We live in interesting times, no doubt about it. Politically, we are more divided than ever.
But here in Gilbert, it seems we have a clearer idea of where we want to go. At the legislative, school, and town council levels, we have elected increasingly conservative representatives.
The most conservative elements of our town, including those who are members or supporters of the tea party, have carried the day, mostly because they are engaged in our community to a much greater degree than the rest of us. Good for them. Citizenship requires that participation, and those folks certainly fulfill that responsibility.
Of course, elections have consequences, and recently we have seen a couple of those in the Town Council’s actions.
One puzzles me, though. I can’t quite understand what the most conservative on the Council really believe.
Here’s why.
Recently, there’s been a huge debate within the Council about the $300,000 from the budget given to various non-profits.
The debate is over how quickly we can eliminate that funding. Four council members recently voted to phase out the funding over time; three — Eddie Cook, Victor Petersen, and Jordan Ray — wanted the funding to be eliminated immediately.
Mr. Petersen said that, “The fundamental drive ... is to give somebody something they can’t pay for. That means we are taking from somebody who has rightfully produced the fruits of their own labor ... and giving to someone else who does not have a right to it.”
OK, I get his idea; it’s a pretty common complaint some have. In fact, it’s a kind of “income redistribution” many conservatives regularly complain about.
So far, I understand. But here’s the confusing thing.
Just a few months before this, the entire Council, including Ray, Cook, and Petersen, voted to do just what Mr. Petersen complains about, only on a much larger scale.
The Council in November voted unanimously to use $5 million from the town budget to provide “incentives” for businesses to locate in Gilbert.
So I’m confused. On the one hand, the Council apparently believes that taking “the fruits of our labor” and giving it to non-profits to help the neediest among us is somehow wrong, that those non-profits have “no right to it.”
But at the same time, they have no problem taking those same fruits — and a lot more of that fruit, by the way — and choosing which businesses to support, apparently under the belief that those businesses somehow do have the “right to it.”
I’m guessing those council members would tell us that we have to do what the other cities around us do: spend a little money to make even more money.
And that’s true. I get that we compete with the other East Valley cities for business.
But I wish our economic conservatives would at least be a little consistent, or at least explain how the principle Mr. Petersen stated applies to the poor, but not to businesses.
Because right now, those folks sure seem hypocritical.
Mike McClellan is a Gilbert resident and former English teacher at Dobson High School in Mesa.
Slabside posted at 3:14 pm on Tue, Mar 6, 2012.
Yes Mike, hypocracy abounds everywhere.
Mike McClellan posted at 4:38 pm on Tue, Mar 6, 2012.
Who does the spelling on the headlines? Holy cow! Or should I say "Wholly Kow!"
Dale Whiting posted at 5:15 pm on Tue, Mar 6, 2012.
And to think, in 1994 I almost moved to Gilbert!
Mike, I vote for Wholie Cowell!
Rich posted at 6:56 pm on Tue, Mar 6, 2012.
Mike, you've already outlined the problem, just don't seem to see it. How many 'bills' have been considered by the Gilbert Council? You said 1400 by the state. City government should not have money to give to non-profits or business. They need to get it together with a basic infrastructure, and should be scrambling to find a way to pay their salaries, which are a dead waste. The problem is that they have too much power, and power corrupts; and too much money, and wealth corrupts. Basically you're trying to find the order of chaos, in the middle of anarchy.
Arizona Willie posted at 8:47 am on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
If you look up " hypocrites " in the dictionary it says " Republicans".
Leon Ceniceros posted at 11:14 am on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
Being a teacher....the Columnist has a different view of why the City Council would spend money to bring... "JOBS"....and the concommitant ...taxes, home purchasing, local spending............."WORK"...means one thing to the City Council and another to a teacher.
1. Teachers have no accountability to anyone because of their Unions (union reps).
2. When you have a 3 month vacation in the Summer....10-12 paid Holidays....2-3-4 weeks of "paid" vacation....1-2 weeks of "sick pay"....how would a teacher know what a .....JOB....really is ???
3. Maybe it would be better to stick with a topic that you had experienced and understood before commeting on something out of your ...pervue.
Mike McClellan posted at 12:30 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
Ignoring the rest of Leon's rant, his first point -- about a council investing money to bring jobs -- is a valid one. However, it is still "income redistribution," taking my tax money and deciding who the business "winners" are, in fact, giving those winners some of my money.
Leon doesn't seem to understand that. No surprise.
Rich posted at 4:04 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
Mike,
Really? Valid? Wouldn't the best police and fire departments in the state, the best maintained and safest roads, The best maintained sewers, water lines, the best sanitation services draw better and more competent businesses than handouts to a few leeches who prey on it? Mesa did it and trashed the Fiesta district. As to non-profits, ever look at the salaries they pay? They aren't NON-profit, they're WHO profits.
And frankly, I have found teachers and ex-teachers to be among the most naive people in the world. Pretty much as Leon stated it. Being qualified to teach children is hardly training to tell things to adults.
Mike McClellan posted at 4:55 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
If you'll go back to the column, Rich, the world we live in is one of "incentives" -- other East Valley cities do it. I guess we in Gilbert could say "No thanks" to incentives, but then where do those companies relocate? I don't like the idea of incentives, for a variety of reasons. But I get their point.
Of course, I guess we could get all the cities to agree to "no more incentives" but that would be a naive notion. And unlike Mesa's tax situation, Gilbert has been much smarter, which has led to a strong infrastructure (though with the state now raiding municipalities to "balance" the state budget, that's gonna be more problematic).
As to non-profits, you are exactly right about the salaries -- of some, maybe many. But I've volunteered in some non-profits, and the executives of those, anyhow, made modest salaries. Don't paint with the broadbrush.
