4th Straight-Day of HIGH POLLUTION Warnings, Advisories + Alerts



 

Ah yes, there's "everything under the sun" here in Maricopa County and The East Valley - dirty, toxic and contaminated air.
Air Quality Forecast

Air Quality Index (AQI)
101	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups
Health Message: Active children and adults, and people with lung disease, such as asthma, should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion outdoors.  Forecast Discussion High pressure looks like it will hold on over the Southwest today and Saturday. This weather pattern will help to reinforce sunny skies and warm temperatures. In fact, Phoenix may see its first 100°F day today. Air quality-wise, ozone is expected to be its highest of this forecast period today and Saturday, since conditions will be favorable for ozone formation and accumulation. An Ozone High Pollution Advisory is in effect for today. This was six days ago This is serious

______________________________________________________________________

Growing fast

Growing Smart?

Community Engagement Via Post-It Notes: ASU @ Mesa City Center

These were some of the faces sitting at the back of The Saguaro Room in the Main Mesa Public Library on Wednesday, April 24th for a Community Design Workshop hosted by RAIL Mesa and ASU.

The Design Building Team was there, including Diane Jacobs from Holly Street Studios who's working with San Francisco-based Architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.
Rick Naibor [spelling?], who said he has been working with Jeff McVay, the City of Mesa's Director of Downtown Transformation, for more than three years, made the introductions and gathered written comments on post-it notes to gather ideas and feedback from those who responded to a set of questions.Rick said he had worked for the City of Phoenix for 36 years. He's been working at ASU since 2014.

The workshop was well-attended with members of the public and employees of both the City of Mesa and ASU.
< Here's an image of RAIL Mesa's David Crummey starting off what ended to be a very inter-active exchange of ideas for a Developer and Lease Agreement by city officials and ASU for the new construction of one building at the NWC of Pepper Place/Centennial Drive in the parking lot behind the old 1970's-era  vacant city-owned IT Building on First Avenue. From plans and timelines presented, it is way more than that to somehow create "Mesa City Center"

WHAT'S YOUR VISION OF THIS GRID? 
Here's a scale model with Mesa Arts Center at the top on the south side of Main Street.
N Center Street is to the right. Centennial Drive to the left. 
Notice at the top that the International Design Award-Winning MAC is on a different diagonal axis. None, absolutely none of the buildings in the area under review can match the high architectural standards set by the $100-million arts center that opened in 2005. The 8-story City Hall is the ugliest building in the entire downtown. Most of the others are one-story hangovers from The 1970's-Era. The empty spaces are parking lots used by city employees or city utilities and development services customers.

An ASU "satellite campus" downtown was a controversial issue in 2016 and 2018. Mesa taxpayers REJECTED it first, and then approved a scaled-down version to fund one new building - the image to the left is what was used by city officials and mainstream media over-and-again to make the sales-pitch.
< It is not and probably never was city officials had in mind, because they simply didn't know, but needed something to hoodwink taxpayers.

So it's back to the drawing boards - what you see is the site on Pepper Place.
Readers of this blog may want to get in touch with David Crummey at RAIL MESA

• Retail
• Arts
• Innovation
• Livability 

These two people should be able to help you with questions.

together@railmesa.org

- or -

David Crummey

Tel: 602.370.4459

__________________________________________________
Website:

RAIL Mesa | For a stronger, better connected light rail corridor in Mesa

www.railmesa.org/  Click or Tap Here

RAILmesa is downtown Mesa's active community voice, where we build and advocate for a stronger, better connected light rail corridor in Mesa

 

Facebook:

RAILmesa: Retail, Arts, Innovation & Livability

1,528 likes

Like PageLiked

 

 

IMPACT INVESTING FOR THE SOCIAL GOOD

Published on Apr 26, 2019

Views: 45 at time of upload to this blog

Apr.26 -- Victoria Leggett, head of impact investing at Union Bancaire Privee, discusses the UBAM Positive Impact Equity Fund and the themes that the fund is focusing on. She speaks on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Europe.”

kkk

Thank you for an Inspiring 40th Anniversary Celebration

Published on Apr 26, 2019

On April 23, 2019, LISC celebrated its 40th birthday with a gala event in New York City with 700 of our friends and supports.

Thank you to the many sponsors and supporters that made the event possible.

This is What LISC Does Everyday

Communities of Opportunity

Published on Apr 24, 2019

Views: 45

40 years. 6,000 partners. $20BN invested. All across America, LISC works with thousands of local partners to forge resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity – great places to live, work, visit, do business and raise families.

How to do Creative Placemaking: Formalizing Partnership Contracts, MOUs ...

There's a deadline to apply

Published on Apr 25, 2019

Views: 1 [me] at time of upload to this blog

What does a contract for a performance or public art installation look like? When and how should a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) be used? This webinar will offer complementary perspectives on how to structure contracts and MOUs that will set expectations and accountability for all parties involved while also allowing room for creativity and flexibility in the process and end product.

