Mesa Plans to Borrow from Peter to Pay Paul

Looking at the press releases, the public has been led to believe that the City of Mesa has somehow miraculously found the resources to build a new Chicago Cubs spring training facility without the help of any state assistance. The miracle is in the form of thousands of acres of unneeded Pinal County land owned by Mesa which can now be sold off to service the debt which will be incurred to build this development. While the impression given is that this is new-found money, a closer examination shows this is not the case at all.

The Pinal County land in question has been listed for sale for over three years. At the time these parcels went on the market, the city issued a press release which stated, “The proceeds from the land sale have already been projected in the City’s budget forecasts.” In other words, whatever amounts could be anticipated from selling this asset was already allocated to some future expense. If the funds from land sales are now diverted to the Cubs project, some other means will have to be found to replace a budget revenue gap in years to come. This amounts to nothing more than “kicking the can down the road” and almost guarantees the need to cut additional essential services or raise taxes.