Mesa Beat

Mesa residents have one more day to request an early ballot for the March 10 election on whether to authorize bed tax incentives worth $51 million to developers of two resorts and a convention center near Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.

Registered voters who would like to vote using an early ballot by mail can request for  one by Friday, Feb 27. Call Maricopa County Elections Department at (602) 506-1511, or the Mesa City Clerk’s Office at (480) 644-4868. Ballots can also be requested online at the Maricopa County Recorder’s website (recorder.maricopa.gov).

Early voting in person can be done at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Southeast Office (222 East Javelina, Mesa ). The deadline is Friday, March 6 by 5:00 p.m.

For information about the election, visit www.mesaaz.gov.

More than 75,000 ballots had been requested as of Friday for a March 10 election in which Mesa residents will decide whether developers of two high-end resorts should get $51 million in bed-tax incentives.

Early voting for Proposition 300 began a week ago.

A majority of the ballots were sent automatically to residents who are on the permanent early ballot list. Of those requested, the city has received 20,533 ballots already.

Residents in District 6, where the proposed Gaylord Entertainment resort and convention center project would be located, led the ballot request and return numbers, at 21,535 and 6,490 respectively.

The total number of registered voters in Mesa is about 209,000. Nearly 46,000 residents voted in the city’s last major special election for the proposed Waveyard adventure park, which was approved by a 65 percent vote.

When Mesa proposed cutting $62 million from its budget stretching to June 2010, one piece of the cutbacks puzzle was how to secure municipal buildings, without compromising public safety.

On Thursday, the city council will tackle that issue, with a revised proposal that, if approved, could result in a hybrid compromise. Unlike the earlier proposal, under which the security personnel positions would be privatized, the proposal recommends that some of the buildings, depending on the nature of activities there and the level of public presence, could continue to have city police presence, while other buildings could have private security guards. Routine activities include monitoring CCTVs and patrolling facilities.

Annual savings from this move would be about $760,000, if the plan is implemented this April.

The city has a budgeted staff of 42 for the department, but under the proposal, 10 vacant positions could get eliminated, 16 employees would continue to man city facilities, according to a staff report.

During earlier related budget discussions Councilman Dennis Kavanaugh had expressed concern about outsourcing this service. Kavanaugh has said after the 9/11 attacks, municipal security was beefed up in the city. At the time, private security was considered, but the council had felt more comfortable using city employees, “instead of rotating a cast of people you typically get in private service.”

“We would prefer people on board who know the mission of the city and work for the public and would learn to recognize better regular visitors and city employees and to at least have some feeling of who’s new,” Kavanaugh has said, adding that the same concerns are valid today.

“City facilities certainly can be targets for terror attacks, where large numbers of people gather or the seat of government,” Kavanaugh said.

But he felt a hybrid option might be palatable, looking at the degrees of threat and public interaction level.

So it’s likely that the security desk in the city plaza building, which gets frequent visitors, would continue with employees, as could the city courts and libraries.

Other cities including Tempe and Scottsdale have recently gone to private contracts.

Mesa Police had to take an approximately $19 million hit as part of the city’s cutbacks.

The council meeting takes place at 7:30 a.m. at 57. E. First Street.

A popular Mesa neighborhood program, called the Building Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, is focusing this month on the area encompassed by Broadway Road, Pueblo Avenue, Longmore and Sycamore. An orientation meeting is being held Tuesday at Adams Elementary School, 738 S. Longmore, at 6:30 p.m.

Mayor Scott Smith and Councilmember Dennis Kavanaugh will attend the meeting.

Through the four-week program, city officials will use the results of a survey to tackle items of most concern to residents. Public safety, traffic and beautification issues will be addressed by action teams, mainly comprising residents.

City staff from the public safety as well as transportation and code compliance departments will be on hand to provide information about city services. Fiesta mall representatives also will have information on the redevelopment of the shopping center, according to a city news release.

Similar initiatives will be undertaken in the other council districts not yet covered, which includes District 1, 5 and 6.

For more information, call (480) 644-5889.

Any discussion in the legislature this session related to the future of the payday loan industry will likely not be whether it stays or goes, “but somewhere in the middle,” Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said Thursday in a city council meeting.

Smith said keeping that in mind, it would be best for Mesa to keep track of what level of discussions in terms of a giveaway or takeaway there might be for the payday industry to remain.

The payday loan industry spent about $14 million in the November election backing the unsuccessful Proposition 200, which would have capped the interest rate on loans to 391 percent from 459, but primarily, it was an effort to do away with the expiration date, also known as the “sunset” clause, which licensed payday loan operators to stay in the state up to July 1, 2010,

“Notwithstanding the overwhelming rejection of Prop. 200, I think the political realities are it would surprise me that the payday loan business completely drifted into the sunset in 2010,” Smith said.

The mayor added that if the industry does survive, local communities would need better control of location of these stores, to deflect a negative impact to neighborhoods.

Distance between stores is a key issue for Mesa, where certain areas have large concentrations of payday loan stores. Critics believe them to cause public safety and blight issues in communities.

There are at least 95 payday lending stores in Mesa. West Mesa ZIP code 85201 is known for having the highest concentration of these businesses, which offer check-cashing services and short-term loans.

If the expiration date holds, payday loan stores could continue to operate in the state, but would have to offer loans at the maximum retail loan of 36 percent.

In an earlier media report, Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), had suggested that there is likely to be discussion in the legislature on the issue. But an official at Pearce’s office said Thursday that he is not planning to run any legislation on the matter, nor does he have anything to say about it at this point. A payday loan industry spokesman also said last week that there are no plans for now to advocate changes in payday loan businesses.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for a group that actively opposed Prop 200 said they will continue to track any efforts in the legislature to rid the sunset clause.

“Those of us opposed to the payday lending industry are building troops and we will be ready,” said Ken Clark, campaign manager for Arizonans for Responsible Lending.

Clark said a “compromise” would not be on the table.

“A “compromise” is what the industry wants, because they know politicians have a short memory, so they’ll call charging a comparitively lower interest a compromise for now, knowing well that in a few years, they’ll get us right back to 450 percent interest, causing serious problems for families,” Clark said Thursday.

The group’s stance is that 36 percent rate of interest, as charged by regular banks, “is plenty.”

Mesa Councilman Dennis Kavanaugh said in principal the council as a whole signed off on plans to oppose any efforts in the state Legislature to extend or eliminate a 2010 deadline, but that any efforts otherwise would need to be monitored.

Sen. Debbie McCune Davis (D-Phoenix), has been strongly opposed to the payday loan industry’s presence in Arizona. Davis also said she’s not interested in any form of a compromise.

“I’m not interested in talking about anything other than the 36 percent cap. That’s the only position I’m willing to discuss,” Davis said.

Mesa City Council is expected to approve Monday a slight admission fee increase for admission to the Arizona Museum of Natural History.

Museum officials are trying to increase revenue in light of drastic budget cuts.

If approved, the fees will rise to $10 for adults, $6 for children ages 3 to 12, $9 for seniors 65 and above, $8 for students. Group rates for 10 or more adults will go up to $7 but group rates for children will stay put at $4.

Museum officials estimate that the revised fee will net an additional $63,000 in 2009-10.

First Sundays of each month are still free for visitors through a sponsorship by Target.