July 12, 2008 - 7:30PM
Le Templar, Tribune Columnist
Just a month in office, Mesa Mayor Scott Smith already is staking his legacy on his hometown shedding its image as an enormous bedroom community.
Smith has launched a campaign to transform attitudes inside and beyond City Hall, to rethink how Mesa approaches zoning and business recruitment, and to emphasize assets rather than weaknesses.
From coffee-shop chats to formal speeches, Smith is talking about Mesa in ways that just haven't been heard from the mayor's office in years. And people are noticing the difference.
"It is refreshing and positive. The mayor really needs to be out there championing the city," said Greg Marek, a commercial sales agent for Central Arizona Real Estate. "We haven't had that in a long time."
Marek was among 300 business people who paid $15 each to munch on sausage-and-egg sandwiches Tuesday morning and then hear a challenge from Smith to engage the city's political leadership in plotting a new economic path.
Be loyal to your home city, Smith told the crowd. Put Mesa first when expanding or searching for new partners. In return, Smith said, City Hall will strive harder to support existing businesses - both large and small.
Smith has shown a strong belief in Mesa's potential while revealing a fear the city has spend too much time dreaming and too little working on the basics.
"What I got out of it, more than anything, is they are truly committed (to business development), not just talking about it or thinking about it," said west Mesa native Jackson Wright, who works for the family advertising firm Larry John Wright Inc.
Smith has made it clear he believes a certain rigidity and narrowness of vision at City Hall has been holding Mesa down. Right now, he's spending political capital to rally the city's powerful and elite to embrace more flexibility and to allow property developers more options.
What he hasn't addressed yet, but will have to at some point, is what to do when new ventures require unfamiliar changes to Mesa's physical environment. There are plenty of people in this city of 450,000 who like the concept of a bedroom community - quiet, low-density neighborhoods and strip malls. Let someone else endure the noise and the traffic and the busy-ness of employment centers.
Those residents need to pay attention when Smith says the city has to evolve or it will strangle slowly from its budget problems.
"I think Mesa residents need to take a look at projects, not just at 'how does this affect my life,' but how do they affect the future of Mesa," Wright said.
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