Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego looks to build on the Achievements of 2019 in 2020

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego had a productive first ten months as Phoenix’s Mayor.

The Mayor, her team, and the Phoenix City Council have helped lead and preside over an impressive array of progressive and forward directing programs for Phoenix since taking office in March 2019.

Annie DeGraw, the Mayors Communications Director, relayed that Ms. Gallego’s proudest achievements in 2019 included:

• “Helping to lead on protecting our light rail, libraries, and city in (the Propositions) 105/106 elections.”
• “Creating a more family-friendly city–adding nursing pods at sky harbor and convention center, doing away with overdue library fines, adding Sunday hours back to all libraries, and allocating money to head start programs.”
• “Adding three new international flights, multiple domestic flights, expanded sky train, and redeveloped airport terminals.”
• Installing “a small business navigator and housing czar at the city.”
• “Fighting for LGBTQ rights in court and received a perfect municipal equality index score from HRC (Human Rights Campaign.)”
• “Ridding the city elections of dark money.”
• “Increasing the minimum wage to $15 for all-year-round part-time and full-time city employees, benefiting almost 700 city employees.”
• “Opening both our first new fire station in a decade, as well as downtown’s first grocery store.”
• “Accomplishing a lot in our transit department: Over 50 new lighted HAWK crosswalks have been installed across the city, we paved more street miles than ever before as part of Transportation 2050 upgrades, and we converted all of our city streetlights to LED, saving taxpayers millions of dollars per year.”
• “Breaking ground on Creighton Medical School and UA Phx Med School expanded its MD program to 100 students. This is critical to help backfill a major shortage of physicians in Arizona.”

At the start of 2020 “Phoenix was ranked the 9th best city in the nation to start a business.”

According to Ms. DeGraw, Mayor Gallego hopes to build on the accomplishments of 2019 and work to further move Phoenix forward in 2020. The areas Ms. Gallego hopes to improve are:

• “Transportation and Infrastructure: Airport, public transportation, affordable/workforce housing.”
• “Sustainability: Density infill, water planning/green technology, Rio (Rio Salado River Area) Reimagined.”
• “Health and Education: Early childhood education, Healthcare/Bioscience growth, public safety, and behavioral health.”

The Mayor will offer specifics to her ideas for these areas when she puts forth her State of the City Address in April 2020.

For more information on Mayor Gallego and how they are moving Phoenix forward, please visit her official website or Facebook page.

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