Do that way and one of the things i wrote down that wasnt in my campaign, but as i took office, my major job was to spend money. Not to save money. But to spend money, but to spend it in the right way. And then as i analyzed and had when i was on the counsel, the very negative funding for us is property tax. If you raise property tax they want to hang you by the nearest tree. If theres not a tree, theyll just run over you with their pick up truck either way. But you dont mess with property tax, so i got our city out of the property tax business. We fund our city basically by two sources. Sales tax and eweutility franchise and when you do that, people dont care where you spend money. As long as you dont raise their taxes, they are fine and we raise the taxes by good, Economic Growth that ill talk about in a minute and so, that is where we have come from and that is a that has allowed me to do that in that way. Philosophically for my goals my overarching goal or principle is if it doesnt improve the quality of life for our citizens why do it . My job is to spend money to improve the quality of life. I also inherited an area in this 12. 6 square miles, i inherited an area that was a lot of farmland and then what permanent buildings we had and what i would call downtown riverton have been most of those have been taken away through widening the roads by udo. So, we had a pretty clean, clear canvas that we could develop. And when i went on the council, there was a Senior Member and his slogan was which i adopted in my own mind as well, you only have one time to build out a city. Build it out right. And so, that became the overarching goal, too, and so, we dont have a lot of economic redevelop. We have economic develop because of that. Which has been blessing for us. And these arent necessarily in the order of importance but theyre the goals that ive had all the time. One is to have and develop over space and we developed open space starting with parks. And in the nine years that ive been in as mayor, little over nine years, we spent 28 million on parks. And thats not a lot of money for you folks in one way but for us, 9. 2 million for a general fund, we spent a lot of money on parks. Our last project will be finished june 22nd. It was our old historic main park. It was falling apart. It had been built in the 50s by volunteers. The suer didnt work. The power didnt work. The buildings were old. Were just completing a 17 million project where we took the park down to the dirt. And everything has been replaced except the dirt and we even brought in more topsoil, so in a way, we replaced the dirt as well. That project is being completed and we turned it into a, instead of a baseball park, it has been turned into a passing park. We built in 2010, we built a new baseball park, spent 7 million on that. So that is just a baseball and football park. For our young people to be involved in organized sports. And some soccer and some tournaments with girls baseball. We have another park for girls baseball. But passive park. Our other parks are generally programmable parks for youth sports because we have a High Percentage of youth in our area. We have a very young population because of the growth. So, now, were taking and moving into the second part of that. And that is were now moving to trails. We have because we were farmland, we have irrigation canals that bisect our city. We have quite of those. And every canal if youre aware of the west and ir fwatrigateing to the dry farmings you have a road next to it, a path, for canal maintenance. We have the jordan river on our eastboundry. The jordan river has a nice trail that has been put down to jordan river and completed in our area. Were now in the designing and working with Canal Companies to move ahead and put trails as well. Were basically concerned with active transportation. Which is were moving and that is becoming our city engineers major focus in that regard. Well talk about our road transportation later but were pretty welcome pleated on that. Weve spent quite a bit of money on that as well. But were moving to the trails. Weve got young people old people that like to walk so we need bike trails walking trails and running trails and in part of our city, horse trails. Theres part of our city that were moving towards higher dense densities, so theres no horses up there, but in the traditional part of our city, we have horse trails and are expanding those as well as we go along and do that. In that way. The third goal weve had is Economic Development. Its critical to us to develop rides because were so dependent on sales tax and franchise and so, were in the process right now of finishing a deal that hopefully will bring about 400 million of construction into commercial koux into our area. Principally, a Retail Development with some office space, a hotel and big boxes as well. During my administration weve had the opportunity of seeing big boxes move in. So, we have the walmarts, we have two walmarts in our city. We have home depot. We have lowes, kohls. Before that, we had petersons market and riverton drug. Development in our county comes from the north and the east. So i learned easily and quickly this you have to wait your turn but i just didnt want to sit there, so my time was spent a lot of Infrastructure Improvements and thats whats going on there. Well finish out our improvements in the next couple of years in that way, so, Economic Development is important to us. If youre familiar with salt lake were in the southwest part of salt lake. We sit in a valley survey roubd rounded by mountains or the lake. We are very narrow. Im not sure how wide we are. I would guess about 15 miles wide. In that regard and so, we have this corridor and right now, when i moved there, there was one road out of riverton because of the jordan river it was a barrier to us and the sensitivity we have in our area for the lands around the environment around the jordan river and not to interfere with that. Very much. We now have two roads out of riverton. One is bang lar highway, a road that carries about 45,000 people a day and so, weve widened