mcfarland welcome to conversation and you know it's all about the neighborhood this is a conversation about how we build our community our neighborhood house by house family by family we're focusing on business creation business development economic development and culture o the leadership i am currently the president of the minnesota state baptist convention and we represent about thirty eight churches see pastor russell out there from friendship who will be succeeding next year what we've tried to do given my hand and this is for you as well as the candidates to know that we represent quite a few people on any sunday morning if you come here bright was hit this morning this church is packed from cover to cover and over sixty five percent of those people are from minneapolis what we try to do is each sunday allow candidates that call two to three minutes to at least introduce themselves so they'll know i also friends and partners with his works year nine it which is collectively is about one hundred churches bishop how  washington ronnie patterson from st paul and i would suggest that some queer along the line ya might want to stop back because we organize in ourselves to move as a unit i of the opinion that over the last eight years or more it's been dyas traits for the african american especially in north minneapolis we are behind economically educationally all the way down the line and it appears to me that everybody who the d f l and particularly cares about change happens but the group that votes ninety five percent with fail which is the african american were not given that much attention and what we want you all to know that that pendulum is swinging and is changing that if that  not progressive action to meet our needs if you can put all that money and tab and a same sex marriage you can put the same amount of money and to employment of african american and so we're looking forward to the discussion so welcome everybody thank you off the coming thank you pass to succumbing we look forward to a good debate and to get the right represent if our people god bless you to raise questions to challenge and speak truth to power that's our mission and we are happy to be in partnership with the black pope it there is a national movement the black press and the black  to legacy institutions committed to the truth committed to serving our people and we're pleased to be doing this as a part of that national collaboration unfolding in local politics so so let us begin we have sent questions to the candidates for the office of mayor they have the questions and we said that of the ten questions six or so will be asked for this program we also intend to allow audience questions probably two or three people at the end of the program we will be closing the program at or shortly after five o'clock our mission was three to five were a little bit late but we are with a good audience we feel very good about this we may with your forbearance go to a three fifteen what to do our program the format for this first round is to ask each candidate to introduce himself or herself you can take one minute to do the introduction and in doing so say why you choose to run for the office of mayor good afternoon thank you so much for being here my name is gary schiff it has been my pleasure to be a city council member representing the neighborhoods of philips longfellow powderhorn  corcoran and seward on the city council of minneapolis and i'm running for mayor because i believe that we have an opportunity to help small businesses grow and our neighborhoods grow stronger i was raised the youngest of six kids in a faith based family that taught me the value of education hard work and the importance of helping others i've been a coalition builder on the city council and a consistent progressive voice as mayor i will put minneapolis first by making sure that city residents get jobs on city projects and make sure that we invest in early childhood education so that we can shatter the cycle of poverty that is keeping our children behind thank you gary i want to acknowledge our time keeper sandra crump is right here she's got instructions at fifteen seconds for everybody being here today and thanks for hosting us today i'm jackie cherry homes and i'm running for mayor i'm running because i believe we can be and will be a city that works for everyone with vibrant engage citizens and  can do spirit minneapolis can be a city where everyone is welcome everyone is valued and everyone has an opportunity i will lead our city by bringing all of our partners together from churches from labor to business to residents together we will build a city that ensures a bright future for our children ensures accessible transit so we can get to each other and we can get to jobs in steers a place a city where everyone is ho everyone is welcome and a city that is unified i lived in minneapolis all my life i've worked in organized in the neighborhoods of our city i've been an elected representative i've been an engaged citizen i've run a business and i've run the city's government these skills my experiences and my relationships make me the best qualified person to the beat be the next mayor of minneapolis i ask for your support thank you mark and drew and you can  hello everybody i'm marking on her and i am running for mayor because i love our city all of our city from south to north from east to west everybody is the same we are all apologise i believe in the city and as mayor i will bring a fresh perspective as a business person for the past fourteen years and as a hennepin county commissioner elected five times prior to that i'm running for mayor to do three things first we will make this city the greenest city in north america and use it as an economic development tool to build jobs secondly i care for every one of our city's children and i want to close the achievement gap and the opportunity gap to help make all of our citizens productive in the future and finally i want to foster an environment between the difference community and the workers to minneapolis my wife and my two daughters are here we live about five blocks from here we moved into the community before these little girls were born young ladies and we're not going anywhere where here to lead from within and we're going to do it in the three different ways we're going to make sure that we have strong economic