For your review and marking of your calendar, here’s a bunch of interesting events coming up in and around downtown Phoenix.  We’re sharing these jpgs as they come into our inbox!  Click on the indivdual picture to get the full detail.

[Source: Aleksandra Chojnacka, CityCircles] – Are you a resident who lives near the light rail?  A first-time rail rider?  A frequent rail rider?  A tourist just passing through town?  A carless techno-neophyte who needs a guide for downtown Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa?  If so, CityCircles is for you.

CityCircles is a collaborative platform where users and journalists work together to create and share information around each light-rail stop.  That includes news, events, promotions, classifieds, and social networking.  There’s even a community improvement tool that helps our users create, join, and accomplish projects that make the city a better place for everyone.  Think of us as the context that makes your urban experience more meaningful, your digital sidekick in the city.

CityCircles is a Phoenix-based startup.  It is supported in part by the Knight Foundation, a Miami-based institution that dubbed CityCircles (Daily Phoenix) one of its News Challenge winners in June 2009.  The international contest awards startup funds to the best new media ideas each year.

This week on cenphotv, all the best picks for First Friday, the 5th Annual Certified Local Fall Festival, a first look at a hopeful project that would make our canals beautiful, an opportunity to speak up about what YOU want phoenix to be, and some green, green, and more green events.

[Source: Arizona State University] — The ASU Health Center in downtown Phoenix is offering students, residents, and the local business community a way to meet their healthcare needs at an affordable rate.  Located in the heart of downtown Phoenix in Suite 155 on the first floor of the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at 500 N. 3rd Street, the 4,000-square-foot center is hosting an open house and breakfast on Thursday, Nov. 12 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.  The open house is free and is an opportunity to learn about the center’s services, meet the staff and healthcare providers, and ask questions. 

The ASU Health Center is a full service site that includes six exam rooms, a special procedure room, four mental health consultation rooms, and space for research and ASU student education.  The healthcare provider staff includes practitioners who specialize in family practice and behavioral and mental healthcare.  They can also write prescriptions and provide quick access to quality, professional healthcare. “Two weeks ago, I came down with something and I couldn’t get into see my doctor,” said David Roderique, president and CEO, Downtown Phoenix Partnership.  “I called the ASU Health Center and they were able to see me later that day.  They gave me thorough and professional advice, wrote me a prescription and I recovered two days later.  It’s a great resource for the downtown community.”

Services include men and women’s health exams, counseling and mental healthcare, minor illness care, chronic disease management, family planning/emergency contraception, healthy lifestyles education, stress management, tobacco cessation, nutrition advice, on-site EKG, sexually transmitted infection testing/treatment and referrals to other medical and health services.  “We offer quality healthcare at an affordable rate, said Dr. Denise Link, associate dean for Clinical Practice and Community Partnerships in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation.  “Students, faculty and staff from any ASU campus, as well as the public, are able to access quality, healthcare while studying or working in the downtown Phoenix area.  We want to be a primary source for healthcare in this community.”

Patients can use their health insurance to pay for services as well as cash, credit card, Sun Card or have their student account charged for the cost of the services.  For employers, the Nurse Care Health Plan offers packages to provide their employees with quality and accessible health insurance plans tailored to fit each businesses size.  For students, residents, families and employees who do not have insurance, the Nurse Care Health Plan offers a discounted fee on services.  Enrollment in the plan has an annual fee of $50 (single), $75 (couples), $100 (families) or organizational memberships and businesses ($500) that makes them eligible for discounted fees.  For more information or to enroll in the Nurse Care Health Plan, visit the ASU Health Center at 500 N. 3rd St., Phoenix or call (480) 496-0721 or click here.

[Source: Arizona Republic editorial board] – A hallmark of a flourishing, mature metropolis is when it begins spawning institutions reflecting local culture.  A glitzy mall is great, but a funky, thriving Mill Avenue in Tempe is something unique the locals can cherish. It is fun, busy and ours.

The same is true of a central “farmers market” dedicated to local produce. Virtually all major urban centers have a market featuring locally grown produce, baked goods, meats and dairy products.  Until recently, all Phoenix could muster was a part-time farmers market where local producers huddled against the elements in tents. Now, it has the real deal.

The Phoenix Public Market Urban Grocery and Wine Bar opened last week with fragrant, organic Arizona-grown produce in abundance.  It offers a charming, multiroom environment at 14 E. Pierce St., the first permanent market to open its doors in the central city in 30 years.