our other roads so that we have roads, our other road we had in riverton handles 30,000 people a day. We have bangular highway which goes north and south and east and west. It circles because were against the foothills where you cant go directly out. Weve had those kinds of things and mobilely Going Forward. Well talk about that later, but its important for us to include all aspects of transportation. Public transportation is an important part, rail, a very important part. Which well talk about a little later. As i mentioned i grew up in los angeles, california. Grew up in the smog era. Grew up where you cant see the beautiful mountains because they were hidden a lot of the year by what we call smog in those towns. Grew up with a healthy young man, but when youre too involved with athletics, your chest would hurt because of the air pollution that was in the area. Moved to salt lake and saw the big, blue skies and the mountains, but have seen that deteriorate as population has come. A major goal that i have is air quality. We dont have, we have some pollution, but we live between the mountains and the winds move it out of our city a lot against the mountains. Even though the bad pollution of the Salt Lake Valley is not my direct responsibility geographically it is politically. Thats another critical reason for rail as as develop it in our area. Thank you for letting me be here as a little dog. Nine years ago when i got involved my natural interest would have been to be involved with homeless shelters and social programs. Thats where i would normally like to move towards. We dont have any homeless in riverton. I still take part on boards and help finance homeless shelters in salt lake from our city. But i realized that as mayor, the important thing i got involved with was roads. Fs a teacher. What did i know about building roads and all of that . I was in my first elected office 13 years ago as a council member, what did i know about the political way to work . What i soon found is is i looked at grants that were coming our way and development coming our way as far as roads and so forth. I never saw rivertons name on it that first year, and so, i started asking what do i need to do and what do i need to be involved with. And this name probably will not mean anything to you, but mayor tom dolan of a major city in our valley, he was gracious enough to go out to lunch with me and i could pick his brain and he said, bill, get involved in the transportation community. So ive learned the language. Ive learned the politics. I have the passion. And its critical to our city, the mobility part is a very, very critical issue. And thats why ive gotten involved. Thanks for letting me be here. Hello. Thank you. I very much appreciate that. Im going to ask ugh to drill down into the Transportation Initiative that you have. As youve picked up on, youve got city thats got light rail under construction right now. Youve got pun one thats right on the cusp. Just about the there. Were happy to help you get over that line and then the mayor talks about future development, planning and preparing for future transportation investments. I was just in phoenix last month. And road the line out to mesa. Saw the construction. The train in the middle of the day was full and mayor help me but it was with those silver tsunamis. Silver tsunamis. Were packing that train and riding it around and loving it. Right. Its there. Ridership is at its highest point in history. Utah transit authorities, people are screaming for Transit Service and alternatives and options, so wed love to hear from you about a little more specifics about your project. And if you can focus on the benefits to the community. Economic benefits, community benefits. Perhaps environmental and beneficial. Sure. Well, as i mentioned earlier our ridership has really exceeded expectation, we are currently at a place where we had hoped to be ten years from now and right now, light rail just comes to the edge of my community. We are the end of the line for the phoenix transit line. This fall probably end of this summer will open three miles from the edge of our city to the heart of our downtown. Through literally down the middle of main street and that as i indicated earlier, from an Economic Development standpoint has been a huge blessing for us. From a transportation point of view as well, its a huge blessing. We are, we have a fair amount of seniors. Arizona particularly the east valley kind of viewed historically as a retirement community. We have one of the amenities we have in our downtown area is a huge, 100 million plus Performing Arts Center that is a magnet for seniors, so theres certainly its popular, we have a large senior population and its popular with the senior population but statistically actually mesa is a younger than average community. The ma len yals is whats been a surprise to me. Were in a, our culture has changed i think in ways that we didnt anticipate 20 or 30 years ago. Folks now dont want to sit in cars. If they can find any way to park a car and get on transit and it works with their lifestyle, they are going to do that. Mor often than not. And thats been the case in mesa. Soo so, we have a large, several large park and rides at this edge of our community where the system currently terminates. Huge parking lot frankly and part of the challenge that were going to have as a community is once we move the terminals further east, were going to go back and redevelop these parking lots that arent quite as big a deals as they needed to be and thats a great opportunity for us as well. Its going to provide more Economic Development opportunity along this very act of downtown light rail route. So, its tremendously popular. As it goes further east, its going to continue to add thousands and thousands more people as we reach like i say ultimately, four or five years from now, well be in the neighborhood i live in, a very residential neighborhood. Not you know, a low income neighborhood. I could very easily hop in my car, travel a block or two, hop on the light rail, go to Downtown Phoenix go to all the sporting