development and that businesses are attracted to our community to hire an employ our our young people and our families attached to that is a very important connector public safety public safety brings businesses and businesses improves public safety and then of course the children we're going to make sure that our children are educated now you got all heroes aws say great things but i'm going to measure everything going to measure the performance of our children the engagement of our citizens their economic development and make sure everything works but you know just thank you for many years now i've had an opportunity to talk to folks from all across minneapolis about our biggest visions for ourselves our families and our community and i find that overall we pretty much all want the same thing we want to prosperous unified city that works and in recent years in some measure we have been getting that and i'm proud of the work i've done to make that happen we're poised better than almost any other city in the country to take advantage of this economic  s economic recovery i'm running for mayor because i want everybody to benefit from the opportunities coming in minneapolis i am a leader who brings people together who can unite minneapolis behind a strong progressive agenda that creates jobs make sure our kids are thriving make sure our neighborhoods stay safe and makes minneapolis vig greatest city of the twenty first century that afternoon my name is cam winton i'm a husband and a father and a business leader in the renewable energy business i'm running for mayor because i too love our city and i want to build on all the things that are great about it but i also want to bring a fresh set of eyes to the challenges we face i'm not seeking the endorsement of any party and i'm not coming to this race with a background in government the other candidates on the stage here with me are good folks who have worked hard but between them they have fifty four years in government and so today as we hear the different policy ideas that folks are sharing i'd ask you to think yourselves they've had fifty four years why hasn't that happened yet in contrast i bring a fresh set of eyes my coworkers and i built a wind turbine maintenance company one hundred twenty employees i know a thing or two about job creation and i want to draw on that background to provide the essential city services effectively to enable others to build jobs the way i have and close the opportunity gap by putting children first in our schools and cam went in and i'd welcome your interest thank you thank you and so the next round the first question the candidates will have ninety seconds to answer and are trying to keep will get you know one fifteen seconds are up and when it's time to quit going to start on the opposite end again this time with him once and the question is  what is your history of accomplishments on behalf of the black community your history of service to the black community and what have you done for us lately sure thank you and let me say again it is an honor to be here today we are in the house of the lord on the lord's day and so what comes to mind for me is the saying that president kennedy first said that when we go about seeking to make our communities better we can ask god's blessing and we can ask god's help but here on earth god's work must truly be our own that's the spirit that i have brought to my work throughout my professional life my charitable life my church life and now my political life to create opportunities for all some of the opportunities i've created yes have been for folks of color some have been for folks that are white but what i have sought to do is go colorblind into that work and let me give you two quick examples here in minneapolis when that bridge collapsed i represented one of the individuals who was injured i did so for free my law firm represented law firm where i was an attorney represented eighty percent of those victims for free and i'm proud of the fact that my work on her behalf and she's a minority secured for her the compensation she needed to pay for her medical bills going forward also tell you that in the work i did i mentioned building a wind turbine maintenance company we make wind generated electricity cost competitive any maybe thinking why on earth does that matter here today and that is because for every bit of wind energy that works means we don't have to use a coal fired plant or a trash burning plant that generates pollutants into our community here i look forward to speaking with you more about what i've done for all of our communities follow up question the answer the response was thirty seconds  so you mentioned you've created a company that employs one hundred twenty people what's the ethnic racial composition of your workforce i've never counted mr macfarlane what would i guess how many blacks work for you well out of one twenty that in here right now i just don't know the answer that question but i'll tell you that primarily we're drawing our labor pool from rural minnesota rural south dakota and rural iowa so probably not as high as it would be if the winter mon right here in minneapolis ok thank you for your answer same question the first question again to just the question is what is your history of accomplishments with and for the black community history of service to the black community and what have you done for us lately thank you i am unifying minneapolis is one of the reasons i'm running for mayor and it's one of the reasons that i got into public life in the first place and in my seven years on the city council i have fought hard for the civil rights department i have fought i was on the workgroup to reform the c r a i have made sure there were dollars extra dollars put into the contract compliance unit and i fought hard for the complaint investigations unit to have good results i've done a great deal of work on police accountability knowing that the relationship to the community is important if we are going to actually be safe because folks need to be able to call the police and know that they will be safe when the police come and so i spent time working with the c r a i have spent time in the department and when chief dolan was first being appointed with a couple other council members put together an entire list of expectations that we used as performance measures that had to do