The market is the realization of a long-time dream of Director Cindy Gentry and the board of the Community Food Connections, the non-profit group that raised $530,000 to make it happen.  Their persistence and determination is admirable.  And, if the enormous crowds from Saturday are any indication, they are prescient, as well.  Metro Phoenix desperately needed a market like this, and it is gratifying to see it come to pass.

The co-op-like Phoenix Public Market, which operates in front of the permanent market along North Central Avenue near Fillmore, will continue as before on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Meanwhile, the permanent store will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays.  The market has been a long time coming.  With luck and quality local products, it will be there for a long time to come.

[Source: Arizona Republic] – More than 100 volunteers will get their hands dirty during a community tree planting Saturday in connection with Hands On Greater Phoenix Day for Downtown.  The tree planting, sponsored by Mayor Phil Gordon, is an opportunity for residents, families, businesses, students, and visitors to connect with and take part in growth and development downtown.

Approximately 60 trees will be planted, including Arizona ash, evergreen elm, and sissoo.  The trees will provide shade and enhance the urban feel along Roosevelt Street, including the First Friday Art Walk area, and along Portland Street Park.  The planting locations are:

• Portland Parkway at Portland Street Park, west of First Avenue
• Roosevelt Street and First Avenue, in front of Trinity Cathedral
• Latham Street and Third Avenue, in front of the Puppet Theater
• Garfield Street at Fifth and Sixth streets, part of the First Friday Art Walk area

A block party hosted by Hands On Greater Phoenix will follow the planting, which is open to the public. To volunteer, send an e-mail.  Planting will be done from 8 to 11:30 a.m.  Volunteers are to meet at 8 in the courtyard of Trinity Cathedral, 100 W. Roosevelt, which is serving as planting headquarters.  Parking is in the parking garage north of the church.

[Source: Si Robins, Downtown Phoenix Journal] – As autumn (ahem… cooler temperatures) rolls in, Downtown Phoenix is gearing up for some great events over the next few weeks.  Coming up this weekend is Local First Arizona’s Certified Local Fall Festival, and with 60+ great local businesses representing the 602 (plus live music, food and all kinds of fun!), it’s a great way to discover something you may not have heard of, or rediscover one of your old favorites.  Speaking of discovering some cool local businesses, the folks at Haus Modern Living are putting together the first-ever TwitterHunt, set for November 12.  With 12 of our favorite places tweeting away clues for prizes, DPJ couldn’t be more excited.  Still want to discover more? We talked with local painter Kyle Jordre about his unlikely entry into the art world (and Downtown Phoenix, for that matter) and visited the Link, one of the hubs for the upcoming GreenBuild Expo festivities.  If you think we should be covering any aspect of living in Downtown Phoenix, let us know by sending an e-mail to editor@downtownphoenixjournal.com.

[Source: jsethanderson, blogger, Downtown Phoenix Partnership] — I must be a glutton for punishment.  My passion about Phoenix history burns hot like the Phoenix sun in July and as much as I love the heat, it can harm me if I’m not careful.  Studying Phoenix history can do the same.  The subject is like a cactus: it’s beautiful, I like to look at it and study it, but if I get too close it will prick me and leave a stinging pain that eventually wears off.  Learning new things can have the same effect.  But no matter how often it happens, I keep going back for more.  I have to understand.  The past is the prologue – I must study the past.

Not only must I study history to appease (temporarily) my natural curiosity, I also have to share what I find.  To borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins, “consciousness raising” is of the utmost importance.  When riding the light rail, I see a city growing out of the awkward teenage years and into young adulthood with a sense of its own identity.  I feel the perfect storm blowing winds of change across vacant lots downtown.  There is an energy and an excitement about urban Phoenix.  The shrill voices from the suburbs still shriek but the rhetoric is foolish and shortsighted.  The days of cheap gas and short commutes are long past.  The true costs of sprawl and of low density “communities” located in the far-flung suburbs have reared its head in a way we’ve never seen before.  It’s about time.

Beneath the city lights, skyscrapers, and our remaining historic buildings lies a fabric of history created and destroyed by lives of countless people.  Some may argue that Phoenix has an unromantic past.  I disagree.  Our romantic past was erased by the wrecking ball before our very eyes, then quickly forgotten.  The early years of the city, when Phoenix grew feed for horses at Fort McDowell, are admittedly, unremarkable.  But it was during the early booms that the desert, against overwhelming odds, blossomed into Victorian architecture with theatres, opera houses, schools, neighborhoods, museums, and trains.  Later Phoenix became addicted to a drug that destroyed it from the inside out- the automobile.  Phoenix is still recovering.  I don’t like what cars did to western American cities.  People need cities where they can walk, people need to be outside, people need to hear voices of strangers.  Phoenix lost that element.

