Somers ready to jump back into City Council

Jan. 3—When the Mesa City Council reconvenes in early January, one of the two new faces on the dais will be Scott Somers, who was elected in August to take over the District 6 seat in southeast Mesa from termed-out Kevin Thompson.

Somers will officially be sworn in along with new District 5 council member Alicia Goforth, who is replacing termed-out David Luna, in a ceremony at the Mesa Arts Center on Jan. 4.

Somers is not totally new to council: he previously held the seat from 2006 to 2014.

This gives him rare insight into governing a city during a recession among the current slate council members, who did navigate Mesa through the mini-recession at the outset of the pandemic in 2020.

Somers' experience may come in handy as the economy begins 2023 still on precarious footing with rising interest rates, high construction costs and a projected "slowdown" in city revenues.

Somers mused during an interview with the Tribune that during his last term on council, "housing crisis" meant abandoned houses amid plummeting real estate values and high inventory.

But the housing issue today, like many other issues, is the reverse of what it was during the Great Recession. Today there's too little housing and high prices, workers are in demand and numerous construction projects around the Valley are competing for labor and materials.

Still, Somers said the same principles the council used to navigate difficult economic waters a decade-and-a-half ago can still serve the city now.

"What we need is the same level of smart, fiscally conservative approaches to governing," Somers said, "finding innovative ways to do service delivery, paying particular attention to economic development so that we continue to expand our economic base here in Mesa."

Somers said Mesa City Council achieved important economic development goals during the Great Recession by sticking to a shared vision.

"It was all seven people rowing pretty much in the same direction," he said.

But Somers doesn't think a slowdown on the scale of the Great Recession is on the horizon.

"There were so many things that happened there with housing market and banking. Loans dried up," he said.

He's expecting something milder and believes the city is in a good financial position to weather a slowdown in revenues.

'I just love cities'

As a firefighter with a Ph.D. in urban policy and government affairs from Arizona State University, Somers is a seasoned first responder and a policy expert.

His mother was a paramedic in Western New York, and that influenced Somers to pursue firefighting and paramedic training after signing up for the Air Force.

The Air Force eventually brought Somers to Luke Air Force Base, where he met his wife, and after leaving the service they decided to stay in the state.

While working as a Phoenix firefighter, Somers began attending ASU to earn his bachelors' degree, and once he finished that, he kept going — thanks in part to encouragement from advisors to go for the doctorate.

Urban policy suited Somers' interests.

"I just love cities," he said "Being a firefighter, it makes sense just studying cities and its relationship to state and federal government."

These interests have kept Somers busy during his time away from council. In the last eight years, Somers said he worked with both the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, served on the National EMS Council, "deployed to a couple hurricanes" in Texas and Florida, and consulted with fire departments in Arizona.

His recent work took him far and wide, but Somers seems genuinely excited to dive back into city affairs as he talks about issues the city may face in the years ahead.

Local control valued

January will usher in a change in party in the Arizona governor's office, but the state Legislature retains a slim Republican majority.

While there's no party change, some observers believe this year's House and Senate will be less moderate than last year's.

Warren Petersen, the president-elect of the state Senate, released a memo in early December outlining his priorities for next year, and they included the elimination of city taxes on rent and food and removing barriers to the local approval of housing.

In neighboring Chandler, the city council discussed the possibility that tax cuts and stalemates in the Legislature on issues like the renewal of the Prop. 400 regional transportation tax could hurt the city budget.

Mesa doesn't tax groceries, but it does collect taxes on rent, and a repeal of that tax could dent the city's budget.

Somers said he's concerned about losing that revenue, but his main focus when watching the Legislature will be how its decisions impact local control of city affairs.

"I believe that local government governs best," Somers said, "and I think most of the legislators do, too. But a lot of times, they take control of issues that they really should be kicking back to cities."

To ease the housing shortage, Petersen's press release floated the possibility of mandating "administrative approvals for all projects that meet all existing laws and requirements."

The implication is the state Legislature may try to put limits on public participation in rezoning cases and site plan reviews.

Somers said he would be opposed to efforts to reduce local control over the entitlements process.

