Anthony Smith’s BlogMaricopa Mayor

As a resident of Maricopa for relatively a short time, I hadn’t heard of ghosts frequenting Maricopa. But being the curious person that I am, I went to “the experts” to find out if my city had any mysterious spiritual happenings, ghosts, or haunted areas. What was I thinking? Of course, all old towns have haunted houses and legends. Maricopa is no different. Patricia Brock, the Author of “Reflections of a Desert Town” shared with me her experience with “Haunted Maricopa”.

According to Ms. Brock, Maricopa’s haunted house was located just south of the railroad tracks near where the Red Business Barn is located today. In the 1880’s Perry Williams built a big rambling adobe house with a spacious wrap-around porch.  Mr. Williams was the Donald Trump of that era.  It seemed everything he touched turned to gold. Through the years, an abundance of bushes, trees, and assorted cacti grew to cast curious shadows. Strange noises could be heard coming from the house. Word was that a little old lady lived there and another said someone had died there. This was definitely, a place you wanted to stay away from. When the kids walked to school you had to pass by this fortress of doom!  As Patricia and her friends approached the house, they would gradually ease out toward the road so they did not disturb anyone or anything that might be beyond those sentinels. They knew it would be death before dawn if they did. One dare devil of her troupe could not leave well enough alone and just had to show his bravery. He took a quick peek through the bushes…jumped back and screamed all the way to school.  They never did find out what he saw. Maricopa’s Haunted House is no longer with us.  It mysteriously disappeared in a burning rage of fire years ago. 

Apparently, in the rural areas of the Arizona deserts there exists a more notorious legend. A long-time resident and the city’s Vice Mayor Brent Murphree told me about the evening he and a couple of young friends saw the “white lady” in the Santa Rosa Wash. Brent and his friends were hardly the first to see this “ghost”. Legend has it that during the time of Spanish influence in this region, a Spanish nobleman courted a commoner and who later bore him two children. Due to a family crisis, he was summoned back to Spain. Upon his return to America, the common woman was enraged to find that her lover had brought back a wife. Distraught over her situation, she drowned her two children in the river. Through the centuries, anytime the washes run, locals attest to seeing the “white lady” or “La Llorona” as Hispanics call her searching frantically in the waters for her poor, unfortunate children. Be careful where you go this Halloween. I hope the washes are not running!

It seems it took forever this year for the weather to break out of the 100’s and turn our desert environment into one of the most envied destinations in the country. Yes, outdoor activities are in full swing. During my morning marathon training runs I see lots of walkers and fellow runners. It’s a great time to be outdoors!   

As I’ve stated before, when it comes to recreational facilities, all age groups in Maricopa are underserved. In an earlier newsletter, I spoke about what the city is doing to “catch-up”. Now, I want to share with you examples of local neighborhoods that are proof that by working together, we are stronger.   

Recognizing the greater good that happens when youth are busy in meaningful activities, the Villages at Rancho El Dorado, Cobblestone Farms, and the Alterra Home Owner Associations (HOAs) are just a few of the examples of neighborhoods that have gone above and beyond the call of duty to allow community use of open green areas. Reflecting on their experience, Guy Wohlers, the HOA President from Alterra says, “The kids had been so nice and the parents/coaches so respectful, I would expand community use to other green areas if we could.” Guy believes communities are safer and more desirable when the city and neighborhoods cooperate. On behalf of all Maricopa, I sincerely thank our HOAs for their past and present efforts sharing as one community. 

Do you have any idea how many youth we have involved in local recreational programs? I didn’t, so I asked Nicole Dailey, our Acting Community Services Director to share with me some information on the numbers of kids involved in youth programs. I was blown away! Nearly one thousand youth participate in city sponsored soccer, basketball, football activities. Fall teen programs include over 500 who have signed up for Wii tournaments, homecoming activities, and Founder’s Day events. At the Maricopa City Library, story-time is held three times a week with usually 40 children attending. The library is hosting special Saturday and Holiday themed story-times. Additional fun programs geared to kids are planned throughout the rest of the year.

Before I close, I want to recognize our Maricopa Police Department Honor Guard. Our honor guard has been selected from a large pool of applicants by Fiesta Bowl Parade Committee to carry our nation’s flag in the 39^th Annual Fort McDowell Fiesta Bowl Parade. The Maricopa Police Honor Guard, which is comprised of five Maricopa officers, will represent the City of Maricopa when they lead this year’s parade, which will be nationally televised on Saturday January 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM.

