BLOGGER NOTE: Critics of the opportunity zone program argue that it ends up benefiting a small group of wealthy investors. That's exactly what is happening here in Mesa. Readers of this blog know that
August 25, 2020 - 07:52 PM EDT
Miami mayor:
Need for affordable housing is 'another pandemic'
By James Bikales
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The Republican mayors of Miami and Mesa, Ariz., on Tuesday stressed the importance of government intervention to support affordable housing, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. “Our cities are exploding in terms of growth, which means that it’s becoming more and more difficult for the market to provide the kind of affordable housing that is needed,” Miami Mayor said at The Hill’s “Affordable Housing” event, on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention. Mesa Mayor John Giles said at Tuesday's event, which was sponsored by Enterprise, said affordable housing is an important issue for Republicans, not just Democrats..
.@CityofMiami’s @MiamiMayor: “our cities are exploding in terms of growth, which means that it’s becoming more and more difficult for the market to provide the kind of affordable housing that is needed”
— The Hill Events (@TheHillEvents) August 25, 2020
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Suarez praised the “opportunity zones” program created by the 2017 GOP tax law and federal support for public-private partnerships, both of which he said are key to his city’s goal of having 12,000 affordable housing units by 2024. Under the opportunity zones program, governors can nominate low-income and undercapitalized census tracts where, if approved by the Treasury Department, developers can access tax credits for building affordable housing and making other investments in those areas. On Monday, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who helped craft the legislation behind the law, cited the program in his speech at the Republican convention, calling it the “first new, major effort to tackle poverty in a generation.”
Like they say, Follow the money . . . Item 3 Take action on the following contracts: 20-0839 One-Year Renewal with a One-Year Renewal Option to the Term Contract for Graphic Design Services for the Arts and Culture Department, Mesa Arts Center (Citywide) Over the past three years, HAPI has been contracted with the Mesa Arts Center for managing the design of all marketing collateral and launching the brand effort to expand outreach and awareness in the community. The vendor has been involved in the concept creation for major community events including print ads, brochures, fliers, posters, digital art, mailers, window clings, and more. The Arts and Culture Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing the renewal with Hackett Advertising Public Relations Interactive, dba, HAPI, at $72,000 annually, with an annual increase allowance of up to 5%, or the adjusted Consumer Price Index. *3-a Page 2 City of Mesa Printed on 8/25/2020 August 31, 2020City Council Meeting Agenda - Tentative
20-0837 Ratification of Emergency Purchases made under the Mesa CARES Program (Mesa CARES Funds) (Citywide) These purchases of materials and services were made and approved supporting the Mesa CARES programs; Feeding Mesa, Housing Assistance, Community Health and Safety, and Program Management during the period of March through July 2020. These items do not reflect all expenditures under Mesa CARES but those that require Council approval under City procurement policy. The Business Services Department recommends ratifying these emergency purchases from Personal Touch Catering; Naumann Hobbs Material Handling; Ramadas Investments II, LLC; DH Pace; Rocket Distributors, LLC; Trane Us, Inc.; B&H Foto & Electronics Corp; Dell Marketing LP; IT1 Source, LLC; and Worldwide Technology, LLC, totaling $4,484,438.64. *3-b
20-0833 Purchase of Six Emergency Response Vehicles (All Additions) for the Mesa Fire and Medical Department (Citywide) This purchase is in support of the transition of providing Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) transport services to the City. The purchase will increase the City’s fleet to twelve vehicles. The Mesa Fire and Medical Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing the purchase using the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) cooperative contract with Professional Sales & Service, L.C., at $1,626,428.82, including sales tax, based on estimated requirements. This purchase is funded by the Ambulance Transport Fund. *3-c
20-0838 Purchase of Fifteen In-Vehicle Routers (Additions) for Medical Response Vehicles for the Mesa Fire and Medical Department (Citywide) These routers will allow Mesa Fire and Medical to seamlessly switch between either AT&T FirstNet or Verizon service, based on which carrier has the best signal strength in the area. This will ensure crews always stay connected to the Mesa Regional Dispatch Center and receive pertinent emergency information in the quickest way possible. The Mesa Fire and Medical Department and Purchasing recommend authorizing the purchase using the State of Arizona cooperative contract with Discount Cell, Inc., at $50,000, based on estimated requirements. This purchase is funded by the General Fund through the Department of Innovation and Technology’s Lifecycle Program. *3-d Page 3 City of Mesa Printed on 8/25/2020 August 31, 2020City Council Meeting Agenda - Tentative
