Canadian plant coming
EVIT'S big plans
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
MPS seeks ‘new normal’ as school year begins
INSIDE
This Week
Mesa not bucking state on mask mandates ........................... See page 8 BY TOM SCANLON Tribune Managing Editor
NEWS ............................ 3 Mesa's redistricting committee slates public hearings.
COMMUNITY.............. 19 Counselor ready to roll to crises.
BUSINESS .................. 22 CBD is family affair at this Mesa business. COMMUNITY ............................... 19 BUSINESS ..................................... 22 OPINION .. ..................................... 25 SPORTS ........................................ 27 PUZZLES ...................................... 29 CLASSIFIED ................................. 30 Zone
Sunday, August 1. 2021
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE THE EAST VALLEY) | TheMesaTribune.com
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sked about what he is hoping for in the Mesa Public Schools new year that begins Tuesday, Aug. 3, Scott Thompson chuckled and took a deep breath, searching for the words to describe a past-meets-
Mesa lags as other cities pay down $12B pension debt
present collision point. “We’re hoping for normal,” the MPS assistant superintendent said days before 50,000plus students will enter Mesa classrooms. “Normal with new and improved options,” he quickly added. While the fast-spreading Delta variant - said to be more contagious than the original COVID-19 - looms over the opening of schools across Arizona, Thompson and others at MPS are hopeful this will be a less chaotic year.
After more than a year of stops-and-starts caused by the pandemic, the largest school district in the state is again ready to open classroom doors. And, hopefully, keep them open. For parents who went through the turbulence, Thompson has a message: He gets it. “Our twins graduated in 2020, with no graduation,” said Thompson, a father of three.
Ready for a story
��� SCHOOLS ���� 7
BY PAUL MARYNIAK Tribune Executive Editor
D
espite an $11.8 billion unfunded liability owed by more than 300 Arizona municipalities, counties and state agencies, some encouraging trends are emerging in the system that provides pensions for nearly 60,000 retired �irst responders, corrections of�icers and qualifying elected of�icials. Mesa is only slowly catching up with their counterparts, but not nearly enough to make much of a dent in an unfunded liability in its police and �ire pension funds totaling a combined $691 million. Shaped in part by the unexpected surge in revenue many of those government entities
��� PENSIONS ���� 6
Even though he’s only a year old, Raul Bravo knows the importance of books. He was one of the guests as Mesa opened a new Children’s Library at the Mesa Main Library. For the story, see page 3. (Pablo Robles/Tribune staff photographer)
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