Inside Mesa

I had the opportunity to hear our newly hired Mesa police Chief twice in the last twelve hours and came away very impressed.He seems to have a good handle on some of the problems the police department has and has plans to impliment changes which should help. One change he mentioned making was decentralizing the detective force and putting detectives closer to the geological areas that they will be servicing. In that way, the detctives will be in closer contact with the patrol officers who initially reported the crime and hence, a better chance to solve that incident.The police chief also intends to get more citizen input from the different ethinic groups in the city to find out about any problems those groups might have.What impressed me the most was his grasp and knowledge how this city really needs to progress. It was reported that Mesa will reach a population of 650,000 at build out. The police cheif thinks it should be more like 800,000. With higher densinity homes becoming the norm, I tend to believe him. He also realizes that the city needs an identity. Without people knowing about Mesa, that lack of knowledge hurts not only the image of Mesa, but its share of public funding.He feels that Mesa is at a critical junction and that depending on how we handle our growth, we’ll either thrive or compress.Overall, I was very impressed with his views and was pleased we chose him for this position. The only thing left is putting his ideas into action.