I admit freely that I am a Phoenix cheerleader, a self-conscious cheerleader perhaps.  I’m smart enough to know that blind adoration is not conducive to creativity.  I’m hypersensitive to criticism when it’s unwarranted but will listen when it is.  Claims that “there is nothing to do in Phoenix” or “Phoenix has no culture” are the ramblings of the ignorant and lazy and I always dismiss such claims.

Phoenix doesn’t need “a” history, we just must learn our history.  This knowledge is essential for the creative and innovative ideas to take root.  Mature cities foster their history, they don’t tear it down.  Mature cities build on traditions and common language.  Our cultural language and literature of the city has yet to be written.  I can’t imagine New York without the literary contributions of Edith Wharton, London without Shakespeare, St. Petersburg without Dostoevsky.  I believe the best novels set in and about Phoenix are yet to come.  (Honestly, there is so much to write about!)  [Note: Read the full blog entry at Ode to a Phoenix.]

[Source: Michael Clancy, Arizona Republic] – Motorists’ least-favorite means of street resurfacing is back 20 years after Phoenix officials dumped the program amid widespread complaints.  This time it will be better, officials promise.  But a quality issue, quickly identified, has halted the program temporarily.

Chip sealing uses small rocks mixed with asphalt to coat street surfaces.  In the 1980s, when it was used, motorists would go out of their way to avoid streets where it was being done, hoping to avoid flying rocks and sticky tar.  The new process, known as “fractured aggregate surface treatment,” will use rubberized asphalt and smaller, lighter chips that are not supposed to have enough heft to fly into windshields and improved binding that will not track onto properties or into homes.

The City Council approved the program over the summer in reaction to such a severe budget shortfall that street resurfacing could take place only every 78 years, far longer than desired.  Pavements are designed to last 20 to 30 years…

John Siefert, deputy director of the Phoenix Street Transportation Department, said the smaller chips being used on residential streets are clumping, so they are not spreading evenly.  The program will be on hold until the situation is resolved.  Larger chips worked fine in industrial areas, including two locations along Interstate 17 between Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue.

Residential streets where work is scheduled to be done:

• between Van Buren and Roosevelt streets between Seventh and 15th avenues
• south side of Interstate 10 between Seventh and 15th avenues
• between Bethany Home Road, Missouri Avenue, 35th and 39th avenues
• north of Shea Boulevard, east of 24th Street and south of Cholla Street

[Note: Read the full article at Unpopular street repair program back in Phoenix, including downtown.]

[Source: Scott Wong, Arizona Republic] — David Cavazos has been appointed to succeed City Manager Frank Fairbanks, who is retiring Thursday after nearly 20 years.  Cavazos, a deputy city manager who started with Phoenix 22 years ago, discussed some of the changes he would like to make, the city’s financial woes and how he plans to get past a 2006 travel-abuse scandal that still haunts him.

What kinds of changes can we expect at City Hall? We have to look at the very best person for every job, that everything has to be based on merit and credentials and that we’re going to look both internally and externally for support.  We (the council and I) talked about innovation.  People need to be able to do more with less.  They need to not only be willing to change but be a champion for change.  They need to adapt to change.  One of the things I’ll be focused on is how can we partner with the private sector to do the things that we may not do as well as the private sector.  We got to look at outsourcing.  We got to work very closely with employees, with our labor groups.

The city closed a record $270 million shortfall earlier this year, largely by eliminating jobs and making cuts to services.  Now we hear that this year’s budget gap has widened again by as much as $95 million.  How do you fix that? “We need to work very closely with the mayor and council.  What are the priorities?  Obviously, public safety, neighborhoods, infrastructure, economic development.  (We have to ask) what do we absolutely have to do?  What services are the most important to the community?  The public hearings are very important, talking to people, getting their input and then realizing there will have to be some streamlining.  I think you’ll see some of it at the top, probably right here in the City Manager’s Office.

Is it certain there will be layoffs? I believe that we are going to have reductions in staffing.  There is no way to get around that.  You are going to be able to do some with lease-purchase and hopefully things get better.  [Note: Read the full article at Phoenix must do more with less, new city manager says.]