The Maricopa Police Department Honor Guard prides itself on celebrating the life and sacrifices made by the fallen officer, not the achievements of its own members. All of the members have a strong commitment to this country, state, city, department, and fellow officers and vow to always remember those who have given their all in the line of duty.

What a huge honor! Congratulations to all members of this prestigious unit. I know you will represent the City of Maricopa, fellow officers, and our great nation well.

Last week was a busy week for your City Council. The Vice Mayor Brent Murphree and I visited with several prospective retailers in San Diego. Meanwhile Council members Marvin Brown, Carl Diedrich and Edward Farrell attended the annual conference of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns in Oro Valley.

During the retail recruitment trip, our team met with developers and various retailers including representatives for hotels, restaurants, discount stores and even a California-based movie theatre company. During this down-turn in the economy, my main emphasis has been is to assist the developments that have stalled or are nearly “coming out of the ground”. I believe these developments have the best chance of stimulating our local economy. Over the next couple of days we updated these prospective businesses on the “health” of our city. Several of these developers have been working with the city for several years. What impresses me is that they are still high on Maricopa. The bottom line is that we continue to be a priority location for retailers. With the exception of the hotel industry, retailers are starting to put forward concrete expansion plans. The hotel industry is a bit more cautious and will be slow to expand.           

As I mentioned, our team of Council-members attended the Arizona League of Cities and Towns conference. The league provides an important link among the ninety incorporated cities and towns in Arizona and is the only organization that connects each and every municipality regardless of size or geographic location. The conference provides an opportunity for all Arizona city officials to get together, exchange ideas, offer support to one another and combine resources so they may influence policy decisions that affect cities. Councilmember Farrell had the opportunity to visit with Governor Brewer and discuss some of the issues that are important to Maricopa, including the state of Arizona’s economy. In addition to our Council representatives, for the first time ever five of our local High School students represented the City of Maricopa at the official opening ceremony. During the day, they attended youth sessions especially geared to their interests. Ms. Bernadette Russoniello, a teacher with the school district, was the leader and chaperoned this group of young leaders.     

Have you been to one of our Town-hall meetings? Our next event happens on Saturday, September 19^th. I will open the program at 10 a.m. with a few comments. The rest of the two hours is yours to ask City Council members and City Staff questions about any number of topics. One of the areas we’re giving special emphasis is on air quality. Our Air Quality consultant will be in attendance to give his input on these questions. Join us at the Global Water Center is located at 22590 N. Powers Parkway.  If you are unable to attend in person, you can ask questions during the live presentation on the City’s government access station Maricopa20. If you watch from home, send an email; you can also send questions through Twitter @MyMaricopa, please reference #CoMTH.

Returning from vacation can be a shock. Even if you are diligent keeping up with your electronic messages (of which I didn’t) the effort of getting back “into action” takes time. That’s the long way of saying I’m beyond my one-week goal for posting a new blog. For this blog, I’m going to share with you some of the meetings I attend as your Mayor.

As you drive the Maricopa-Casa Grande highway towards Casa Grande, near Murphy Road the Ak-Chin Indian Community has an Industrial Park. The park has a couple of occupants and various “shovel-ready” sites. I visited the park to get first-hand knowledge and discuss with our Ak-Chin neighbors how we can partner to bring more businesses to the area. When it comes to attracting area business, it doesn’t matter to me who gets the business as long as we create jobs. One of the “take-away actions” was that the city agrees to include their sites in our site search engine. Check it out for yourselves. Click on the http://www.maricopaprospector.com/ website and do some searches. It’s kind of interesting.

Moving on, I participated in the Council’s Transition Task Force meeting. Joining me on this committee is Vice Mayor Murphree and Councilmember Farrell. The purpose of this task force is to recommend to the Council changes that will improve the efficiency, alignment, and accountability of our various city committees, boards, and commissions. Some of the bigger work includes looking at which of these should be standing (long-term) committees and which should be time-limited task force types. In addition, we are looking at how members are selected, their terms, eligibility, and removal of members. We’re making good progress and hope to be make recommendations to City Council before the end of the year.

Another routine meeting is the meeting I have with the Police Chief, City Manager, and the Director of Public Safety. From time to time, citizens call me on police related matters. How I handle these contacts is as follows. I let the person know I received the email and then forward the information to the Police Chief, copy the Director of Public Safety, City Manager and put the original note in my “follow-up” folder. After getting feedback from the Chief, I combine his response with my personal touch, and then reply to the citizen. To get back to the point of why I have this meeting, I have it to re-address all these items to see if the citizen is satisfied, need more follow-up, or can we make an improvement.

