Competition for the second and possibly final round of empowerment zone awards is expected to be even more intense than in 1994, when winning cities such as Cleveland, Baltimore and Philadelphia spent up to six months, did exhaustive neighborhood economic studies and involved thousands of residents to produce winning applications that were up to 800 pages long. Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you. But we're back on the right track. Racing On Deadline A team of community leaders and city officials now is racing the looming deadline in the intense national empowerment zone competition. Many community leaders involved in the process, aware of the huge stakes, are withholding criticism of city hall until after the application is done.
Nobody is happy, however, that the process began as late as it did.
The empowerment zone is by far the biggest plum, but nobody was focusing on it. It shows the void of leadership that exists. The most ironic thing is that it's the neighborhoods who are focused. Community leaders, city officials and consultants working on the empowerment zone application say the process has been righted, and that Hartford will submit a quality application to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development by the Oct. 9 deadline. The city should learn by Dec. 31 whether its application is successful.