Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego can be considered a great Ambassador for the fifth-largest city in the country.
After spending several months celebrating the city’s attractions and future-impacting industries before Super Bowl 57, she has spent the last couple of weeks praising local workers, residents, and the services they provided in putting Phoenix’s best face forward.
On February 13, the Mayor thanked the workers who made the Super Bowl Watch Party (an event that drew 21,000 people) at Hance Park successful.
Sending out an all-inclusive, far-reaching THANK YOU to staff, volunteers, emergency services personnel, and everyone else who made #SB57 the biggest win for #PHX. These are just a few photos I had the chance to take with folks who were part of the process from start to finish. pic.twitter.com/tnw1Xunx5h
— Mayor Kate Gallego (@MayorGallego) February 14, 2023
On February 16, the Mayor, along with other city officials, celebrated the record transit and airport traffic at Sky Harbor during Super Bowl weekend. With 200,000 people coming through Sky Harbor the day after the game (making it the busiest airport in the country) and Valley Metro serving over 250,000 riders, The Mayor saluted all the transportation and airport personnel and volunteers that made this record (with an average wait time under 22 minutes at Sky Harbor) possible.
Finally, the Mayor acknowledged and thanked Phoenicans for “good news on sustainability” with the revelation that the city “blasted through the record we set for waste diversion in 2015” by collecting over 100 tons of waste materials from local Super Bowl events. According to Mayor Gallego, the Super Bowl week could be considered “a Zero Waste” event.
The Mayor also finds time to Honor Phoenix’s past.
When the Mayor has not been praising the city’s performance during the Super Bowl or the many features Phoenix offers like its growing biomedical and technological industries, she has found the time to honor Phoenix’s historical and cultural legacies with weekly social media postings called Throwback Thursday.
For example, during Black History Month, the Mayor recognized several historical milestones in the local Black Community including honoring the first Ayra Hackett, the first black woman to own a newspaper in Phoenix.
#ThrowbackThursday: This #BlackHistoryMonth, I wanted to honor important parts of Phoenix’s black history and today is all about Ayra Hackett. Ayra is the first black female to own a newspaper in Phoenix (and Arizona!) called The Arizona Gleam. pic.twitter.com/bmEuyUSQEv
— Mayor Kate Gallego (@MayorGallego) February 17, 2023
Last week, Mayor Gallego personally recognized Mrs. Elizabeth White, by issuing a proclamation wishing her a 100th Happy Birthday and acknowledging her restaurant, Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Cafe as “a soul food stable in the Valley.”