Forget the almanac; summer is over. How do I know? I’ve been on vacation. Nancy and I went back to the mid-west to visit family and just hang-out. We needed time to be less intense and see if we even remember how to relax. Since my step-son says it’s ok to tell you day to day experiences. Here we go!

To start off, our travel arrangements were different. We flew out of Mesa-Gateway Airport in a direct flight to Peoria, Illinois. After grabbing a rental car we met Nancy’s sister and brother-in-law. Even though I lived a long time in Illinois, this was the first time in Peoria. It’s much bigger than I thought with a nice river front area. We visited a building that housed a large antique shop and contemporary art studios. Being the “artsy” type, I had a blast gawking. It’s amazing how creative people can be. But the best part was wandering through the art studio. Since it was early in the afternoon the studio was empty. About a dozen artists had pieces in various stages of completion. Being contemporary, it had some really weird stuff. I had a blast.

The next day we traveled downstate where my oldest daughter, her husband, and two of my grandkids live. The kids had been waiting all afternoon to play the card game “War”. Seems they remember our last visit and wanted to whoop-up on us again. Sunday, we traveled to central Indiana where my parents live in a retirement home. During my visit, my Dad turned 89 years old. Sunday afternoon was the Smith-family reunion. I have four brothers that have expanded to about forty family members. After enjoying much Hoosier cooking, we closed the evening playing several games of Rummy Cube with my Mom. I got lucky and won a couple of games.

Monday, we met my brother to visit an Egyptian exhibit, including lots of items associated with King Tutankhamen. The amazing talents of many craftsmen were displayed. Another family dinner and off to southern Indiana. The weather turned ugly and we were treated to a huge rainstorm, a real “gully-washer” forcing the power to go out. By candle light, we played the card game “euchre”. By this time I was in a full-relax attitude. Several more days of family, cards, visits, and travel completed our summer vacation. I hope you took time from your busy schedules this summer to slow down and recharge. I feel good. I’m looking forward to doing more of this!

Recently, some interesting stats were in the Business Section of the Arizona Republic newspaper in an article titled “Rent relief”. Second quarter stats compared the retail vacancy rates across the metro Phoenix area. According to CB Richard Ellis, the City of Maricopa had the second lowest vacancy rates in the Metro-Phoenix area. East Phoenix was the lowest at 5.6% with Maricopa coming in at 6.3%. Compare this to Scottsdale at 6.7%, Mesa/Gilbert/Chandler at 11.6%, Paradise Valley at 12.7% and Northwest Phoenix with a whopping 14.5%.

In addition to the vacancy rates, the article compared lease rates for the same period. Maricopa’s lease rates were $21.00/sq. ft. topped only by Apache Junction, Sun City, Paradise Valley and North Scottsdale. The vast majority of lease rates are in the $16.00 to $19.00 per sq. ft. range. Seemingly, the longtime lease rate menace still makes its presence known.         

What do all these numbers mean? It depends. If you are a resident you’ll find the vast majority of storefronts occupied with businesses. That might mean good selection and variety. That’s good. However, the price of goods may be a little higher here than in the Phoenix area. Business owners must either pass the higher overhead costs on to the consumer or eat them. Most pass them on to consumers. If you are a business owner, this isn’t new news to you. You already know the challenge of making rent each month in a recession market. It can be very hard!

During my campaign, business owners expressed to me their concerns about high lease rates. Foreseeing difficult times ahead, one of my first actions as Mayor was to write personal letters to all of Maricopa’s commercial landlords asking them to please work with the business owners to try to provide some form of rent relief. I must say, my efforts were of little or no success. However, I believe better judgment has prevailed. Recently, I’ve heard from some business owners that their landlords have renegotiated leases or given some form of rent relief. To these landlords, I say thank you!

Regardless of whether you are a local business struggling to make ends meet or not, the article encourages all businesses to work with landlords to forgo rent increases, adjust common area maintenance fees or grant a flat-rate reduction. By far, small businesses make up the bulk of local retail sales. It is in all our best interests that we keep our local economy strong. As often stated by our Chamber of Commerce, “Buy Maricopa”! Let’s keep working together and we’ll make it through these tough times.

