Mesa Film Festival / P. 30
Museum's big sale / P. 4
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS........................ 3 Mesa Mayor John Giles discusses his job after raise.
COMMUNITY......... 16 Meet a real Freedom Fighter from decades ago.
After 50 years, A New Leaf continues to serve BY TOM SCANLON Tribune Contributor
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t was 1971. In football, the Cardinals season was off to a promising start – in St. Louis. The team wouldn’t move to Arizona for another 16 years. In baseball, Jason Giambi and Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez and Ivan Rodriguez were born, but the Arizona Diamondbacks wouldn’t be for another 17 years. Other than being a Cactus League hub for a few months, Mesa – like most of the East Valley – was best known for its miles and miles of orange groves and dairy farms, with smells ranging from sweet to offensive, depending on the neighborhood. But, with more people drifting out of the City of Phoenix, U.S. Census figures announced in
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1971 that Mesa’s population had nearly doubled over the previous decade. Though its modest 66,049 population was a long way from the explosive post-2000 growth that would make it home to over a half-million, Mesa was growing from a farm town to a small city. And with urban growth came urban problems: people struggling to pay rent, victims of domestic violence, drug abuse, broken families. Enter an agency that took its name from second chances: A New Leaf.
see LEAF page 8
A New Leaf is celebrating a half century of providing social services. Mike Hughes has been CEO of the Mesa nonprofit for more than 40 of its 50 years. (David Minton/Tribune photographer)
Robots are part of mystery Eastmark-area development BY TOM SCANLON Tribune Contributor
SPORTS................ 26
Sunday, November 28, 2021
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o word on whether they will spend breaks at the local oil shop asking for a “quick cup of grease,” but robots are heading to Mesa. Earlier this month, the Mesa Design Review Board approved a secretive project called Project Thunderbird, which sounds a lot like an Amazon operation. According to a plan submitted by the DLR Group, the project’s architecture firm, the industrial building will be on 80 acres near Pecos and Hawes roads. The towering (by Mesa standards, at least)
100-foot building will have around 750 humans per shift on the ground floor. “The remaining second, third, fourth and fifth floors, known as the Robotic Storage Platforms, will house a large automated storage retrieval system with shelf-like storage units (pods) that are moved by low-profile robots.” While robot sorters will take up most of the space, the first floor will have “warehouse employees picking orders and stowing product.” The robots and humans will work nonstop. “The proposed facility will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and typically
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consist of both day and night shifts,” according to the presentation. Amazon has a similar facility with humans and robots rubbing shoulders and gears in the West Valley. If Project Thunderbird turns out to be an Amazon development, that means the world’s largest company is quickly enlarging its Mesa footprint. Amazon opened its first Mesa distribution center near Falcon Field near the end of 2019. Six months ago, the Tribune reported on “Project Javelina.”
see AMAZON page 6
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