Thursday, July 01, 2021
AZ Governor Doug Ducey Signs $12.8B Budget For Next Fiscal Year ... He's Gone At The End of Serving His Time In-Office
Way too early to dissect or unpack all of it - just a brief blurb
Ducey signs budget with hours to go before fiscal year ends
With the start of the new fiscal year less than eight hours away, Gov. Doug Ducey signed the $12.8 billion budget shortly after lawmakers sent him the final two budget bills to his desk.
“Today I’m proud to sign a budget that delivers for Arizonans,” Ducey said in a press statement. “Each and every Arizona taxpayer, no matter their income, will experience a tax cut under our historic tax reform. That means job creators will continue to choose our state to expand operations, working families will get to decide how they spend more of their hard-earned dollars, and those who served our nation will rightfully keep more of their own money.”
The highlight of the fiscal year 2022 budget is a massive income tax cut that replaces Arizona’s progressive income tax rates with two rates — 2.55% for people who earn $27,272 annually and 2.98% for those who earn more than that — at a projected cost of about $1 billion in state revenue annually . . .
Moving Up-The-Ladder After 19 Months In Mesa's Office of Economic Development > New Gig For Lori Collins
Press release the City of Mesa's Newsroom is proud to make
Lori Collins, City of Mesa Deputy Economic Development Director, Appointed as New President of AAED
June 30, 2021 at 1:37 pmToday, the City of Mesa Office of Economic Development is pleased to announce that Lori Collins, City of Mesa deputy economic development director, has been appointed as the new president of the Executive Board of Directors for the Arizona Association of Economic Development (AAED). Lori has served as president elect over the past year and in various other positions within the organization. . .
Lessons-Learned From A College "Higher Education"
This was almost too easy > They earned their Letters: Money is The Name of The Game
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
College athletics have been part of the fabric of American society for well over a century. From this day forward, they will never be the same.
Driving the news: Starting Thursday, all NCAA athletes can earn money from their name, image and likeness without losing their eligibility.
New York Times: Visual Investigation Reconstructs The January 06 Day of Rage
A tremendous effort results from a six-month Times investigation synchronizing and mapping out thousands of videos and police radio communications from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, providing the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.
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Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol
". . .Our reconstruction shows the Capitol riot for what it was, a violent assault encouraged by the president on a seat of democracy that he vowed to protect. We’ll chart how police leaders failed to heed warnings of an impending attack, putting rank-and-file officers in danger. We’ll track key instigators in the mob taking advantage of weaknesses in the Capitol’s defenses to ignite a wave of violence that engulfed the building. We’ll show, for the first time, the many simultaneous points of attack, and the eight breaches of what appeared to be an impenetrable institution of government. We’ll show how the delay to secure Congress likely cost a rioter her life. And how for some, storming the Capitol was part of the plan, all along . . ."
THERE'S A LOT MORE and More >
City of Mesa's "Climate Action Plan" > Renewable Energy From Saints' Solar
Right - and as usual within an arms'-length "third-party middleman" in the deal, SRP Salt River Project. That's only when the city hasn't yet made contracts to guarantee reliable prices for providing other non-renewable sources for energy like natural gas or sometimes when the strategic planning for anticipated usage of municipal-owned utilities doesn't quite keep with the energy demands of booming growth.
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From KJZZ report today
Mesa Asks Citizens To Conserve Electricity Amid Concerns Over Energy Supply
Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2021 - 6:21pm
Mesa is urging residents to conserve electricity as prices soar and energy reserves are diminishing.
The city of Mesa operates its own electric utility that serves about 18,000 residential, commercial and light industrial customers in the downtown area.
Frank McRae is the city’s director of the Energy Resources Department. He said the power supply markets are tightening to a point they had projected wouldn’t happen until 2023.
"There’s typically an amount of supply that exceeds demand amongst the utilities and the power providers in the western regional markets," he said. "That margin, or what we call reserve margin, has diminished significantly over the last several years." So as a result, energy prices have spiked.
Mesa is asking customers to conserve energy consumption from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., because energy costs for the city for that time period have increased tenfold over the past year.
McRae did not rule out the possibility that Arizona could experience widespread power outages, like those experienced in Texas in the spring.
“There’s more similarities with what happened in Texas this February, than there are differences," he said. "If a major electric generating station were to trip offline, or a wildland fire caused the utilities to shut down those high voltage transmission lines that go from remote electric generating stations into the major metropolitan areas — any one of those events could trigger something like the need to go to a rolling black out."
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Looking back to 2019 and before there were these deals: It started some time ago to find the right time and the right places to see off 'obsolete water-rights' to more than 11,400 acres on the Mesa Water Farm in Pinal County.
In 2012 they agreed to buy the land in three 5-year phases. (-2017, -2022. -2027)
"According to Natalie Lewis, assistant to city manager Chris Brady, and also lead negotiator on the deal, Mesa purchased the land in 1985 for more than $29 million for its water rights to create a water farm.
Eventually, the city found more cost-effective means to provide the city water
The buyer who was ready, willing and able?
Huge Land Sale in Pinal County Sets Up Planned 100-Megawatt Solar Project
Article originally posted on Phoenix Business Journal on May 28, 2019
“This is a desirable location for solar,” Miller said. “We are also working with two other companies looking to do large-scale solar projects in the area.”
Scottsdale-based Saint Holdings sold 1,027 acres to a company called Saint Solar, an entity controlled by Florida Power & Light Co., the principal subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc., according to real estate database Vizzda.
The land sold May 15 for $14.8 million, according to Vizzda. . .The solar project is north of the planned $1 billion, 2,000-job manufacturing plant for Nikola Motor Co. and its hydrogen-electric trucks.Saint Holdings LLC also sold the land to Nikola for its facility and to California-based Lucid Motors, which is planning a $700 million electric car plant in nearby Casa Grande.
Saint Holdings is a multi-faceted real estate investment and development company with holdings in industrial, land, multifamily residential, and agriculture.
Global Water Resources has signed agreements with Saint Holdings that will result in providing water services to Saint Holding’s Inland Port Arizona, where @nikolamotor is constructing their new facility. Contact us for shovel-ready opportunities. http://bit.ly/2lEAiWa
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Cartoon Carousel The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics | By POLITICO STAFF 01/23/2026 05:00 AM EST
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the fo...
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