Did you enjoy the 4^th of July Celebration in Maricopa? I certainly did. Nancy (my wife) and I endured the early evening heat, ate some delicious BBQ, watched the kids perform, and sat down for an awesome fireworks display. This was indeed our best fireworks display. Great ground displays, colorful traditional rockets, and some very unique bursts I haven’t seen at any other events. Incredible!

Earlier in the evening, as I was watching various family groups it brought back memories of when I enjoyed 4^th of July celebrations on my hometown. We had a little park that I spent endless hours fishing, hanging out on the playground, playing baseball. After reminiscing a bit, my mind came back to Maricopa. Then I got to thinking. What was missing? Oh yes, now I know. My hometown started the celebration with a parade. Yes, you remember them. Old soldiers march by proudly holding high Old Glory marching in those strange and not so well-fitting uniforms. It seemed everybody wanted to be in the parade. I would walk with my “Dog and Suds” baseball team. We always wanted to be in front of the Dairy Queen team. They where our arch-rivals and anytime we could get in front of them we were happy. The parade had lots of variety. Floats, a clown or two joined in with all the important people riding in really old cars. Cars like the ones I saw when I peaked in my great uncle’s barn. I tried to not pay too much attention to the dance teams, but boy those girls were pretty in those fancy red, silver, and gold sequins costumes. You get the idea! Not only are these events fun, but these celebrations are building memories. Let’s build some great ones for our children!  

Like many things, getting started can be the biggest hurdle. In the last few days, I’ve talked to several people about this parade thing. People like the idea a lot. I’ve even had a very well-known business say they would be a sponsor if we have a parade. So where do we go from here? If a parade is something you want to get involved in, send me an email at Anthony.smith@maricopa-az.gov . To be successful, we need people. People who can do the “heavy-lifting”, ready to pull up their sleeves and get to the business of bringing to Maricopa a PARADE! Yeah! If I get enough interest, I’ll bring together a planning committee. I can almost hear the bands playing the “Star Spangled Banner” and the fire truck’s siren.  Let’s do this!

Last week, I spent the majority of my time in Washington, D.C. Councilmember Griffin and I made this trip for the primary purpose of keeping the future bridge where SR 347 crosses the Union Pacific Railroad on the “front burner”. As I’ve mentioned before, this is much more than a matter of convenience. In my opinion, this is the highest safety risk we have in the City of Maricopa. The risk continues to spiral upwards. At last count nearly 3,000 school children crossed this intersection each day. As our population continues to grow, additional children are possibly put in harms way. In the coming weeks a second railroad track will be in place increasing the number of trains from 50 per day to 80-90 per day. Our Congressional Representative has heard the message. Congressman Grijalva is on record for making an appropriations request for $20 million. In addition to Congressman Grijalva’s strong support, additional support on the House side includes Congresswoman Kirkpatrick, Congressman Pastor, and Congressman Mitchell. As this request is making its way through the House Sub-committees, we continue to work the Senate for their support too. Now is the time to take the necessary steps to eliminate a growing public safety risk and position ourselves for future growth. The clock is ticking.

During this same trip, Councilmember Griffin and I met with the Army Corps of Engineers and our congressional representatives on another project that has a significant impact for Maricopa. Two historic waterways originate far south near Mexico and pass directly through Maricopa. The Santa Cruz River (Wash) and Santa Rosa River (Wash) pass through eastern portions of our city. These waterways were the sources of extreme flooding back in 1983 and 1993. The Santa Cruz River is a federally designated waterway. For several years, the Ak-Chin Indian Community, the Gila River Indian Community, Pinal County, University of Arizona, and the City of Maricopa have been working as partners towards a regional solution for the Santa Cruz Wash. From the City of Maricopa’s perspective, a regional solution is absolutely necessary since we receive flood water from the wash as it passes through the Ak-Chin lands and we deliver the water into the Gila River Indian Community lands.  As a matter of policy we have restricted development in floodways. However, flood waters do not necessarily follow the lines carefully drawn on FEMA flood control maps. If we had a similar flood event to that which we experienced twenty or thirty years ago, it would have devastating effects to homes, businesses, schools, and infrastructure. We are moving now to protect the public health and safety of our citizens.                

As I mentioned earlier, the main topic of this blog is to state my opinion and thoughts on the “Meet and Confer Code” amendment acted upon by your City Council at the June 2^nd meeting.

