Mayor Jackson’s State of the City Address was yesterday. Jackson unveiled a few ideas for 2008 along with a quote about how to improve our borrowing status: “We’ve had the money we just didn’t have the credit card.” If you want to compare with his 20007 speech, you can read it in it’s entirety here. Yesterday’s speech is not on-line yet. The Pee Dee has a synopsis via Henry Gomez.
Cleveland real estate is still taking hits in the National media about our foreclosure issues and Jackson is proposing we spend $6 million to demolish vacant houses. The foreclosure issues we still face and have been dealing with may be less than 20% of our total real estate picture but in reality, the fallout affects so many aspects of our economy. And I also think this $6 million expenditure comes from a lack of jobs here. I’m hoping there is something in this new proposal that has not been covered but that also helps us bring in jobs. I guess you could say the improved borrowing efforts fit the bill to some extent.
The big idea as that cable guy Donnie would say, seems to be switching from getting a bond rating on property values (which have gone down) plus income tax to an income tax revenues model. The idea has already been presented to our Council and they will vote on it.
Since I can’t see the entire speech on line I’m thinking it will be on cable access channels because it will be a City Club rebroadcast. I intend to come back to this and add to it. Mostly because a plethora of ideas seem to be missing from the PD synopsis. Maybe there weren’t any - I’ll let you know.
I had a contact tell me that Tracey Nichols was a wealth of knowledge (my client and I needed information on business retention loans from the City, as one example) and when I couldn’t get Brian Reiley’s assistance because as it turns out he was no longer Director of Economic Development, I called Traceyat the County. She was very helpful. Until the end of last week when she was fairly unreachable and alas, she is no longer working for the County but is our new Econ Dev. Director. My timing is not good is it? lol Anyway, I found this out on the City website this morning.
I just googled and the PD has announced her position today here. Chris Warren, the City’s Chief of Regional Development said she was sought after and was the only candidate up for consideration.
I will provide a link on this post to Jackson’s entire speech when it becomes available on line. Peace Out - 3C
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