Mayor lauds Maricopa as ’21st century city’

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Mayor Anthony Smith gave an upbeat and well-received State of the City address to approximately 200 people at Southern Dunes Golf Club yesterday evening. He laid out a convincing vision of progress toward the civic goal of becoming a highly functional, well-developed 21st century city featuring economic sustainability, public safety, a high quality of life and transportation connectivity.

“Maricopa is 45 square miles in size today,” Smith said, “but at build-out in 30 years or so, the city will be 270 square miles, six times as large.”

In his third State of the City address since being elected in 2008, Smith emphasized the recent and upcoming progress of development projects in and around the city that he said are creating jobs and helping insure a bright future for Maricopa.

“Total capital investment in projects that will break ground in the city this year will be $153 million,” Smith said. Those projects include the Holiday Inn Express& Suites ($7 million), city recreational complex ($20 million), Pinal Power LLC biomass power plant ($92 million), city municipal complex ($15 million) and Banner Health Center ($10 million).

“This is the best time for development in Maricopa,” Smith said. “Land is cheap. Construction costs are low. And we are now having what amounts to a ‘black Friday’ sale on impact and development fees.”

According to Smith, impact fees, which developers pay the city to compensate for needed infrastructure improvements and added services, have been reduced by 20 to 45 percent for commercial projects and by 40 percent for residential development. The “sale” lasts until June 2012.

The mayor also mentioned several large projects near Maricopa with the potential to provide jobs for local residents, including the new Intel plant in Chandler, which he said would employ 14,000 workers during construction with 1,000 permanent jobs once the plant is open, and two large solar energy projects in Gila Bend that will employ thousands during construction and hundreds when operational.

Public safety was another civic strong point Smith emphasized. “We have the second lowest rate of overall crime of any city in the valley,” he told the audience.

Only Gilbert, with 21 crimes per 1,000 residents, has a lower rate than Maricopa, where the rate is 26 crimes annually per 1,000 residents, according to a chart the mayor displayed. That number beats Scottsdale and Chandler and compares even more favorably to Mesa (37.8 per 1,000), Phoenix (45.5 per thousand) and Glendale (59.9 per 1,000).

Smith also acknowledged the city’s challenges, including the collapse in income from new construction that forced the city to slash its 2010-11 budget by $1 million in December and continues to contribute to a multi-million-dollar deficit. He displayed a chart that showed new housing starts dropped from more than 6,000 in 2005 to only a few hundred in 2010. 

Another chart showed the city has spent $16 million while taking in only $12 million in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.

Nevertheless, Smith said he was confident of the city’s fiscal health, since it has substantial cash reserves, including a balance of $31.6 million in its capital reserve fund for major infrastructure items, and $27.4 million in its operating reserve for smaller capital items and one-time expenses.

Rep. John Fillmore, Rep. Frank Pratt, Pinal County Supervisor David Snider, Pinal County Manger Fritz Behring, MUSD Superintendent Jeff Kleck, school board President Scott Bartle and members of the Maricopa City Council were among those who attended the event, which was held on the patio and in the new banquet room at the recently renovated Southern Dunes clubhouse.