City of Mesa Municipal Bonds: A Basic Primer For The Public

Here's the Shake-Down:
Municipal Bonds are debt obligations.
Someone has to pay off the debt service - YOU
One way or another it's money taken out of your pockets in any number of ways: (see the Budget Pie Charts for FY2018/2019 that are inserted farther down)
BOND AND DEBT SERVICE
Source: City of Mesa Open Data Portal 
"The City issues debt in the form of bonds to finance long-term capital improvements such as streets, buildings, utility systems, etc., . . .
For the complete City of Mesa Executive Budget Plan click here.

Types of Bonds

The City uses two main types of bond funding in the FY 2018/19 budget:

• General Obligation GO Bonds make up about 30% of City Projects
• Utility Systems Revenue Bonds fund most City Projects

_________________________________________________________________________
THE BIG PICTURE
Utility Revenue Bonds 
General Obligation GO Bonds
Street/Highways
WIFA

_________________________________________________________________________

Readers might want to see this >
GO Bonds
General Obligation debt service payments are shown in the chart to the right.

< and this
Utility Systems Revenue Bonds Debt Service Payments Schecule

Debt service payments for Utility Bonds are funded by rate charges paid by utilities customers.

Here's a Financial Breakdown for Data provided in 2017 that is featured in a New Report from Truth In Accounting that was released on January 28, 2019 

2019 Financial State of the Cities
January 28, 2019

On January 29, Truth in Accounting released its third Financial State of the Cities report, a comprehensive analysis of the fiscal health of the nation's 75 most populous cities based on fiscal year 2017 comprehensive annual financial reports. 

This year, the study found that 63 cities do not have enough money to pay all of their bills, and in total, the cities have racked up nearly $330 billion in unfunded municipal debt. The study ranks the cities according to their Taxpayer Burden or Taxpayer Surplus™, which is each taxpayer's share of city bills after available assets have been tapped. Check out the data for your city at the State Data Lab.

Mesa, AZ

The Bills Mesa has Accumulated

State Bonds * $1,797

Other Liabilities * $267

Less: Debt Related to Capital Assets * $1,658

Unfunded Pension Benefits * $830

Unfunded Retirees' Health Care Benefits * $648

Bills * $1,885

• * figures in millions

Source: State Data Lab Mesa, AZ 

 

2017 Financial State of Mesa

(Released 1/29/2019)

Mesa's Taxpayer Burden.™ is -$5,800, and received a "D" from TIA.

Mesa is a Sinkhole City without enough assets to cover its debt.

Decisions by elected officials have created a Taxpayer Burden™, which is each taxpayer's share of city bills after its available assets have been tapped.

TIA's Taxpayer Burden™ measurement incorporates all assets and liabilities, including retirement obligations.

Mesa only has $1.1 billion of assets available to pay bills totaling $1.9 billion.

Because Mesa doesn't have enough money to pay its bills, it has a $812.5 million financial hole. To erase this shortfall, each Mesa taxpayer would have to send $5,800 to the city.

Mesa's reported net position is overstated by $175.3 million, largely because the city delays recognizing losses incurred when the net pension liability increases.

The city's financial report was released 186 days after its fiscal year end, which is considered untimely according to the 180 day standard.

 

Some Budget Pies For You to Look from this Fiscal Year 2018/2019

TOTAL CITY BUDGET $1.82B

There are four

Here's one that shows you where the money is spent in Expenditures, by Category >

 

 

 

 

 

< Here's another one for Bonds by Project Category

$203.7M

 

Note the large piece-of-the-budget pie for Wastewater and Water Treatment

 

Transportation/Streets eats up 12%

Parks

Public Safety

 

Here's one more

TOTAL AVAILABLE CITY RESOURCES

$1.82B

Looks like "A Balanced Budget" with the same number for Expenditures and Resources

Biggest source of resources:

Sales & Charges for Services: 565.1M

Intergovernmental: $243.2M

Taxes: $208.2M

 

NOTE: Use of Reserve Balance: $250.3M

This is usually a NO-NO in accounting practice

 

. . . and just another one

TOTAL CITY BUDGET BY FUND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________

Let's take a look at one credit-rating agency: Moody's
Source: Moody's Credit Rating/City of Mesa

Moody's Org ID:600023957

LEI:549300L1QYAKFHSIGE94

6 Digit Cusip: 590485, . . .

 

Here are four entries for 2019

Notice that some documents are locked. You need to subscribe to open them up.

These are the first four and most recent in 95 results. The first page in the list  1-50 goes back 2012 if you are interested in see the document types.

 

18 Apr 2019	Credit Opinion	Mesa, AZ: Update to credit analysis	Moody's Investors Service
18 Apr 2019	Credit Opinion	Mesa Combined Utility Enterprise, AZ: Update to credit analysis	Moody's Investors Service
17 Apr 2019	Rating Action	Moody's assigns Aa2 to City of Mesa, AZ Combined Utility Enterprise's Utility Systems Revenue Bonds, Series 2019A, 2019B, and 2019C	Moody's Investors Service
17 Apr 2019	Rating Action	Moody's assigns Aa2 to City of Mesa, AZ's GO Bonds, Series 2019	Moody's Investors Service