Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Why Those Folks?
No City Club forum in recent memory has resonated as strongly as our June 8th event on our region's struggles with economic development. As soon as the speech ended and the Q and A began, we knew this was the first of what would inevitably become a series of conversations about the future of our regional economy, how we can make it stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive. To that end, we immediately saw that an opening on August 24th would provide a great opportunity to push the conversation forward just a little bit.
Of course, we're not the only folks trying to push conversations forward. Cleveland.com and Crain's Cleveland Business have both done some great work adding more voices to the mix, and many others in the community have been getting together, formally and informally, to talk through the issues and take on the important work of listening, planning, and charting a way forward.
We see our role here at the City Club as one of many different institutions helping to shape public dialogue and understanding of the issues. Sometimes that means inviting voices to the stage that might be less familiar to some but have a lot to offer. When our June 8th speaker, Jon Pinney, ended his speech by naming a number of people he thought might be capable of taking up the mantle of leadership on this issue, we knew those folks inevitably would have a voice, and we wondered about who else in our community should be heard as part of this dialogue. I'd like to tell you about the people we invited to participate in our August 24th EconomiCLE forum.
Bethia Burke has been working on regional economic development in Northeast Ohio for most of the last decade. As Vice President at the Fund for our Economic Future, she authored much of The Two Tomorrows report, which is probably the most widely cited policy paper in this whole conversation.
As executive director of the Commission on Economic Inclusion, Brian E. Hall has been emerging as a key voice on ensuring that our poorest neighbors also benefit from the economy we are building. The Commission's influence and importance is widely recognized but, frankly, it's been a while since we've heard from them here at the City Club.
Don Graves has been back in town a short while, heading up corporate responsibility and community relations for KeyBank, one of the our region's most important locally headquartered corporations. But just as important as his current role are the roles he filled in the Department of the Treasury and the White House from 2010 to 2016, working on economic policy and its impact on post-industrial Midwest cities.
Though he's relatively new to City Council, Ward 6's Blaine A. Griffin is no stranger to the public sector. He ran the city's community relations board for 11 years prior to finding his way to service in Fairfax and surrounding neighborhoods. In addition to the residents of his ward, he works closely with Ohio's largest employer, the Cleveland Clinic, and understands, perhaps better than most, how a large employer can engage successfully with its neighbors.
These four voices may or may not be the most important voices we can include, and they're certainly not the only voices that should be included. But we know these are people who care deeply about our community whose perspectives shouldn't be overlooked. If you've got ideas about who should be heard, let us know, either here in the comments, or with an email.