20-0840 Three-Year Term Contract with Two Years of Renewal Options for Storm Drain Grate Welding and Tethering Services for the Transportation Department (Citywide) This contract will provide storm drain tethering (welding) to secure storm drain grates to prevent theft and storm drain trash rack repairs in the field on an as-needed basis. The Transportation Department and Purchasing recommend awarding the contract to the lowest, responsive, and responsible bidder, Grate Solutions Company, Inc., at $32,300 annually, with an annual increase allowance of up to 5%, or the adjusted Consumer Price Index. This purchase is funded by the Environmental Compliance Fee. *3-e
20-0832 Fire Station No. 221 Construction Project - Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) (District 6) Over the last several years, southeast Mesa has experienced significant population growth. As this growth continues, emergency call volumes will continue to increase for the area. The addition of Fire Station No. 221 is necessary to address this increase in demand. Fire Station No. 221 will be located approximately 2,000 feet northeast of the intersection of South Ellsworth and East Ray Roads, at the corner of Point Twenty-Two Boulevard and South Pasteur. The station will contain approximately 12,000 square feet of usable space with four drive-thru apparatus bays, eight dorm rooms, two Captain’s offices, a kitchen, dining room, dayroom, job/task conditioning areas, crew office, Fire/EMS Training/Community Room, and associated operations based functions, which address typical fire station requirements. Staff recommends awarding the contract for this project to CORE Construction, Inc. (a Mesa business) in the amount of $5,850,174 (GMP) and authorizing a change order allowance in the amount of $585,017.40 (10%), for a total award of $6,435,191.40. This project is funded by 2018 authorized Public Safety bonds and developer contribution. *3-f Page 4 City of Mesa Printed on 8/25/2020 August 31, 2020City Council Meeting Agenda - Tentative
20-0828 Lewis East Substation Rebuild Project - Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) and Pre-Construction Services Contract (District 4) This project will replace the 45-year-old transformer and associated switchgear and up-size the existing 22.4 megavolt-amperes (MVA) transformer to a 28 MVA transformer to support downtown’s growing electrical demand. In addition to the equipment replacement, portions of the substation facility will be re-arranged to provide greater flexibility for routine maintenance. The rearrangement will necessitate site grading, new concrete pads to accommodate the larger substation transformer footprint, and other ancillary support structures. Staff recommends selecting Builders Guild Inc.(a Mesa business) as the CMAR for this project and awarding a Pre-Construction Services contract in the amount of $75,189. This project is funded by 2014 Electric bonds. *3-g
20-0836 Falcon Field Higley Ramp East Reconstruction Project (District 5) Higley Ramp East was constructed in 2001. In 2017, ADOT evaluated the Higley Ramp East pavement and found that routine maintenance is no longer a solution to protect the current pavement and that full removal and replacement is necessary. The scope of the project is full removal and replacement of the existing pavement, which includes removal and replacement of all aircraft tie downs. Staff recommends awarding the contract for this project to the lowest, responsible bidder, Combs Construction Company, Inc., in the amount of $498,464 and authorizing a change order allowance in the amount of $49,846.40 (10%), for a total award of $548,310.40. This project is funded by the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Airport Development Reimbursable Grant and Falcon Field Capital Grants Fund.
September 14, 2020 is the date of a public hearing on three ordinances: 1 Annexing property located south of Ray Road and east of Mountain Road 2 A request to establish commercial zoning for future development. 3 A request to allow for a mixed-use development _________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________ ITEM 5 Introduction of the following ordinances and setting September 14, 2020 as the date of the public hearing on these ordinances:
20-0822 ANX20-00206 (District 6) Annexing property located south of Ray Road and east of Mountain Road (6.0± acres).
Initiated by the property owner, SRF Holding, LLC. *5-a
ANX20-00206 (District 6) Annexing property located south of Ray Road and east of Mountain Road (6.0± acres). Initiated by the property owner, SRF Holding, LLC.
