Click the play button on the video window to the see the storyCASA GRANDE, AZ --
Casa Grande is quiet, charming and growing.
Founded in 1879, the city’s foundation rests with its farming and agricultural heritage.
Deputy City Manager Larry Rains explained how over the years, “We diversified…bringing in manufacturing, industrial-based activities.”
These include
Abbot Laboratories and
Frito-Lay.
Rains also said that its location has played a crucial role to the city’s development.
It is located roughly half-way between Phoenix and Tucson nestled between Interstate 8 and Interstate 10.
There are also three Native American Reservations that surround the city.
For this reason, tourism plays a large role in the reason why many people pass through and stop in Casa Grande.
Rains said over the past seven years the population has nearly doubled from just over 25,000 to about 47,000. “We like to tell the story that it took 125 years to get to 25,000 and just seven to double that.”
That growth included a boom in home and commercial construction, but just like many Valley communities the housing market crashed.
“We went from issuing 630 single family permits a month to five,” said Rains.
Rains added that recently they were up to about 30, but you quickly get a sense of how quickly construction slowed.
ABC15 asked Rains how the Casa Grande is doing financially, to which he replied they have had no layoffs within the City.
They also haven’t had any cuts to services, in fact they are expanding.
On Monday the City Council listened to a proposal to expand the city’s airport.
Rains explained about how the city is expanding Animal Care, the Library system and city leaders have plans to build a new fire station which will be the City’s fourth.
They have a need to hire 12 librarians, 12 firefighters and other personnel.
Meantime Rains said a bonding agency has just upgraded their rating.
He said this is in part because city leaders planned for not just the “upturn but the downturn”.
Rains said, “Much of that had to do with a philosophical belief of our council, a policy statement that we were not going to use that one time revenue stream that's generated off that new growth and put that into providing a level of service…we basically allocated our one-time revenue stream of construction and growth to capital improvements.”
As opposed to expanding personnel or program levels that would be hard to maintain in the event of a downturn.
They decided instead to continue funding public services based on the traditional revenue stream of a retail sales tax.
The city also appears to have a little bit of luck on their side.
Rains said in the past fiscal year sales tax revenue was up which is uncommon in these tough times.
He, in part, credits the one-million square foot
Promenade mall that was built along I-10 in 2007 just before the economy began to falter.
Had they waited even another six months Rains thinks the mall might have not been built which means they wouldn’t been able to reap the current benefits in sales tax.
The point is by deciding not to create a boom to public services based on revenue streams like development impact fees garnered through the city’s short term rapid growth there is also no bust.
Turns out it’s a fiscal philosophy that doesn’t stray too far from their farming roots.
Whether you are growing a crop or growing a city the key to success is sustainability.
“We want to take out the peaks and valleys. What we want to do is build a level of service that our citizens are expecting, that is enhanced, but that is consistent.”