Finally as to the teacher idea -- of course, you and Leon believe teachers live in some kind of bubble. Last I looked, teachers pay taxes, get their salaries frozen or lowered or are laid off in bad times, live on the same streets everyone else does, are sometimes engaged in the world and sometimes divorced from it -- like the rest of us. I'm sure you've found teachers to be among the most naive. I've met Captains of Industry, who when you get out of their comfort zone, are childlike.
And your point is?
Rich posted at 6:43 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
C'mon Mike, 'incentives' destroy, don't create, look at Fiesta. Where do companies relocate? Where they get solid infrastructure, safety and good education for their kids to draw better employees. As I said naive, you're buying the con. Investing in companies you wouldn't buy the stock of. 'Incentives' are just corrupt thefts of tax money. We are taxed to provide services, not support business or charity.
Non-profit is pure con. Of course there's a profit, the only question is where it goes.
My point is Mike, you're still in the bubble, you're still seeing the world from a high school class.
Mike McClellan posted at 8:05 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
How long have you lived in the East Valley, Rich? I ask because of your astounding misunderstanding of the Fiesta Mall area. If you think incentives destroyed that area, your oversimplification trumps any of what you call my naivete.
Uh, maybe two new malls in surrounding cities, an aging population in the area, a declining income in that area, the inability of Mesa -- because of its tax philosophy -- to provide the infrastructure you speak of, and the Mesa city government's arrogance that led to complacency might've had a little something with the decline.
Unlike Chandler and Gilbert -- Mesa's competition -- Mesa hasn't been able to invest in the infrastructure you speak of.
But it's always easier to find a single cause, as you infer incentives "destroyed" Fiesta.
However, I'm the naive one. Sorry. Forgot.
Rich posted at 9:54 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
That is your naivete, Mike. When government pats your head there are 'reasons' and if you don't agree, well it's too complicated, you're oversimplifying. Look at the stores in Riverview? Why is Riverview subsidized, and why aren't the stores in the zoned Fiesta area? The answer is simple, to transfer money from your pocket to someone else's. In fact it's the answer to most governmental activity. There is no really good reason to rip out a cotton field and subsidize a shopping center. The jobs simply moved, nothing increased, there was no gain. All that was done was to transfer tax money (actually from everyone who shops at Riverview) into private pockets. But that's too complicated, and to call it what it is is oversimplified.
"How long have you lived in the East Valley, Rich?" Off and on since 1948. And you?
Mike McClellan posted at 10:04 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
Since 1976. When Fiesta Mall consisted of a Sears at the top of the hill. Then it became "the" mall, supplanting Tri-City -- which quickly became a ghost town.
About 15 years later, here came Chandler Mall, followed by San Tan in Gilbert (and with a lesser effect, Arizona Mills). Incentives had nothing to do with "destroying" the Fiesta Area. It was long gone long before the Riverview Fiasco even began.
Fiesta Mall hangs on; the rest of the immediate area is so much urban blight. And has been for at least a decade.
Your argument makes sense, if there was a link between the subsidies given Riverview and the decline of Fiesta. Of course, there is no link. Good try, though.
Rich posted at 10:35 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
Oh yes there is Mike. The stores I shop at. The realities of buying something and paying for it. That is, of course, the only way I'd know it. All you really have to do is follow a trail of my little doggie's kibble, candy I give as gifts, the paint and paper on my wall from Fiesta to Riverview. It was sort of cool in high school, I knew everything then.
Mike McClellan posted at 5:30 am on Thu, Mar 8, 2012.
You might've known everything then, but now, as an adult, at least on this thread, you've displayed a remarkable ability to revise history to your liking.
Almost of the suburban blight around Fiesta predates Riverview by at least 5 years; the area immediately north of the mall has been dead for almost a decade. Further, the anchors at Fiesta left not because of Riverview, since there are no competitive anchors there, but because of competition to the south and east. In fact, Fiesta Mall was hurting as early as 2000, seven years prior to Riverview.
Competition and changing demographics killed Fiesta Mall, not Riverview. Riverview might've been a nail in the coffin, but the coffin was already shut, nails in place, prior to Riverview's development.
Just as anchors left Tri-City because of Fiesta Mall.
Rich posted at 12:09 pm on Thu, Mar 8, 2012.
"Almost of the suburban blight around Fiesta predates Riverview by at least 5 years; the area immediately north of the mall has been dead for almost a decade. Further, the anchors at Fiesta left not because of Riverview, since there are no competitive anchors there, but because of competition to the south and east. In fact, Fiesta Mall was hurting as early as 2000, seven years prior to Riverview."
So what? Rip out a cottonfield and relocate? The point is irrelevant except that the answer was incentives, and the current state of Fiesta is a result of that decision. As I said, follow the trail of my doggie kibble. Want a bridge in Brooklyn?
Mike McClellan posted at 1:40 pm on Thu, Mar 8, 2012.
I think I have been following a trail of some kind of dog matter as I follow your thread here.
But as to your doggie kibble . . . even that is a phony issue, as PetSmart sells dog food, and there are three of those stores in the vicinity of Fiesta Mall. Think maybe they had something to do with your inability to get your kibble at Fiesta Mall?
About that bridge, though . . . think I could put it over Tempe Town "lake"?
Rich posted at 3:13 pm on Thu, Mar 8, 2012.
"About that bridge, though . . . think I could put it over Tempe Town "lake"?"
I think we'll see the day that is proposed. And no, Mike the Kibble is dispensed by the same employees, just in Riverview, not Fiesta. And they are not the only ones. In fact, what I now spend at Tempe Marketplace and Riverview, I once spent in the Fiesta area, and still would be if they hadn't been moved by 'incentives.'