with the culture inside the department and had to do with community relations i fought hard for transportation for communities of color most recently assuring that we were working with the county and the met council for the bottom line and for a street car to connect broadway to that bo line so that we can have good economic development in the parts of town that need it most i supported the equity plan that the city put together and most recently i have told people very openly that i do not support increased burning at the herc in part because those extra particle emissions would be going over some of our hardest hit communities follow up question thank you for the answer and so is there one defining at that our community can identify with you that has served the black community i would say it's my consistent work overtime to fight hard for the civil rights to partment in the work that they do the c r a work group i didn't support the most recent police oversight review because i don't think that it goes far enough in assuring there's a firewall between the department and between the civilian oversight of the work i've done with the contract compliance unit and most recently with the stadium working hard to make sure minority owned businesses are being treated fairly and encouraged in the work that they do the same question to you what is your history of accomplishments for the black community and service to the black community what have you done for us lately well you know i moved from jamaica in one thousand nine hundred seventy went to college for four years graduated and immediately moved into the african american community because i had been hankering after doing that even sitting in my backyard in jamaica i wanted to be part of the civil rights movement that's why immediately after i started working i joined ebenezer baptist church in providence rhode island and began to teach young people in sunday school and help run this children's program i did that in churches all across the united states for twenty five years and every time i was involved i didn't want to be a deacon and didn't want to be a trustee i just wanted to help the children and then after that i decided to branch out a little bit into the community and so i started to tutor i joined the hundred african american men in their tutoring in st paul three hours every saturday morning for three years i co founded that tutoring program four hundred seventy five ninth graders and then i was i joined the st paul school board curriculum committee to bring the interests of our african american kids to the fore i have a thirty six year old african american son i raised him in the inner city all across america always living in the inner city always tutoring his friends always taking care of my community then i moved into jordan with my wife and raise our children we started having vigils for young african american men that were killed and were ignored by the press and others and once coming into office talk a little bit more about that you can continue to grow up i mean is there a signature item that you think defines don samuels engagement of service to the black community yeah well you know one of the things i'm very proud of is that i with co glidden brought forward a resolution to ban the box meaning that you cannot use a person's criminal history before you consider whether or not they qualify for a job  thank you we can't waste our young people's lives we must educate them or only educate them well if they fail and thoughtless and we must restore them immediately and fully with all of their rights and privileges as citizens and that means academically that means politically and that means patiently thank you don samuels mark andrew same question what is your history of accomplishments for the black community service to the black community and what have you done for us lately my earliest recollection of doing something in service for the black community happened way back way back i was fifteen years old and my friend and i biked across the city to come to plymouth ave in the aftermath of the police riots in the one nine hundred sixty five and we stood i didn't know what it all meant i just knew it was wrong and i knew it was reprehensible and we stood in common cause with african americans in north minneapolis to help our community rise up against that kind of treatment later in life after i was elected i was the one of the people who recruited my dear friend sharon sales belton to run for the city council as the first african american council member and was deeply involved in recruiting her to run for mayor thereafter when i was on the county board i authored and was the chief author of the divestment portfolio resolution at the county board making hennepin county one of the first urban counties in america to rise up against the appalling conduct of apartheid in south africa as county commissioner i quadrupled funding for child care so that african american families can get to work and not have to leave their children home alone i stood up with the council on crime and justice and paid for the study that  studied county study african american prison policies and how we can correct that i was a strong supporter of step up millions of dollars into pilot city now mark northpoint and finally i was the author of the county board resolution to go after the problem of lead in paint and in the community which is really wrecking such havoc with black children throughout our city is there  signature event one that you would bookmark defining of your contribution to the black community of all of the issues i've listed i think the thing that on the most proud of wasn't a local issue it was a global issue that required our action to act locally and that was the divestiture policy it was very very controversial it got national recognition in the news media and it was very hard to path and it was the right thing to do because even though it didn't affect our minneapolis people directly it was a major moral statement that we had an obligation to stand up to and speak and shout from the rooftops thank you  same question what is your history of accomplishment for or in the black community on behalf of the black community and service to the black community what have you done for us lately well my first involvement  about thirty three years ago and when i moved to north