Casa Grande Dispatch
Casa Grande Mayor Bob Jackson on Thursday presented the annual state of the city address, recounting where city government has gone during the past year and its plans for the rest of 2013. Of course he displayed some of his characteristic insight and ability to analyze situations.
The mayor sees a city emerging from the effects of the Great Recession, with a smaller budget than it once had but now experiencing some growth in employment and a recent return of housing construction. He sees steady growth with a welcome lack of the boom cycle that presented big challenges for the city.
Addressing popular topics of industry, Jackson said Sam’s Club will be coming soon and Phoenix Mart, a planned mass of mostly wholesale outlets, still on the horizon but somewhat delayed. The infrastructure for Phoenix Mart is complicated and the U.S. Commerce Department has yet to complete approval of visas under the EB-5 process. The city has done a good job of investi- gating, regulating and encouraging this complex proposal.
The bottom line is that the city has a bright future as a great place to live, despite a national economy that still lacks vitality.
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Mayor Jackson is set to win his fourth and final consecutive two-year term Tuesday in the city’s primary. That will come along with new four-year terms for City Councilmen Matt Herman, Dick Powell and Ralph Varela. They have no opposition in the primary, and no general election runoff will be needed.
All are veteran public servants working for the betterment of the city. The lack of competition may be seen as an endorsement of the job that they and city government in general are doing.
