chicago Billionaire Ricketts Family to finance their "Field of Dreams" Sloan Park.
In 2016 taxpayers rejected a low-blow hit under-the-belt. In 2018 Brady came back with a series of blow-by-blow punches to score one more huge Debt Service obligation.
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Now in 2019 after almost 14 years on-the-job as the highest-paid salaried official inside City Hall, wielding more power as the City's Chief Executive than Mesa Mayor John Giles, he's making the rounds again in a series of presentations before the Mesa City Council that has the power and final approval on proposed budgets: FY2019/2020 and FY2020/24.
All the figures presented as "Power Points" are from the city's OMB working with a group from ASU. There is no other outside objective independent financial analysis, except from one group named Truth In Accounting . . . Furthermore, these jumbles of numbers on slide after slide take more time than  the typical one-day or two-day release to the public for study and examination. The City's Annual Financial Reviews are, likewise, not submitted in a timely manner in the usual 180-day time periodNonethelessss, in the most review by Truth in Accounting, they find Mesa's financing troublesome. 

What the report said in January 2019
> This

and This >

 

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Brady has so far this year tried to stay low-key, cool calm and collected wearing shirt-and-tie. He has put other salaried city officials from the Office of Management & Budget and the City Engineer in-the-hot seat at City Council Study Sessions and regular meetings. 
He might loosen-up in public appearances wearing an open-collar shirt [no tie] for what's usual "Casual Friday" attire. 

 Readers of this blog might like to note that there is no "Casual Friday' business code-of-dress - City offices are closed in the official 4/10 workdays per week . . . mebbe city employees like 3-day weekends! They certainly haven't gone back to working the normal five-days-a-week schedule changed during the Great Recession in 2018.You might remeber at earlier budget hearings, Chris Brady got really rattled over questions of forecasting and projections in proposed budgets. Looks like he's learned his lesson when it got ugly on live stream. Can't, however, say that won't happen this year  . . .  
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ICYMI: Here's a post using the same image above . . .If you want to take a look again at more details than those in this excerpt you can Click Here
THE NUMBERS IN THE CITY MANAGER'S PROPOSED FY2019/2010 and FY2020/2024 BUDGETS HAVE INCREASED

12 February 2019

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.

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kkk

kkk

 

Paul Ryan: A Republican With A Conservative Conscience

Just 14 hours ago in a report written by Justin Wise from MSN News  , the former Speaker of The U.S. House of Representatives, reinforces a call to Republicans to return to what is right: conscience. At the same time he predicted in March that Trump would get re-elected in 2020 due to the Democrats' leftward lurch and record of accomplishments.
Can Ryan get it right both ways?
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Paul Ryan told GOP lawmakers he wouldn't 'defend' Trump after 'Access Hollywood' tape
"Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) reportedly told House Republicans that they could feel free to abandon President Trump after a tape of him making vulgar comments about women emerged during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Ryan made the remarks in what was described as a rare conference call three days after the "Access Hollywood" tape emerged in October 2016, according to an excerpt from the new book, "A Hill to Die On," as reported by Axios.
"I am not going to defend Donald Trump," Ryan said, according to the book. "Not now, not in the future."
Ryan and Trump were known to have had a rocky relationship during Trump's first two years as president. Trump once asked the former Speaker why he wasn't more "loyal" to him in 2017, according to a book written by Cliff Sims, formerly a White House communications staffer.
Axios, citing "A Hill To Die On," notes that Trump said he was able to give Ryan a pass for his disloyalty "because it's life and we sort of need each other a little bit."
Ryan predicted in March that Trump would win reelection in 2020 because of his ideas and "record of accomplishment."
"We're clearly better off because of [Trump]," he tweeted. "His record of accomplishment is why he'll win re-election especially when compared to Dems' leftward lurch."
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Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

From Jonathan Swan 11 hours ago: Link > Axios
Trump to Paul Ryan after Access Hollywood tape: "You're just a Boy Scout" 
"You'll find a trove of deeply sourced reporting in the new book, out Tuesday, by Politico's Playbook authors Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer. Here's a taste of the reporting from Trump's Washington, found in "The Hill to Die On."

Secretary of Homeland Security > The Job Is Now Open

Image is from Axios/

Add one more to the cavalcade of departures from The Donald's Cabinet:
Kirstjen Nielsen resigns, announced in what else but one more tweet:
"Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service. I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!"
The source of this report about an hour ago comes from Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu writing in Axios

Behind the scenes: A source close to DHS told Axios that Nielsen would be having a showdown with the president tonight.

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BLOGGER INSERT:

Here's the first DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano back in 2016 when Nielsen's former boss General John Kelly, under consideration at that time for the Secretary's job at DHS, only to be appointed later as The White House Chief, only to get fired or to resign. It's one more re-play in double-dealing by shuffling "Apprentices" into and out of Cabinet secretary seats in the Trump House of Cards that's standing in a shaky balance.
These incidents are improvised explosive devices in Trump's media con-game played-out all too often as bluffs.
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Published on Dec 9, 2016

Views: Over 15,000

Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano discusses the potential pick of retired Marine Gen. John Kelly for next DHS chief and how problems she foresaw more than two years ago.





 

MORE FROM AXIOS:
"Frustrations were building on both sides," the source said.
"She was undercut at every turn.
She's done everything she can do.
The White House is eating their own.                 
THE BIG PICTURE: It's been a tortured relationship from the beginning, with Trump blaming Nielsen for every problem at the southern border and for the recent spike in families coming from Northern Triangle countries. Trump has long felt that Nielsen isn't "tough enough" when it comes to defending the border and kicking illegal immigrants out of the U.S., according to sources who've discussed the subject with the president. . . " 
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Is it just a coincidence that the first DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano - a tough administrator and lawyer who served as

• the 21st Governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009
• the United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, under President Barack Obama. has spoken out in recent days

In her new book, "How Safe Are We?," former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano reflects on how secure the U.S. has been since 9/11. According to Napolitano, the most urgent threats America faces are climate change and cybersecurity -- not a crisis at the southern border.
We'll talk to Napolitano, who implemented Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012 under President Obama, about immigration policy under President Trump, the current state of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as her role as president of the University of California system at a time of admissions scandals and free speech controversies in a podcast 08 April on KQED: Former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano Asks: 'How Safe Are We?'

In a national television appearance four days earlier with MSNBC's Ari Melber on The Beat , Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, Janet Napolitano slams Trump for “exceeding his authority” by declaring a National Emergency to fund a border wall, because there is “no real emergency”. Obama DHS Secretary blasts Trump: Wrong on border