Anyone who attended this summit to participate in solving Cleveland's chronic poverty issue was treated to a political dog-and-pony show, replete with a 45-minute long Powerpoint presentation chronicling what other groups around the city have been doing about the issue. It appears that the only thing the City of Cleveland has done is worked to open a school in the Empowerment Zone from 3-9PM to offer tutoring and recreation to students, job services and training to adults and support services for seniors. Too bad this isn't a new idea... the director of the EZ has been working on this initiative for months...Um, the director of the Empowerment Zone works for the Mayor, right? So that means the Mayor's administration was working on this "old idea" several months before poverty got popular, right? So how does this convert to a rap on the Mayor?
Instead of mounting a PR campaign that coincides with the Mayor's re-election, why not roll up our collective sleeves and move from talk to action?Personally I would be delighted to see the Mayor make a second-term campaign issue out of raising the incomes of low-income Clevelanders. That's the only way to get a mandate from the voters to do something significant. But look, if we want immediate action instead of talk, here's a proposal: Let's ask the Mayor to lead a high-profile campaign to pressure heavily subsidized private employers like the Marriott Corporation (the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, still tax-abated after all these years) to raise all their employees' pay to the City "fair employment wage" of $10 an hour. I guarantee that would lift hundreds of city residents across the poverty line. (Maybe some civic-minded organizations that are in the habit of holding conferences at these hotels could add their voices and rental fees to this effort.) And while we're at it, we could work to get Council to extend the Fair Employment Wage Law to major subsidized retail employers (who are currently exempt) before the city starts handing out abatements and loans to new malls and big-box stores.
I bet you could make a really great Power Point about that campaign.