It would be fun to make public records request to all the hotels for guest information to attempt to get this law declared unconstitutional.

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Mesa council OKs new crime rules for hotels, motels

Posted: Thursday, November 18, 2010 12:41 pm

Garin Groff, Tribune

Mesa’s City Council has agreed to draft new regulations of hotels and motels to deter crime and to help police investigate illegal activity if it occurs. Hotels will be required to identify guests through a hotel’s frequent user program or by asking for identification when they check in. Hotels will be required to keep the information for a year or face fines ranging from $250 to $2,500.

Police said guests are more likely to cause problems if they don’t give their name.

“If they know they’re identified, criminals will tend to stay away,” police Cmdr. Steve Stahl told the City Council Thursday.

The city is also looking to set up a hotel review board that will deal with first-time offenders, while the city would take repeat offenders to court. The City Council has reviewed the regulations for months, and on Thursday its members agreed to the duties of the review board. The rules stem from police statistics in 2009 that showed 6 percent of all warrant arrests and 4 percent of all drug arrests were at hotels and motels.

It sounds like this law flushes the 4th and 5th Amendments down the toilet! And my other question is don't the Mesa police have any REAL criminals to hunt down?????

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Mesa wants to tighten ordinance on massage businesses

Posted: Tuesday, December 7, 2010 12:37 pm

Dan Zeiger, Tribune

An ordinance passed in March has enabled Mesa to provide greater oversight to the city's massage establishments, city officials told the Council's public safety committee on Monday, but the code needs to be tightened.

The ordinance requires permits for establishment owners, managers and massage therapists. It also regulates interior design and imposes safety requirements.

"It's been effective to have someone on-site who is responsible at the establishment," Mesa collections administrator Tim Meyer told the committee. "Prior to that, it was difficult to find out who was responsible. One officer told me that when they would get there, people would be running out the back. They are not seeing that as much."

Still, officials suspect prostitution is still happening at some establishments. Also, 41 businesses have failed to notify the city of an on-site manager and have been issued a citation or warning of non-compliance.

Assistant police chief John Meza told the committee that he would like to see the ordinance tweaked.

Among the changes: requiring establishments to notify the city of a temporary manager and setting a timetable to hire a new one, requiring managers to carry a government-issued identification, making licenses non-transferrable and clarifying certain fees.

The committee had no objections to city officials proposing code changes to present to the Council in the future.

Before the ordinance passed, there were 123 licensed massage businesses in Mesa. Today, there are 109. Of the 159 manager applications the city has received since March, 19 were denied based on a criminal history and 11 are pending a review.

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Opinion: Mesa must clean up its purchasing practices

by Southeast Valley editorial board - Dec. 7, 2010 11:19 AM Our View

Isolated mistakes are bound to happen, given the volume of purchases and the number of people making them in a city of Mesa's size.

But a series of internal audits and a pending lawsuit suggest the city's purchasing problems are far more systemic.

Although the audits uncovered no cases of fraud, they found that employees widely ignore the city's purchasing policies and procedures, creating the potential for abuse or mismanagement of funds.

The latest audit, completed in October, noted multiple instances where purchases greater than $25,000 were made without required City Council approval. Others were missing necessary documentation and signatures, or split into smaller increments "to avoid competitive evaluation requirements," according to the audit.

The most troubling example: Employees modified a long-term chemical contract in 2007 after receiving council approval but did not tell council members. Erroneous vendor information was included in later reports.

"At the end of the original three-year term, the vendor with the lowest annual award, $61,467, had been paid an average of $151,873 per year," the audit states, "and a vendor who was not awarded any portion of the original contract had received an average of $173,700 per year, the largest percentage of the total award."

The problems continue. Though a January audit uncovered only minor problems with engineering contracts, a 2009 audit found more widespread problems with skilled-trade contracts, such as those for painting and landscaping.

A follow-up audit filed in September found many of the original recommendations for skilled-trades contracts had yet to be enacted. A Business Services Department response was apologetic, saying it thought the problems had been addressed and vowing to make things right.

On top of that, Mesa is now fighting litigation over its actions to award a towing contract. One bidder had offered to provide some towing services for free, a move that invalidated the city's mathematical formula to evaluate bids. So officials changed the formula - without telling any of the bidders.

That was a mistake.

Though Mesa deserves credit for being so open with its audits, the critical findings, combined with the misstep on the towing contract, perpetuate the unfortunate stereotype that the only way to do business in Mesa is to join the good ol' boys club.

On Monday, the City Council is expected to vote on a much more detailed ordinance governing bids and quotes for city purchases. Council members also are planning in an upcoming study session to discuss the process for awarding lucrative consulting and design-firm contracts.

These are steps in the right direction, because they aim to inject more clarity and transparency into the process.

But simply changing the rules won't guarantee more stringent oversight of city money. As the October audit suggested, improved training for employees is needed, as is better tracking for purchases via the city's forthcoming financial-system software upgrade.

Given the scope of budget cuts Mesa has endured in recent years, the city must stretch every penny. Most departments have made marked operational changes to become more efficient.

Now Mesa must do the same with the goods and services it purchases - or risk losing the confidence that officials have worked so hard to restore in City Hall.