events go to the airport, all like i said just a short car ride, a block or two to go to a light rail station. So i think when that happens, youll see it impact not just the menials and seniors but youll get to the average joes like myself that see it as a viable transportation option as well. I think thats true. And we have a focus in ft. Worth now on healthy communities. A fit worth and Blue Zone Initiative and we will be by far the largest city today thats been designated blue zones and if you can get people out of their community, out of their car and back in their community and transit can do that. Transit can allow them to walk and stand and visit, whether at all levels. Whether its the mobility impaired transit that allows them to get around or whether its young folks with strollers young families or the its the silver tsunamis, but getting that Transit System expanded adds to the value and vibrancy of your community. We started traininity rail express in 96. It was the first commuter line in the southwest with about 2 million passengers a year and then it sat, but people used it and now, were back we realized that weve got to get light rail again. If were really going to succeed where we want to be in the city, youve got the starts of itened our friends in dallas have seen it. Houston, austin and so ft. Worth has been focused on our text rail project and its our latest project and it will help not only with vibrant Strong Healthy communities engaged communities, but with our air quality. All our buses like you in the salt lake we started, theres a brown haze and all of these will help, but tex rail will be our direct to start out with. Goal is ultimately it will be net worked out across the city. But originally, its going to dfw airport. The airport is joint hily owned. Its the third Busiest Airport in the world and dallas has had dart at the airport, you can come out of your terminal, hop on a people mover and go to the dart link and be this dallas. Now, if youre traveling public, coming on business for a convention or if youre coming just with your family for tourists and youve got an apgs when you fly into the airport, youd get a rent car or a 70 cab ride to ft. Worth or a 8 bus ride on light rail . To dallas. What are you going to do . I was on it last month. It is fantastic. It is fantastic. So, we really realize that we have to return our focus on connecting to the airport first and not only will it give us that competitive enl that we need to continue to grow and develop our convention trade, our tourism trade, but it also allows, weve got so many people who live in ft. Worth and work in dallas. And if they can go to the intermobile center, hop on tex rail, go to the airport and hop over on to the orange line on dart and be in dallas with no congestion and you know everybodys married to their ipad or iphone so youre not driving, so what can you do in you can work or you can read the morning paper. Or is my daughter used to say she could put on our make up and comb her hair when she took the rail because she didnt do it in the morning. But we have our partner cities, city of grapevine and Richland Hills are partnered with us and it will be funded with our sales tax and we have a request in for a full Funding Grant and 50 million has been put in one budget and 100 million in this times budget at the federal level and the good news about the federal grnts on this rail project is that it awe allows us to leverage our sales tax dollars. Its that leveraging we would lose if we dont get federal funding. Were really excited about what tex rail would offer. We have 54 miles of trails and many people say i want to take the train to the airport, get on a trail and peddle back into ft. Worth or i want to go to dallas and ride to ft. Worth. I want to peddle to dallas and ride back to ft. Worth and we even get runners who say were going to go to arlington, hop on a bus, go into is dallas for dinner. Its an interesting concept that people are beginning to think very creatively and innovatively, outside the box, but its Economic Development its mobility. Its better air quality. Its engaged and healthy cities. It would really make a difference on light rail. My previous boss had a saying, if you like to text, twitter or tweet, take transit. Were at an interesting time in our city. We have a culture well talk about this later a culture of unified transportation, roads and transits are together. So, we have that in our city. Or in our state. We also have, i came from a background of riding transit. As i worked downtown the downtown salt lake rather than drive, i took, i drove over to sandy to get the tracks lined when that came in. I did express buses and just different ways. I had a natural feel for transit. I was in a position where i was working ten to 12 hours a day. It gave me time back, i could answer my emails, coming and going and that kind of thing. So i had an interest in that, but transit is really a local issue. Its not locally financed in our area. Nor could i, but its a local issue. And so, i was sitting in an npo meeting and they were talking about transit and so forth and some of the new lines and things Going Forward and there was nothing coming my way at all. There was nothing coming my way. Close, to my way. And so as i sat there, it irritated me. And so, when i was there, i knew that i had to do something. It was my job. So i raised an objection to it. And that we needed to stay in the Southwest Corridor there. Study. And i pledged 100,000 for that study. Now, keep in mind that were a 9. 2 million. General budget. When i went back to our city manager and we were in high budget. It was during the downturn. I said youve got to find me 100,000. His eyes just went like that. Youve got to be kidding me. What have you done . And so we jumped into the study, it was a 2 million study and is going on now, were finishing it up in the next few months and it will go before the city councils, four cities that are involved in this. Where the city council for the preferred tor preferred corridor to do. Ended up being a 2 million study. U the ta threw in throu