The opening screen-grab is provided by city-owned Mesa Channel 11 taken from their YouTube channel. Frequently when an issue arises where city officials need to 'circle-the-wagons' and pretend that there is citizen participation, they can send a dog-whistle call to get favorable comments turned in. At other times, there is no slanted or skewed or distorted input . . . _________________________________________________________________
What's labeled as study session and regular meeting agendas is confusing but after five minutes of announcements by Hizzoner, the silver-throated Kevin Christopher takes more than another five minutes to read the agenda - and City Manager Chris Brady asks him to re-read Action Items 4-f and 4-h. Readers may be curious if any City Council members have some/any connection to gas utilities that may/may not pose a conflict of interest - District 6 Kevin Thompson has worked for Southwest Gas Utilities.
_________________________________________________________________ ITEM *4-f QUESTION: Trying to fix an issue when there might not have in-place any way to monitor the usage or to send bills for gas consumption?
Dollar-Limit Increase to the Term Contract for Polyethylene Natural Gas Pipe and Fittings for the Materials and Supply Warehouse (for the Energy Resources Department) (Citywide) Energy Resources - Gas Utility uses polyethylene natural gas pipe and fittings for newly installed intermediate natural gas mains and services and to replace aging infrastructure. The Business Services and Energy Resources Departments and Purchasing recommend increasing the dollar-limit with Border States; Georg Fischer Central Plastics LLC; Western Water & Gas Products Ltd; by $40,000, for Years 2 and 3, from $832,000 to $872,000 annually, with an annual increase allowance of up to 5%, or the adjusted Consumer Price Index.
One-Year Renewal with a One-Year Renewal Option to the Term Contract for Class 400 Gas Meters for the Materials and Supply Warehouse (for the Energy Resources Department) (Citywide) This contract provides gas meters used for new service installations and repairs. These meters are used for monitoring volume of customer gas usage and for billing of residential and commercial services. The Business Services and Energy Resources Departments and Purchasing recommend authorizing the renewal with Border States Industries, Inc., at $265,500 annually, with an annual increase allowance of up to 5%, or the adjusted Producer Price Index.
2 French intellectuals on economic injustice When one of the moderators asked him if he believed in the prospects of theGrand Soir—the Great Evening, or the notion of an inevitable workers’ revolution that has inspired generations of French leftists—Piketty fired back, “The Grand Soir is great, but it’s the morning after that interests me most.” _____________________________________________
_________________________________________________ "Piketty’s latest work offers us plenty of valuable ideas. But in the end, one can’t help but wonder if he underplays the extent to which individuals’ access to and relationship with wealth (their position in the property regime, one might say) influences how they look at the world and engage in politics. Ultimately, the interests that unite the top one-tenth of 1 percent of wealth holders may be a bit stronger than Piketty suggests, not unlike the ties that bind the bottom 60 percent or so. Piketty’s views on this mark a clear departure from the Marxist conception of class, yet his open-ended vision of historical change still offers space for popular agency. After all, whatever label one prefers—the “working class,” “the multitude,” “the people,” or something else—it remains up to us to build the movements and organizations required to make a world better suited to human needs. And perhaps someday, the myths we tell ourselves about why things are the way they are will be considered every bit as cruel and irrational as those of the past and will cease to be specters that haunt our present."
With his #1 New York Times bestselling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century,
Thomas Piketty
invigorated global debate about inequality,
disrupted the field of economics by contesting the ideas it has long held most precious, and
swiftly established himself as one of the world’s leading intellectual voices.
Now, Capital and Ideology is the epic follow-up to that landmark text. Piketty offers a crucial retelling of social, intellectual, and material history around the world, a new framework for understanding social progress, and a series of proposals for the fundamental reform of capitalism.
