Inside Mesa

I talked to two Mesa police officers, K. Shiply and A. Ortiz, outside the Whataburger on Lindsay and Broadway and asked them what affect the vote on Tuesday will have on the police department.Both of them mentioned that response times will be longer and their duties will increase since park rangers and humane officers will likely be cut or eliminated."Mesa is currently 60 officers short and many officers have not received salary adjustments in three years, so expect more police officers leaving for other positions" says officer Ortiz.More permanent cuts will be announced next month.

Well, all of the bickering, half truths and straight out lies are done for now, Mesa voted in a strong turnout to dispatch the proposed property tax but passed the "nickel and dime" you to death sales tax. Courtesy of the front page of the Tribune we saw a picture of City Council Member Claudia Walters and her quote that "the property tax measure failed because people don’t trust government," Duh…I was for the property tax and I do not think that the statements made by those who supported the tax are necessarily false. I think that the City Council will meet next week and we will begin to see the impact of a city whose revenue has been outpaced its growth. For those of you who are not aware, we are losing police officers in this city. Veteran officers who have foreseen this day have left and are leaving for other municipalities, they are moving to where they can expect pay raises and programs that make a difference in their communities. Sadly, attrition will do the job of cutting the number of law enforcement personnel. Museums will see their hours reduced, libraries will dwindle, funding for those things that make a city a city will disappear. Before the city council introduced this measure there was a budget crisis, after this measure was defeated last night there is still a shortfall of $11 million. Where will that money come from? Whose ox will be gored? Will it be something you count on, you need? Will it be something a family member counts on or needs? I hope not.We live in a democracy, and the majority of my fellow citizens have taken the time to care enough to vote. By an overwhelming majority they spoke in one voice to say that a property tax for Mesa is wrong and now it is my turn to support that. Maybe City Council member Walters was right, maybe the people simply don’t trust government, I know that for the most part I don’t either. Mesa is headed down a new chapter in its life and I hope that the end of the book turns out to be a heartwarming tale rather than a nightmare.

Well, for some there will be life.I talked with Tom Wilson who is the director of the Southwest Museum and he said that half of his staff will be laid off. Other cuts will become known on Monday when the council meets to discuss the budget now that the results of the election are known. This election will result in higher utility bills and less city services for all of us. Many of the services that we enjoyed will probably never come back even if funding becomes available in the future.