Mesa’s direction questionable
Jesse Mock
The Super Bowl has come and gone leaving behind a huge pile of cash for Glendale’s economy.The economic impact of the Super Bowl is expected to be between $300 million to $400 million for Glendale.
Mesa should have been the city reaping this financial windfall but, the city denied the new Cardinals football stadium deciding that the Riverview complex would be a better option.
Thinking that a vacant retail center and a water park is better than a stadium that is home to a major sports team and host to many other different events including the Super Bowl is exactly why Mesa isn’t taking in enough revenue to support public services.
The police force of Mesa has been and is continuing to cut back their service to the community due to a $7.2 millon deficit.
This means longer response times and less officers on the streets.
The police will still respond to emergencies in a timely manner but, when it comes to non-emergency calls it will take several hours for the police to show up.
The police are not the only ones feeling the heavy burden of having to cut back. The public library system is also facing some tough decisions.
They have had to cut back hours for the employees and face possible branch shutdowns.
The city pools shut down three weeks early last summer because of lack of funding.
This means at the end of July, when the city was on a record-breaking streak of 110 degree days, the pools were closed.
This financial dilemma could have been avoided by planning what would attract more people to Mesa.
It is not an art center in downtown. What attracts to people to a city is what Scottsdale and Tempe has.
They have a nightlife, good shopping centers, and entertainment.
They also have centralized all those things together. Mesa does have a few bars but they are ten miles apart from each other.
Besides a few movie theaters, Mesa has nothing to offer for entertainment.
For shopping centers how do Fiesta and Superstition Springs Malls even compete with Chandler and Scottsdale Fashions Squares?
A property tax is not the solution to Mesa’s financial problems.
The sales tax works when people actually want to spend money in a city.
Mesa is losing a lot of sales tax revenue to other surrounding cities.
The solution is to make Mesa a desirable place to spend your weekend nights and money.
