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  • Developing Jobs and an Economic Base

We are creating an environment that will pull jobs into town.  We have established
employment zones in which to put manufacturing and industrial businesses.  

Recruitment is a huge part of the mix.  I helped to hire one the best at that game to
recruit business to Maricopa.  We are out there pulling interested parties into our area.  
If we recruit medical, high-tech and other high-end jobs into Maricopa, other jobs will
follow.


  • Investing in Intellectual Capital

Without a doubt, Maricopa’s biggest asset is its people.  Maricopa would be nothing
without the people who populate it.

People drive what we are doing here.  Only with direct input from those in our
community can we guide our growth to serve us in the most positive way.  It’s not
the directive of one, two or even seven people, but the community as a whole that will
determine what Maricopa can become.

That is why we need to instill a sense of community into each and every person that
lives here and build our city on the talents of those people.  

First off, we have an incredible resource of brilliant, intelligent minds.  And, daily we
send these minds out of town to work and go to school.  We need to keep them here
by building good jobs within our city.  We need to bring higher education into
Maricopa to invest in our intellectual capital. Without jobs and education, Maricopa will
continue to send our people out of our town to the benefit of other communities when
we need them here.

I am awed by the caliber of people we have here and their willingness to give to our
community.

  • Building a Sense of Community

We  live in a society of enclosures that isolate us from others.  The largest features on
our homes are our garage doors that can be closed without leaving our vehicles.  

We  can drive our cars to the mailbox quickly get our mail without stepping two feet
outside of the car. Our automobiles are enclosed bubbles where we are safe to yell and
express our opinions of others without the consequence others hearing us.

As a community we need to invest heavily in our people and instill in them a sense of
community, pulling us out of our isolation and into a caring environment.  We can do
this by investing heavily in our people and making it easy to fellowship.

This can be done by developing strong public programs that are family based.  We can
build venues that foster moving about in the community.  A broad range of community
events that take place throughout Maricopa are needed to pull people from their homes.

  • Keeping Maricopa Safe

We need to be safe and secure in our environment. Maricopa is building and planning
to make a safe community.

I lead Maricopa’s public safety committee, so I know the concerns of those in our
community.  One hurdle we have overcome is the fact that police and fire services
were separate agencies not under the city’s control.  

We have succeeded in bringing police and fire are under the city’s authority – it's one
reason we incorporated.

We can now facilitate community policing – citizens working along side the police
department to ensure a safe community.  We need to invest in a community where the
citizens have a good relationship with officers.

Now that police and fire are under our communities control communications have
improved.  As we implement intergovernmental agreements with our neighbors,
including the city of Phoenix, our ability to protect our community at a higher grows.
.

  • Growing Maricopa wisely
  
Those who help to grow Maricopa must look down the road five, ten and 50 years and
plan so that we are able to sustain ourselves even further down the road.  One
developer told me a couple of years ago, "I see this as a stand alone project."  If that is
the case, that development does not need to be in our community.

Every single thing that we do in these early years will impact what happens in the
future, that is why we need to do it right the first time.

Since incorporation, we have continued to build our Small Area Transportation Plan.
We have implemented our General Plan. We have a strategy for economic
development.  

We have an excellent textbook for growth.  The Phoenix Metro area  has done some
great things over the past 30 years we need to hold up those examples.  There have
also been some patently bad undertakings.  We can learn from those things and make
sure that Maricopa does not make the same mistakes.

Our growth is rapid.  It is also fluid.  We can channel the growth and use that energy
to build in the right direction
brentmurphree.com
Issues
TRAFFIC in Maricopa has
increased exponentially  since
incorporation.  Alternative routes
and agreements with surrounding
communities must happen now!
GROWTH in residential dwellings
must be tempered by growth in
the jobs sector.  Unless we plan
well now for the economic base of
Maricopa,  we not be able to take
care of our community in the
future.
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