| Chamber’s milestone a boon for the city |
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By Mayor Hugh Hallman On behalf of the City of Tempe, I am honored to congratulate the Tempe Chamber of Commerce on its Centennial Anniversary. We highly value our partnership with the chamber, and are mutually committed to making our community economically, environmentally and culturally sustainable. We have planned, attracted, and built a balanced, sustainable triad of entertainment-retail, commercial-industrial and residential components in our community, and, as a result, achieved financial stability and economic success. As examples of our work together, the Tempe Chamber and the City of Tempe redesigned how the city ran its Development Services, Redevelopment and Economic Development activities. The city now has the tools to enforce building safety and design standards, while making Tempe the smart place to build a business. We created a building code for “redevelopment” projects. We updated our sign code to fit modern needs of small strip malls as well as large residential projects and office campuses—without losing Tempe’s unique “street-side” aesthetics. We fixed our rental housing tax system so that professional landlords no longer could take advantage of Tempe’s neighborhoods. And the chamber’s leadership participated in our efforts to trim the city’s budget during the last two economic downturns. That work has enabled us to withstand current and future national economic downturns and has provided benefits for the entire Tempe community. While others struggle, Tempe’s budget remains in balance. We are continuing to provide all the services and improvements our residents have come to expect and deserve. Because of the City’s fiscal success based on our business and development partnerships, we have been able to pour additional resources into police and fire services and into our neighborhoods. We have moved forward on the neighborhood parks rehabilitation program—this year setting aside almost $40 million to rehabilitate our community’s parks. And we have begun work to improve our city’s alleyways to eliminate that potential source of blight. These opportunities would not have been possible without the success of our business and development partners. That success has grown from the partnerships developed between city government leaders and those in the business community. My Council colleagues and I continue the challenging work to keep Tempe the smart place to live, work, play, go to school, raise a family and have a business. As we do, we know that we can count on the Chamber and Tempe business people to provide support—both as business leaders and as caring, invested residents of our community. On behalf of my Council colleagues and city staff, I salute the first 100 years ... and look forward to 100 more.
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