A Congressional conference committee will decide in the next couple of days whether to kill the Community Development Block Grant program, the major source of funds for neighborhood housing and commercial development in Cleveland and other cities throughout Ohio.
Cleveland's stake in this decision is almost $30 million a year.
The House of Representatives has voted to kill the program outright, as proposed by the Bush Administration. The Senate voted 68 to 31 to preserve it, over the strenuous objections of the Republican leadership. A conference committee is meeting this week to resolve this and other disagreements between the two houses and produce a "compromise" budget, which will then go back to the House and Senate for up-or-down votes.
Here's an excellent summary of this week's legislative situation from BushBudget.org.
Both Voinovich and Dewine were among the 24 GOP Senators who joined with Democrats to preserve CDBG. More impressively, Ohio's Senators then joined with just two other Republicans and all the Senate Democrats to vote against the full budget resolution, which passed by a vote of just 51 to 49.
Voinovich has been especially vocal in support of CDBG. This is great, but now comes the moment of truth. Ohio's Senators need to use every ounce of "juice" they have, publicly and privately, to get their leadership and the Senate's conferees to respect the clear majority mandate of their colleagues and keep full CDBG funding in the final conference committee budget.
Let Voinovich and Dewine know you appreciate their support for CDBG and expect them to keep it up! E-mail is probably not the best way to communicate about this issue. A telegram to the Senator's D.C. office is the best way to get somebody's attention, but a fax or phone call is good, too.
Senator Michael Dewine
140 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-3503
Phone: 202-224-2315
Fax: 202-224-6519
Senator George Voinovich
317 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-3504
Phone: 202-224-3353
TollFree: 800-205-OHIO (OH only)
Fax: 202-228-1382