20-0757 ZON20-00207 (District 6) Within the 11200 block of East Ray Road (south side) and within the 5200 block of South Mountain Road (east side). Located west of Meridian Road on the south side of Ray Road (3.9± acres). Rezone from RS-43 to NC. This request will establish commercial zoning for future development. Rod Jarbo, applicant; SRF Holding, LLC, owner. Staff Recommendation: Approval with conditions P&Z Board Recommendation: Approval with conditions (Vote: 6-0) *5-b
ZON20-00207 (District 6) Within the 11200 block of East Ray Road (south side) and within the 5200 block of South Mountain Road (east side). Located west of Meridian Road on the south side of Ray Road (3.9± acres). Rezone from RS-43 to NC. This request will establish commercial zoning for future development. Rod Jarbo, applicant; SRF Holding, LLC, owner. Staff Recommendation: Approval with conditions P&Z Board Recommendation: Approval with conditions (Vote: 6-0)
20-0846 ZON20-00475 (District 6) Within the 10500 to 10800 blocks of East Southern Avenue (south side). Located west of Signal Butte Road on the south side of Southern Avenue (3.6± acres). Rezone from RM-4-PAD to LC-PAD. This request will allow for a mixed-use development. Reese Anderson, Pew & Lake, PLC, applicant; Signal Butte BFC, LLC, owner. Staff Recommendation: Approval with conditions P&Z Board Recommendation: *5-c
ZON20-00475 (District 6) Within the 10500 to 10800 blocks of East Southern Avenue (south side). Located west of Signal Butte Road on the south side of Southern Avenue (3.6± acres). Rezone from RM-4-PAD to LC-PAD. This request will allow for a mixed-use development. Reese Anderson, Pew & Lake, PLC, applicant; Signal Butte BFC, LLC, owner. Staff Recommendation: Approval with conditions P&Z Board Recommendation:
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast.
The botnet uses proprietary software written from scratch to infect servers and corral them into a peer-to-peer network, researchers from security firm Guardicore Labs reported on Wednesday. Peer-to-peer (P2P) botnets distribute their administration among many infected nodes rather than relying on a control server to send commands and receive pilfered data. With no centralized server, the botnets are generally harder to spot and more difficult to shut down. __________________________________________________________________________ Researchers have found what they believe is a previously undiscovered botnet that uses unusually advanced measures to covertly target millions of servers around the world... The botnet, whichGuardicore Labsresearchers have named FritzFrog, has a host of other advanced features, including:
In-memory payloads that never touch the disks of infected servers
At least 20 versions of the software binary since January
A sole focus on infecting secure shell, or SSH, servers that network administrators use to manage machines
The ability to backdoor infected servers
A list of login credential combinations used to suss out weak login passwords that’s more “extensive” than those in previously seen botnets
Taken together, the attributes indicate an above-average operator who has invested considerable resources to build a botnet that’s effective, difficult to detect, and resilient to takedowns. The new code base—combined with rapidly evolving versions and payloads that run only in memory—make it hard for antivirus and other end-point protection to detect the malware.
The peer-to-peer design makes it difficult for researchers or law enforcement to shut down the operation. . .
To infiltrate and analyze the botnet, the researchers developed a program that exchanges encryption keys the botnet uses to send commands and receive data. “This program, which we named Frogger, allowed us to investigate the nature and scope of the network,” Harpaz wrote. “Using Frogger, we were also able to join the network by ‘injecting’ our own nodes and participating in the ongoing P2P traffic.” Before infected machines reboot, FritzFrog installs a public encryption key to the server’s “authorized_keys” file. The certificate acts as a backdoor in the event the weak password gets changed. The takeaway from Wednesday’s findings is that administrators who don’t protect SSH servers with both a strong password and a cryptographic certificate may already be infected with malware that’s hard for the untrained eye to detect. The report has a link to indicators of compromise and a program that can spot infected machines.
The problem with companies is people. . ."Like many things, Covid is just accelerating social transformation, concentration of wealth in a few hands, massive inequalities, competition issues and all that.”
With the coronavirus bolstering algorithmically enabled companies as old economy businesses are shuttered and people forced to stay home, firms that rely least on their employees have beaten more labor-intensive ones by 37 percentage points in 2020, according to an analysis . . . from Bloomberg News yesterday
Stock Market Warns Workers That They’re the Problem for Business
Tech companies’ domination created ‘bear market for humans’
Labor-light firms beat big employers by 37 percentage points
In a year when all manner of inequality is under fire -- gender, racial, wealth -- the stock market has drawn scrutiny as an institution that both reflects and amplifies it, where the rich get richer by taking humans out of the process. . .