Mayor John Giles has also publicly stated opposition to reducing local control of zoning cases. Zoning is "a city issue, not a state issue," Somers said.

Mesa has already streamlined the permitting process, he said, and the biggest barrier right now housing development in Arizona isn't getting approval, but getting financing for affordable housing projects.

"It's not so simple where you can just point to and go, 'cities aren't allowing these things.' It's also a market-driven thing," Somers said. "How do you encourage the market to invest?"

Somers also worries that eliminating the approval process for housing would lead to bad development.

If you "allow things by right anywhere, then you end up with apartment complexes next to CMC Steel (a large factory in southeast Mesa). In whose mind is that a good idea? ... Noise and light pollution and trucks and trains — all those things that come in, (houses) don't belong in there. It belongs in a residential community," he said.

"That's why local government is best to try and figure those things out."

'Vertical Integrated Mixed Use'

Talking with Somers, the phrase "vertical intergrated mixed use development" came up repeatedly.

It's something he wants to see more of in Mesa and something he sees as potentially useful for addressing multiple city needs.

The concept involves mixing commercial and retail spaces together in multi-story buildings. Somers cites Kierland Commons in Scottsdale as an example of this type of development.

Typically, vertical integrated mixed-use involves retail and restaurants on the ground level with multiple floors of apartments or condos above.

It's "higher-end retail, walkable shopping experience ... where you can live there, you can shop there, you can sit down, eat in restaurants, and bars and all the types of things that people want to go to and talk," he said.

For one, he thinks these types of developments are some of the last missing pieces of southeast Mesa's planned developments, like Eastmark and Cadence.

During his campaign, Somers said that commercial and entertainment development has lagged behind residential and industrial development in his district, and he would prioritize getting these final amenities developed.

Somers has several locations in mind that he thinks would be suitable for vertical mixed-use.

The concept of vertical mixed-use also comes up during a discussion of the redevelopment of Mesa's legacy indoor malls.

The shuttered Fiesta Mall in West Mesa is ready for redevelopment and eventually Superstition Springs Mall will need to be redeveloped, and Somers believes a mixed-use development along the lines of a Kierland Commons would be a good way to revitalize the spaces.

"We've seen these big box malls start to reinvent themselves nationally to look more like that," he said.

With current ownership groups of the two malls, Somers believes "there's an opportunity to work with them to create a vision for (their) ultimate redevelopment."

Finally, Somers believes vertical integrated mixed use is a sound method of increasing Mesa's workforce housing.

He sees downtown Mesa along light rail as a promising area for vertical mixed-use projects with housing density. Putting dense housing in downtown ties in with Somers' strong support of the city's current efforts to redevelop downtown.

"Every healthy city has a vibrant downtown core," he says.

To illustrate what he would like to see more of downtown and throughout Mesa, Somers cites the latest phases of the Agritopia development in Gilbert.

"Right now they got that five-, six-story building ... over retail, and that includes at least two bars and a coffee roaster — in Gilbert," Somers says with theatrical shock and disgust when he says the name of Mesa's neighbor to the south.

"If you can do it in Gilbert, you can do it in Mesa," he adds.

Another issue that Somers is excited to work on is the continued development of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport into the center of a major jobs hub.

He says airport leaders and their community partners have done a "fantastic" job so far, and he is looking forward to the next phase, what he calls "Gateway 3.0."

In Gateway 3.0, the airport adds business travel carriers like Delta Airlines with service to regional business hubs.

In this next phase, SkyBridge Arizona, the airport's cargo hub with customs agents from the U.S. and Mexico, are exporting goods manufacturing in Mesa to markets across the world.

"Producing good here and exporting," Somers pauses for emphasis, "to Mexico, but also Canada I think is the next important quarter, and eventually Asian markets — Taiwan, India. Maybe that's a 4.0 or 5.0."

Though Somers is passionate about vertical mixed-use development, he said he also believes in preserving the distinct character of different parts of the city.

"This town is bigger than Atlanta, San Francisco," he said. "There's a lot of property here, and a lot of opportunity to have that diversity of lifestyle. ... I think that makes us a better community."