Pinal Partnership January breakfast recap: Pinal mayors discuss the year ahead

by Mark Cowling | Casa Grande Dispatch

pinal partnership

A sold out crowd for the January 13 Pinal Partnership breakfast at the Florence Community Library. Topic was breakfast with new mayors in Pinal County featuring: Apache Junction Mayor Jeff Serdy, Casa Grande Mayor Craig McFarland, Florence Mayor Tara Walter and Superior Mayor Mila Besich-Lira. Moderated by Jordan Rose of Rose Law Group.

Pinal County’s new mayors discussed what they hope to do in 2017 and what keeps them up at night at a Pinal Partnership breakfast Friday at the Florence Library & Community Center.

Casa Grande Mayor Craig McFarland said he has four main priorities; the first is economic development, including having the city “open for business,” new housing starts, working on downtown and widening I-10 between Casa Grande and Phoenix.

“If I could just get I-10 widening on ADOT’s five-year plan, that would be absolutely amazing,” he said.

Second is marketing Casa Grande. “One thing I don’t think municipalities do a very good job of is promoting themselves.” The mayor, who has a marketing and sales background, said he wants to promote the city to outsiders, “as well as inside Casa Grande to our citizens, so they understand what’s good about Casa Grande.”

The third is education and workforce development. He said Lucid Motors and PhoenixMart “require that we’re on the cutting edge of workforce development.” He said he also wants other things for the citizens, including a community center and improvements in public transportation.

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