minneapolis i made a commitment that i wasn't going to live in the community i was going to be part of the community i was a community organizer i worked with minority owned small businesses i produced housing for primarily women and children from the african american community i then went to the city council where i was the leader that led the disparity study we have the first had the first disparity study that set the standard for women a minority owned business  goals in minneapolis i helped create the civil rights or the civilian review authority which i will support again when i become the mayor because i think it's important and i think the new system doesn't work i lead by example hiring african american people in my office every opportunity did that i had and nurturing them so they went on and did even bigger and better things later on after leaving public service i didn't leave the community i continued to live here in my home in north minneapolis and i have continued to serve i work with phyllis wheatley in building their award winning daycare center i work with some an academy in the network for better futures on creating jobs opportunities i've continued to be influential in my community i still work with my black clubs so  service goes over the course of about thirty five years and i'm proud of my service to the community the follow up question is little bit different to what are the unique challenges that you've experienced in engaging in connecting and serving the african or black community challenges are i think you have to be engaged in many many different ways you have to be engaged through the church community you have to be engaged through the service community you have to be engaged with the nonprofit community it has to be intentional engagement it has to be authentic engagement and it has to lead to real results what is your history of accomplishment for the black community and service to the black in local civil rights laws i was twenty five but i knew it was wrong that you couldn't file a complaint against the police department in minneapolis under local civil rights laws and when the council at that time refused to close that loophole we took it to the people i proposed a charter memet that went on the ballot that was passed overwhelmingly with over sixty percent of support and the civil rights charter amendment in one thousand nine hundred seven was passed by the voters making it possible to file a complaint locally in the civil rights department when people believe that the police department violated civil rights and my history has been as a community organizer working in coalition whether that's with a m e st james church in my district the oldest and the church in the city of minneapolis working to change the name of the street date alley that is behind the church that's named after a neo nazi doctor or whether or not we are working  to build new opportunities for daycare for early head start for early childhood investment for prenatal programs that is the work that i'm most proud of it's the work we do together it's the work we do in  question is there a signature activity signature project that you think reflects reveals your attitude your style your engagement with the black community it may have been the mediation being an early supporter for federal mediation between the community and the police i fought for this hard in my first term on the city council and eventually happen after coming together and people like al flowers are part of a community police relations panel those come together and we're not there yet we have a lot of work we need to do but i'm very proud of my vote to not lay off the civil rights investigators in the civil rights department so we could preserve our legacy of civil rights protection here in minneapolis so thank you i wrote a hero harry sounds good ok great thank you next question we'll start with you gary schiff what are your strategies for business and economic development that maximize black participation have you supported black contractor inclusion in city construction projects and have you supported full in force meant on contract compliance was absolutely i support full inclusion in the workplace and i believe we need to get to the next generation of accountability in the next generation of making sure that we're showing results when children's hospital wanted city financing to expand their campus on chicago avenue in my ward i held the city financing up until children's hospital signed an agreement agreeing to give jobs to people who live in the zip codes near the hospital and in the same way i will demand as mayor accountability for the private companies that get contracts with the city of minneapolis we can require that people hire from our city job training programs so that we have fuller opportunity fuller employment in our communities and we need to not just ban the box for municipal jobs but we need to push that the contractors who get city tax dollars also ban the box when they agree to get money from city taxpayers we need to make sure there we are using zip code hiring with city projects i have a sidewalk in front of my house replaced last year a company from minnesota got the contract do we have people in our community who can fix a sidewalk absolutely we should be keeping the jobs local keeping the investment local and make sure when we sign contracts we are investing in the people who live in our neighborhoods and as mayor i will take the next step to make sure to hiring becomes a way that we do business in the city in minneapolis jack jackie cherryholmes what are your strategies for business and economic development that maximize black participation have you supported black contractor inclusion in city construction projects and have you supported full enforcement on contract compliance laws since the last part first yes i have and i have supported compliance and have been supported full inclusion and will continue to do so not only if i supported it but i've led on it i gone as i said earlier instituted the disparity study that led to the strong hiring goals that we had in minneapolis that are even stronger now the problem the black businesses face is they lack support capital and opportunity and we need to address all three of those things in order for folks to be successful we need to i have a long history of working with black businesses