What is the “Meet and Confer Code”? Although widely used within legal systems throughout the world, for Maricopa it is a code that establishes an orderly process to allow City employees to organize and have their authorized representatives of employee groups to meet and confer with the City Manager, relating to wages, hours, benefits and other conditions of employment. Our public safety employees (police and fire) are governed by this code. The agreement that the employee groups eventually reach is called a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).  Before it becomes effective, the MOU must be approved by the City Council.

To not bore you with any more details, I want to share with you why I supported amending the City Code removing Sergeants from the existing Meet and Confer Code. Before I begin I want to express to you that I have certain core beliefs including:

·         I believe people have the right to organize and collectively bargain and

·         I believe people have the right to self-determination (free-will) and

·         The rights of the majority should prevail.

Although I’m comfortable with pouring through details, I also focus on the “big picture”. As your Mayor, the big picture is my desires to put into place the policies, procedures, and practices that will take us to the next level as a community. At some point in the future we will be a community of 50, 75, and 100 thousand. During this down-turn in the economy is the best opportunity we have to accomplish this end. From my corporate and project team experience, I’m familiar with the impact whether direct or subtle of having supervisory and non-supervisory employees pretending to be equals when participating in project teams, task forces, or other groups striving towards common goals. The dynamics are there and must not be ignored. As stated by the Sergeants during the City Council meeting, conflicts have persisted almost since their beginning as a labor association. Seven out of the ten Sergeants had a strong enough opinion that they formally petitioned and spoke out in public requesting their removal from the police officers’ employee group in the “Meet and Confer Code.” Personally, I fully expect that the City of Maricopa Police Association (COMPA) (minus the Sergeants) will be much more effective in representing the needs of our police officers. Rank and file knows much better the needs of their people.  Moreover, with the amendment, the Meet and Confer Code now allows the Sergeants to create their own employee group to bargain on their behalf.  As related to our community, I believe the action taken by City Council will move us a bit closer to being a city well-situated for the future.

In my last blog, I said I would dedicate this blog to my thoughts on two of the more significant items from the June 2^nd City Council meeting. Due to space limitations, I must limit this one to comments on the Air Quality Update presented to the City Council by Brent Billingsley, the Director of Development Services. I apologize that I must move the “Meet and Confer” Ordinance topic to the next blog.

I want to start by referencing a poll being conducted on one of the local eNews sources. The poll simply asks readers to respond to statements that best fit their opinion of Maricopa’s Air Quality. The statement with the lowest result was “Is a health hazard I will do something about” currently at 13% of the responses. Although the minority, I’m proud to say I’m in this group. I realize this poll is hardly scientific, but given the amount of media coverage and the voices of the local activists, I was a bit surprised at the results.

Getting back to the presentation, Mr. Billingsley showed pie-charts that identified the largest source contributors for both PM10 and PM2.5 dust particulates as coming from feedlots followed by soil sources. No surprises here. What did impress me was the significant improvement in air quality from 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. We have a substantial way to go, but as compared to 2008 air quality results, the first few months of 2009 shows we are making good progress. Why are we seeing these improvements? I believe actions taken by various interests are having an impact. Earlier this year, I requested that the trash trucks supplied by Otto Trucking not use MCG Highway. I was very concerned about the wear and tear trucks were having to our roads. I requested Otto Trucking confine their travels to State Highways. They gladly complied with our request. Not only are 100 fewer trucks not contributing to additional road wear and tear, but they are not whipping up dust as they go down the MCG highway. In addition, I’ve noticed the Cattle ranchers are taking actions to help. They routinely spray water into the pens to settle the dust. In certain areas, they moved the cattle into pens farther away from the road.  Last Thursday, I was traveling on MCG highway at about 8pm. The areas that had cattle in pens near the road had a dust haze across the highway. The air quality in the area where the cattle had been moved back from the highway was much improved. 

Going forward, the Air Quality Update laid out specific actions we are or will be taking:

·         Public education and outreach

·         Reducing off-road vehicle use on vacant lots and in areas with high off-road vehicle activity

·         Using PM-10 certified street sweepers

·         Paving or stabilizing parking lots

·         Paving or stabilizing existing public dirt roads and alleys

·         Limiting speeds on high-traffic dirt roads

·         Paving or stabilizing unpaved shoulders

·         Enhanced enforcement of trespass ordinances and codes

·         Best management practices with Pinal County and agriculture community

I believe that by doing the above we will have a healthier environment for our citizens and see significant economic growth.