What’s City Council’s Top Priority?

We asked each City Council member the principal issue they are focusing on in 2018.
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tamaya dennard (D)
“Everyone should have access to quality housing. We need to have quality affordable and income-based housing for individuals, families, seniors, people who are disabled, and returning citizens. Safe and quality housing equates to stability…. We want to help create a housing court [and] fight back against gentrification by creating policies that make affordable and income-based housing priorities instead of options.”

 


Amy Murray (R)
“I want to be more aggressive in our job recruitment and job retention efforts. We need to be creating more opportunities through job training programs like Cincinnati Works, through our many pre- and post-secondary education institutions, and through our brilliant incubators, start-ups, and large and small businesses. City Council can and should seek to reduce the overwhelming amount of regulations and red tape that we ask businesses to comply with.”

 


Chris Seelbach (D)
“Progressive cities that have embraced their urban identity and diverse communities are leading the U.S. in the 21st century…I’ve opposed tax breaks for suburban big-box projects that hurt our neighborhood business districts, I’ve opposed tax abatements for billionaires, and I will continue to support investments in small businesses in our neighborhoods while defending and welcoming residents under attack by extremist movements encouraged by our current President.”



P.G. Sittenfeld (D)
“I am focused on improving our economy and lifting up our workforce. This means partnering with our educational institutions, increasing the number of good-paying jobs, supporting our entrepreneurs, planning for the future of our legacy companies, and perhaps most important, revitalizing our transportation system with a focus on connecting people to their needs—employment, education, and healthcare.”


Greg Landsman (D)
“The last several years have seen a resurgence of the city’s urban core. Though it is progress, the growth has been imbalanced. We still have a disturbing (and undermining) amount of persistent poverty and racial separation…. Our focus will be on something we believe has been missing at City Hall: the hard work of bringing people together to get meaningful and lasting results for those who have been left out of the growth and opportunity.”



Jeff Pastor (R)
“I believe the most significant issue facing Cincinnati is ending poverty. I wholeheartedly believe the easiest way for someone to rise out of poverty is to provide them with a job. I want to increase incentives for employers who create new jobs, with an emphasis on skilled labor with on-the-job training, in areas of the city at 1.5 times the national unemployment rate and where at least 40 percent of the residents have incomes below the national poverty level.”



David Mann (D)
“The most significant and important issue remains the large disparities between African-Americans and the majority community…. Great initiatives are underway including the Childhood Poverty Collaborative, Preschool Promise, Cradle Cincinnati, new United Way prioritization of programs aimed at childhood poverty, and so on. Better community engagement with neighborhood groups will better ensure that all the needs are approached with equity and desired impact when city programs are adopted and funded.”



Wendell Young (D)
“Neighborhood development—especially underrepresented, underserved neighborhoods—finding a way to get them up to par. What I plan to do is pay attention to what neighborhoods have to say about development that may be coming their way or that they would like to have. I think it’s extremely important that developers and neighbors sit down and talk together to figure out how a development not only serves the developer but also serves the neighborhood, so that everyone gets the benefit.”



Chris Smitherman (I)
“Transportation. It is very difficult to recruit large businesses without a way to connect citizens to jobs and housing. We must work with our regional partners to bring comprehensive bus service to all communities. We are already holding high-level meetings to understand the funding mechanics to support expanding bus service for the next 20 years. We are also meeting with our constituents to help us better understand which routes need to be expanded.”

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