i wrote the first business plan for cd cademy over thirty some years ago  and i chair the west broadway coalition where we work with african american owned businesses and i am on the governor's urban initiatives board another opportunity to bring opportunity to businesses in our community we need to provide the support to organizations like neon and meta to ensure that they can continue to work with our businesses we need to provide leadership with our lending institutions both our local lending institutions and institutions such as the federal reserve community board to ensure that people have access to financing and are able to start and run their business and we need to refocus our sea praed priorities within the city of minneapolis to ensure that small businesses are a focus of our effort and that small businesses have the opportunity is available to them that they need  i have always supported black inclusion on city construction projects and in fact i can remember sitting in my office when target wanted to build downtown and they didn't have an affirmative action plan and i said well there's just no way that anything's getting signed to you sign your formative action plan i have a record of leadership on the steps in this area thank you mark andrew same question what are your strategies for business and economic development that maximize black participation have you supported black contractor inclusion in city in your case i suppose county construction projects and have you supported full enforcement on contract compliance law thank you for sixteen years i served campaign county board of commissioners and we undertook in a very aggressive way exactly the same strategies that every person is identifying here today i think moving forward we want to up those numbers both women and minority business employment opportunities through contracting and all construction projects zip code hiring i think is an opportunity that we need to test that it's been done on a very modest level so far we need to up those standards and up our efforts in that regard and i also want to say that all of the things that are being talked about here are things that city council members already could be doing and there have been some efforts in this area but we are lagging and we have not been doing enough and by the time somebody graduates from the city council to run for mayor they darn well better have a big vision of what we're going to accomplish i come into this campaign with a big vision here's what i want to do all of the above everything everybody has talked about i will use what i did with the midtown greenway in minneapolis where we created a bike corridor or on the southside of minneapolis for three million dollars and about ten million from the cities in the parks and today we have five hundred million dollars of economic development going on in those corridors it's a huge economic development strategy i'm going to take that strategy i'm bringing it to north minneapolis we're go side we're going to connect the riverfront all the way over to the park on the other side and we'll get into the other strategies around trench transit later on thank you don samuels what are your strategies for business and economic development that maximize black participation have you supported black contractor inclusion in city construction projects and every supported full enforcement on contract compliance last absolutely  now in fact over the last difficult hears of the great recession i made sure that the lion's share of the federal dollars that came into minneapolis came to north minneapolis where our contractors especially african american or feeling the biggest brunt of the economic burden over eighty percent of those funds came to north minneapolis and eighty five percent of those contractors were african american contractors from our community that has never happened before and we've now upped our expectation that thirty two percent of all contracts that the city's involved in must be done by minority contractors and i use my pen and wrote when i saw that the the stadium was going to be built i said we want to be involved as a city so that we can make sure that our minority of workers and contractors are included and i put in thirty two percent on that contract as it was passed by the state with my hand so i am very serious about this and now we're not going to just sign things we're not going to put words on the paper we're going to measure everything we're going to monitor everything and we're going to make sure those things are accomplished thank you betsy hodges what are your strategies for business and economic because i'm a development that maximized black participation have you supported black contractor inclusion in city construction projects and he supported full enforcement of contract compliance laws contractin contract compliance and making sure jobs go where jobs are needed most are crucial to the future of the entire city so as mayor i will make sure jobs go where jobs are needed most and that we are creating incentives where jobs are needed most right now i know that the minnesota chamber is working with philanthropy to create an incentive program to put jobs in the most distressed areas in the city we need to be on board with that and we need to be a full partner with that we also need to make sure that our transit and transportation is going in the communities that need it most because those not only allow people to get to jobs they bring jobs to people and that is going to be a crucial strategy for making sure our entire city thrives moving forward and i have been a strong advocate for contract for contract compliance and making sure minority owned businesses and folks are included in the projects i'm the only opponent of the stadium who's on the stadium implementation committee and from that seat i have been able to insist and make sure that not only are the jobs building building the stadium but the jobs that go in the stadium afterward will make sure that we meet our minority hiring i'm also at the moment working to create some incentives to have that go into the entire stadium district and i also made sure in the last two years that we had extra money in the budget going to our contract compliance unit to make sure we could do the work and do it well thank you karen winton what are your strategies for business and economic