New Aircraft Hangar Storage Agreement
The new Aircraft Hangar Storage Agreement has been approved by the City Attorney’s Office and is ready to be implemented for all City-owned storage rooms and aircraft hangars. The new agreement describes the process that will be used to inspect the storage rooms and hangars to ensure that they are being used for their intended purpose and that the party that is named in the Agreement is actually the party utilizing the space. In addition to the new agreement, the Airport will begin implementing a random inspection program wherein hangar and storage room numbers will be randomly selected each week for inspection. Failure to make the hangar or room available for inspection within a reasonable period of time will result in a City lock being placed on the leased space until the tenant allows access for inspection.

Harry Potter Night Owl Celebration
On July 20th, the City of Mesa Library hosted the Harry Potter Night Owl Celebration in honor of the release of the seventh and final book in this extremely popular series. Invitations to the party were sent to the first 179 patrons from all three branches that had books and audio books on hold. The party was also open to anyone wanting to attend the Harry Potter party. Over 325 patrons visited the library on July 20 from 10:30 PM to midnight. Costumed children and parents were "sorted" into the four houses, where they made wands, watched a magician, and tested themselves with Harry trivia. Staff and volunteers received many thanks from happy Potter fans.

Mesa Room Acquisition
The Mesa Room at the City of Mesa Library was given two copies of the book, "Parks and Recreation, City Planning and Urban Development in a Southwest Suburb: Mesa, Arizona 1980-2000" written by Mark C. Simpson. Mr. Simpson is a Harvard student and PhD candidate. The book was assembled from documents obtained primarily through research in the Mesa Room and ASU’s Hayden Library. The book details the rapid growth of the City of Mesa and the struggle to provide amenities valued by the new residents.

GIS Services
Correct and up-to-date addressing of properties within the City is important for, among other things, timely processing of development requests, rapid response by emergency personnel and tracking of residential property for census counts. Because of the work done in the Planning Division in the early stages of development and in the preparation of the City’s base maps, the responsibility for assigning addresses has been transferred to the GIS Section of the Planning Division. Currently, existing staff is absorbing this additional workload.

Mountain Vista Medical Center Open House
Mesa's Fire & Life Safety Education department attended the Mountain Vista Medical Center's Community Open House on Wednesday, July 18th. Over 5,000 people attended the open house and received information on CPR classes, home safety information, drowning prevention, and other life safety and injury prevention programs.

Drowning Prevention Campaign
On July 14, Mesa firefighters distributed water safety and drowning prevention materials at 25 locations across the City. Fire crews emphasized the importance of eye-to-eye supervision of children around water.

August is Drowning Impact Awareness Month across Maricopa County.

Move To East Valley Produces Realized Savings
Customer Service Operations presented information to Council in June 2006 outlining plans to realign utility billing cycles necessary to effect decentralization of Customer Service Field Operations (CSFO). Approximately one-half of field operations were moved to the East Mesa Service Center (EMSC) beginning August 2006. CSFO has completed its eleventh month of operation at EMSC during the 2006 -2007 fiscal year realizing net cash flow savings of $77,097 in the first year of operations. Annual savings on vehicle operating and maintenance expenses due to EMSC office implementation will continue to grow with the City’s eastward expanding population.

Historic Preservation
An amendment to the Zoning Ordinance has been proposed relating to Office Uses in a Level 1 Historic Structure along with the adoption of a Resolution for establishing guidelines for Office Uses in a Level 1 Historic Structure. The Historic Preservation Committee, Planning and Zoning Board, and the Downtown Design Committee have recommended approval of the proposed Ordinance to City Council. Staff is planning to take the Ordinance before City Council in August or September of this year.

Neighborhood Outreach
The Neighborhood Outreach Office wrapped up the sixth Building Strong Neighborhood in District 6 earlier this month in the Casa Mia neighborhood. During the four-week program, over 61 tons of debris was removed from the neighborhood in Clean Sweep dumpsters. Additionally, three speed humps were installed on 82nd Street to slow drivers exceeding the speed limit. Residents will continue to meet to achieve their goals of neighborhood identification signs, a Baseline wall painting project, holiday party planning and more.

The Desert Sands neighborhood Clean Up also in District 6 was a success. Volunteers from the East Valley Men’s Center and the Grandview Ward assisted residents with heavy items and yard clean up during the weeklong effort July 9-13. In all, 65 tons of debris was removed from the neighborhood along with 32 tires, 10 propane tanks and three refrigerators. Many residents expressed their appreciation and thanks for the dumpsters and assistance they received from volunteers and City of Mesa employees.

Police Academy Graduates New Recruits
MPD recently graduated 28 officers in Academy Class #28 on July 13 with 24 Mesa recruits and four from Apache Junction. Class #29 will start on July 30 and will include 21 recruits from Mesa, four to six from Maricopa PD, four from Scottsdale PD and 11 from Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. Additionally, Apache Junction and Scottsdale PDs may also have recruits for this class. Sgt. Sean Kelly will be leading the recruits for this academy. Class #29, has the most recruits from other agencies, which demonstrates statewide recognition of MPD’s training leadership and its status as a regional training academy. MPD requires 800 hours for training, Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training (AZPOST), the statewide law enforcement-licensing agency requires five hundred eighty-five of those hours.

Mesa PD believes in proactive policing. At the Academy, a three-pronged approach is used in training.

Copper Wire Thefts
Over 7,000 feet of copper wire has been stolen from the streetlight system so far in July. Over 29,000 feet was stolen last fiscal year. Streetlight staff found wire cut in one location, probably in preparation to be stolen. Staff reports every theft and tampering to the Police Department. Streetlight staff met with representatives from the Police Department on Monday, July 23. The Police have established a contact for Streetlight staff to report theft. Streetlight staff is also collecting additional information from each theft such as brand and product code to assist the police in their investigation.

Utility bill insert gets results
An April bill insert, "How to Keep Your Landscape from Soaking You," sent to all Mesa utility customers resulted in a five-fold increase in requests for landscape information as compared to the previous April. In 2006, the Utilities Department mailed out 56 information packets for the month. In 2007, that number increased to 295, a result of the direct-mail contact with our customers. Staff also tracked how the requests were received. E-mail accounted for 147, and phone calls generated the other 148.