Another federal law enforcement agency has figured out a way to dodge warrant requirements for historical cell site location data. The Supreme Court's Carpenter decision said these records were covered by the Fourth Amendment. But rather than comply with the ruling, agencies like the CBP and ICE are buying location data in bulk from private companies that collect this data, rather than approach service providers with warrants.
These agencies argue they aren't violating the Constitution because the data is "pseudonymized" and doesn't specifically target any single person. But even cops using "reverse" warrants are still using warrants to gather this data. Federal agencies apparently can't be bothered with this nicety, preferring to collect information in bulk and work backwards to whatever it is they're looking for.
The Secret Service is the latest federal agency to buy location data from Locate X -- one of the companies already providing cell site location data to CBP and ICE. Joseph Cox has the details for Motherboard.
The Secret Service paid for a product that gives the agency access to location data generated by ordinary apps installed on peoples' smartphones, an internal Secret Service document confirms. The sale highlights the issue of law enforcement agencies buying information, and in particular location data, that they would ordinarily need a warrant or court order to obtain. This contract relates to the sale of Locate X, a product from a company called Babel Street.
Motherboard uncovered the Secret Service's warrant evasion through a public records request.
The contract that mentions Locate X stretches from September 28, 2017 to September 27, 2018, according to the document. With the modifications to an existing Secret Service and Babel Street contract, the total amount increased by $35,844 to $1,999,394, the document adds.
This corroborates statements made by a former Babel Street employee, who told journalists at Protocol back in March that the Secret Service was also buying location data, along with CBP and ICE.
This location data isn't pulled from cell towers. Perhaps this is why agencies feel comfortable ignoring the Carpenter decision. But while there won't be as many data points, there will still be plenty of data to sift through. Multiple apps collect location data. Some of them sell this data to data brokers who then sell this to marketing firms and/or the US government.
Senator Ron Wyden is, of course, all over this.
“It is clear that multiple federal agencies have turned to purchasing Americans’ data to buy their way around Americans’ Fourth Amendment Rights. I’m drafting legislation to close this loophole, and ensure the Fourth Amendment isn’t for sale,” Wyden’s statement added.
If there's a loophole, it will be exploited. And federal agencies are going to want this loophole kept open. Since it's unlikely the government is informing courts about this use of data, there have been no courtroom challenges of this practice, leaving the feds free to operate in this precedent-free void. The government is reading the letter of the Supreme Court's ruling, feeling the warrant requirement only applies to data collected from service providers. But other courts have read that ruling to cover more than what the justices specified. Federal agencies are playing to the edges of the Fourth Amendment right now and it might come back to hurt them.
As we've noted, much of the hysteria surrounding TikTok isn't based on anything close to consistent outrage. As in, many of the folks freaking out about a teen dancing app were nowhere to be found when U.S. wireless carriers were found to be selling access to your location data to any random idiot. Most of the folks pearl clutching about TikTok have opposed election security funding or even the most basic of privacy rules. The SS7 flaw that makes most wireless networks vulnerable to eavesdropping ? The lack of any security or privacy safeguards in the internet of things (IOT) space?
Which is all a long way of saying: if you're going to lose sleep over TikTok, you'll be shocked to learn there's an ocean of issues that folks are paying absolutely no attention to. Or, to put it another way, TikTok is probably the very least of a long list of problems related to keeping U.S. data secure.
The latest case in point >> https://www.techdirt.com/
VIRTUAL EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: ON THE AGENDA: AFFORDABLE HOUSING TUESDAY, AUGUST 25TH AT 1 PM EDT TheHill A place to call home has always been a basic need and yet the lack of safe, affordable housing remains an issue today. On the sidelines of the 2020 Republican Convention, The Hill will host discussions on what can be done to ensure all Americans have access to a safe and affordable home. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Mesa, AZ Mayor John Giles. and a panel of housing experts join The Hill's Steve Clemons. RSVP for event reminders. Visit site
![The Hill]({"default":{"load":"now","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB6QvJF.img?h=56&w=56&m=6&q=60&u=t&o=t&l=f"},"dpi":1.4})