development that will maximize black participation have you supported black contractor inclusion in city construction projects do you support full enforcement of contract compliance laws you know i'm an attorney and everybody hates attorneys until they need one but when i look at the question of supporting and forstmann of of contract compliance laws yes absolutely you know it was a long hard struggle a lot of it conducted before i was even born to get to a place where it's illegal to discriminate against someone because of the color of their skin we've worked long and hard as a society to have those laws in place in the absolutely yes i wouldn't force them let me talk in particular about three aspects of what i'm saying here ban the box is anybody who's not familiar with what a great idea you know we should never judge someone by the worst thing they ever did and what ban the box enables us to do is take the whole person take the measure of that whole person not get hung up on a crime they may have committed previously and i absolutely refuse me support than the box and would make sure that we continue to use it as widely as possible in hiring decisions secondly the step up program that is an active city program that has provided thousands of our communities youth with experiences in businesses to learn the soft skills of having a job in the majority of those thousands of participants have been minority children minority young adults and i would make sure that we not just maintain the step up program but expand the use of the step up program the final thing i want to mention is purchasing overall and we've talked a lot about the importance of including people from all walks of life and all backgrounds on construction projects more building things as mayor i'd like to look more at the one point two billion dollars that the city spends in its budget each year to make sure that we're using that one point two billion dollars to create economic benefits as widely as possible in our community thank you the next question sort of follows this one i'll talk about ask you to read talk about unemployment jobs dump and workforce issues and we'll start with you cam this is a ninety second response a remind you when your time is almost up how would you use city resources to address black unemployment and the elimination of poverty sadly this was reported recently in minneapolis a white man coming out of prison is more likely to be hired than a black man coming out of college black unemployment is twenty two percent it's the highest in the nation while five percent for whites is the loss how do you fix this problem thank you for the question and this is one where i would ask folks to remember the thing i said when i started with all respect to my opponents who are good folks who've worked hard if fifty four years a government between them and i'm coming with a fresh set of eyes looking at the problem of the lack of employment and a lack of opportunities as mayor a do a few key things the first is to make it easier for people to start businesses in our community and expand them so that we have the jobs we need right now it is too cumbersome for someone who wants to start a business in our city to do so they have to go downtown to get essentially a permission slip to expand a corner store to start a restaurant when i'm there no more the person will be able to do that either online if they have access or by the telephone if they don't they'll be able to get the permissions they need more quickly than they get right now right now it can take months excuse me the necessary permits and when i'm mayor i'm going to say the city has three weeks to weigh in and if the city hasn't weighed in within three weeks then the city has lost its chance and that project gets to proceed this is a dramatic change and i recognize that but we need this type of dramatic change if we're going to see the job growth that we need to see another thing i'd make sure is that the city is budgeting responsibly and only spending money on those things that we really need to be spending money on because when we don't budget responsibly when we spend more money than we should who gets the bill it's citizens who can afford it and it's job creators they can afford it and go elsewhere to start jobs that we need right here but just how would you use city resources to address black unemployment and the elimination of poverty confronting with and dealing with this issue head on is one of the fundamental things we need to do to become the city we choose to be and the city that we think we are i would make sure that jobs go where jobs are needed said in the prior question i would work with the city to stabilize families and neighborhoods i would work in partnership to support our education system and i would work in partnership to help diminish and eliminate the wealth disparity in the community jobs going where jobs are needed means we do indeed have to support and the box stabilizing our families and neighborhoods means we have to put money into housing  affordable housing throughout the entire city it means we have to work on public safety and work on all the strategies for public safety that we have at our disposal to stabilize our neighborhoods we need to support the education system by starting before children are born and working with them in til after they graduate and working with the entire family community to make sure that happens and we need to deal with the wealth disparity not only as homeownership decreased dramatically in our communities that have been hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis but the lack of banking and predatory lending means that even further resources are being bled from our community and we need to advocate at the state for better predatory lending law and we need to work with the nonprofits like neon and build wealth minnesota who are working on these banking issues for the community thank you don samuels how would you use city resources to address black unemployment and punish them when they don't and that we have a results metric system that demonstrates how managers are doing it also i believe that we we need to have good transportation to get people to jobs you know you can't get a bus on broadway across to the northeast got to go downtown and then go north east we need to make our connections through the city to finish