One of the organizations established by Dave Richins, a sitting City of Mesa council member, is the West Mesa Community Development Corporation (WMCDC). The WMCDC is an offshoot of Mesa Grande Community Alliance which is made up of neighbors in far Northwest corner of Mesa Arizona.
The Mesa Grande Community Alliance was originally established to create a collaborative visions which would go beyond what one party could do in dealing with issues in West Mesa. The organization had no funding and the City of Mesa would not just hand over funds to them. They created along with Dave Richins a community development corporation which could apply for tax payer funds to promote and do projects in West Mesa. Dave Richins was the first executive director for WMCDC and was compensated nicely to the tune $85,000 during his last year as director, that was before he ran and won a seat on the Mesa City Council.
Dave Richins for the most part did a great job running the CDC and when he left, it was in good shape. It was renting space from Banner Hospital for a $1.00 and then re-renting space it didn't need to others and covering it's operating cost. However the new executive director, the board of the CDC brought in, Jo Ellen McNamara, ran the organization into the ground. She didn't file timely reports, ran off the tenants, and almost cost the organization funding, besides turning off residents. The board of directors realized what was going on but did nothing to fix the problems.
One of the reasons speculated for them not taking action was because the city was using the organization to funnel money that it couldn't legitimately spend on pet projects, like code enforcement. Because of budget cuts Mesa had to cut back on code enforcement on paper. So what they did was just shift the funding to the CDC and had them do it.
McNamara just got up one day and left, gave no notice and the board was left holding the bag. They had to find a director in a hurry and hired Cynthia Dunham, former Mayor of Gilbert. In one of Dunham's first meeting she told the city, she told them she didn't know what was going on and handn't had time to getting to things even though she had been their for several months. Ms. Dunham hasn't been a good choice either for the CDC either. Businesses and people who have called the West Mesa CDC to get help can never find anybody there, phone calls aren't returned and it is in no better shape than it was when McNamara left.
One of the reason's that the organization isn't running like it should is because Ms. Dunham has to much going on and can't dedicate the time necessary. Ms. Dunham is the founder and executive director of the Mesa-based center and, the founder and executive director of The Leadership Center. Frankly the only reason I believe Dunham was brought on board, was to clean up the image of the CDC before the City of Mesa. The feeling was that because she was the former Mayor of Gilbert, she would bring some kind of legitimacy and credibility to the organization. You see the CDC wasn't about to get any fund in the 2010-2011 budget from the City of Mesa.
With Ms. Dunham on board council member Richins was able to get some of the funding restored but not the levels it was funded previously. There are those in the city that see the CDC as a way for the City of Mesa to payback the residents of West Mesa like Robin Harris, Stephani Wright, Michael Wright, Dea Montague, Jerry Lewis and others for their years of support when others would not.
The CDC It is a political tool much like the Downtown Mesa Association (DMA) is used by the City to spend money where it wants with out being scrutinized. There is not one project the WMCDC has done in the last four years or so that they can claim they have help the residents of West Mesa. This organizations time has come and just needs to go away or they need to get somebody in there who really cares about Mesa and is willing to work to make Mesa a better place.
Our Founding Fathers would be rolling over in their beds if they knew how taxpayer money was being spent.
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