what we started with vanna white and connect our people to jobs and then we need to expand programs like step up you know it step up employs forty two percent of north siders that the program citywide forty two percent northside even though our population is closer to twenty percent of the city we're going to expand step up and expand the opportunities for low income kids and they were going to on bundle our contracts so that small contractors can get jobs because small contractors hire more and contractors of color hire more people of color than the large contractors do then we've got to educate our children it's easier to build strong boys and children than to fix broken men so we've got we've got to build strong young people so they are educated and equipped to take jobs and we stop having to bail them out later it is time to fix them build them strong and so they can defend themselves protect themselves support themselves and pay taxes later like everybody else mark andrew how would you use city resources to address black unemployment and the elimination of poverty appreciate the things that the current city council member sounds said today about what needs to be done but a lot of these prescriptions that are being a spouse today they could have been working on this for a long time it's inexcusable to me that we don't have enough african american people in the city payroll then we have today we have to we have to in sent our department managers to do more and rather than punishing them for not hitting goals we need to identify what kinds of internally provided job training opportunities that link the skills needed for city jobs to the available resources that are out there and then we need to go and get the warm bodies get of training get them on the payroll that's something that should have been happening a long time ago as mayor i'm going to make that happen in a big way the other thing that i would say is that in addition to the zip code hiring and all the other things we've heard about contracting which all of us support i want to point out you've got five democrats here and one republican i'll guarantee you all democrats agree in the aggregate on most of these initiatives most of these things what we have to have is somebody who's got a vision who's willing to put it together it out there for the people to discuss and debate and then be willing to take action to make it happen one more thing i have five more seconds anybody who talks about jobs and voted against the that this doesn't need a fresh set of eyes this need someone who knows what they're doing and has done something in the past i would also argue that and i would agree with with my colleague mr andrews that the folks who are sitting here who haven't done it we need to hold them accountable the fact of the matter is this is a personal issue for me many of you know that i married into a large large extended family this is about my husband this is about him with a law degree being less able to get a job than a white guy coming out of jail this is about my his cousins his brothers and all of his relatives this is a personal issue for me so what do we need to do first of all we need to restructure c pead so that we focus on jobs we need to say this is the crisis that it is and we need to quit hiding this dirty little secret and pretending we're doing something about it secondly we need to elevate the office of equity in city civil rights office the woman doing the work in that office is doing phenomenal job up a nominal job on employment we need to raise her up we need to give her a cabinet level position and we need to make equity an important issue and everything needs to be viewed through the eyes of equity in our city we need to focus on small businesses we need to ensure that our small businesses have an opportunity and that everybody who has had a dream of doing a small business can start that small business because those small business are who hire people in our city and then we need to look to our community the community knows what to do we don't need a blue ribbon commission we need to talk to the community about what jobs they need what jobs they want we have people who are ready willing and able to work we need to hook them up with the jobs that are available gary how would you use city resources to address black unemployment and the elimination of poverty the gap between those who have jobs and those who don't have jobs exists because of poverty and racism and so that's a word i haven't heard used yet in the answer to this question and i think we need leadership who will address that and will name it and we'll work to find a solution with the community standing behind and with every step of the way and so number one we do have to start with the people who already provide jobs the small business owners the entrepreneurs like chef james at the sunny side where i had my great prepress this morning and where he endorsed me because i'm in supported by over one hundred fifty small business owners already in this campaign because i have done the work of listening to small business owners and entrepreneurs listen to the hurdles that they have day in and day out in dealing with a city bureaucracy that's out of control then we have to make sure that it's affordable to start a job in minneapolis by not raising property taxes to increase the gaps between people who can start jobs in the suburbs and people who start jobs here in the city make sure that we maintain equal opportunity level the playing field so that every entrepreneur has the opportunity to succeed and then number three we have to connect our job training programs with the people who are hiring in our community with that think of tax dollars connect those programs because that is government dollars at work we have to make sure the jobs go to people who live in the neighborhoods you know this is a great exercise it's an important one i'm pleased to be a part of it pleased to work with the church leadership to make this event and i'm pleased that you all are here this is what we have to do and this is what we have to be known for in our community and that is being known for civic engagement involvement being concerned at the table negotiating our interest and determining a future that supports our community and therefore supports the country it's a good thing give yourselves a round of applause