Our city is on the verge of major redevelopment. Approval of the proposed Newburgh/SUNY & Waterfront Redevelopment projects will mean that massive construction will take place here.
Construction in our community should translate into jobs for our local residents and especially for those who need them the most - those were identified in the January 29, 2006 "Promised Land" report in the Times Herald-Record.
According to that report, 52% of families in our city earn less than $35,000 a year; 25.8% of families earn below the federal poverty line for a family of four (currently $19,350); and 39% of adults are not in the workforce at all, with many looking for work who can't find it.
Since "bricks & mortar" activity means that people are working, I want to make sure that those cited in the statistics above will benefit from all of the construction that will soon be going on in our community. Therefore, I am suggesting that the developers and the unions form a partnership to establish a strong Jobs Training Apprenticeship Program (Jobs/TAP).
This Jobs/TAP program will enable those represented in the statistics to become a vital part of the rebuilding of our city.
Those participating in Jobs/TAP would be granted one year or more free tuition to attend a Newburgh/SUNY college program.
County Legislator Kulisek has agreed to have a meeting with me and others to begin to work on this project. I am hopeful that this will be the first step in moving our city forward, for when those who have the most needs begin to prosper, we all will prosper.
Jobs/TAP would enable people to eventually become homeowners, which in turn will increase the tax base of our city, and which will help to ease the burden of our present homeowners.
Large developments always have substantial social and economic impacts in many areas which are borne by the host communities. I intend to make sure that these impacts benefit those most in need, which will in turn benefit the whole community.
Jobs/TAP would help to mitigate the negative impacts by contractually insuring positive impacts. It would address issues such as the type and quality of jobs, training of local residents to fill them and provision for permanent economic activity and employment opportunities.
Because most planning processes do not include formal considerations of these wide-ranging impacts, Community Benefits Agreements, which are deals between developers and coalitions of community organizations, address a broad range of community needs. They can implement safeguards to ensure that affected residents share in the benefits of major developments, which the Newburgh/SUNY Project and the Waterfront Redevelopment Project truly are.
Union jobs are middle-income jobs that pay good wages; good wages are central to the city's economic health because they reduce the burden on social, health, and housing programs and assure an adequate supply of discretionary income, in turn resulting in higher tax revenue for the city.
For many development projects, the developer's primary selling point is jobs, but unemployed individuals may need job training in order to become qualified for the new positions; if not, the jobs may be filled by individuals who live in other areas.
One way to assure that our local residents get those jobs is to incorporate targeted hiring requirements that employers in a development hire local individuals - if needed, with the assistance of Jobs/TAP. Targeted hiring programs will help development projects fulfill what is often their most fundamental selling point: building an economic base in low-income communities.
Targeted hiring policies advance what is often the main function of development projects: to help a depressed area by increasing economic opportunities there.
This is often the main purpose cited to justify a development's public subsidy.
Targeting jobs to residents of the neighborhood development is also compelling.
Anytime a development project is built in a low-income neighborhood, residents of the neighborhood are urged to support the project based on promises of job opportunities the project will provide. It is only fair to require that projects promoted on that basis include some mechanism to ensure that local people actually get some, if not most, of the jobs. Therefore developers and local government dangling the prospects of local jobs should be willing to take concrete steps to make their promises a reality.
To that I say that this is one of the major reasons that I'm running for the mayoral seat of the City of Newburgh to assure that these types of safeguards are put in place so that our city can truly benefit and prosper, for when the low- and moderate-income residents are doing better the entire city will reap the benefits of it.
Construction in our community should translate into jobs for our local residents and especially for those who need them the most - those were identified in the January 29, 2006 "Promised Land" report in the Times Herald-Record.
According to that report, 52% of families in our city earn less than $35,000 a year; 25.8% of families earn below the federal poverty line for a family of four (currently $19,350); and 39% of adults are not in the workforce at all, with many looking for work who can't find it.
Since "bricks & mortar" activity means that people are working, I want to make sure that those cited in the statistics above will benefit from all of the construction that will soon be going on in our community. Therefore, I am suggesting that the developers and the unions form a partnership to establish a strong Jobs Training Apprenticeship Program (Jobs/TAP).
This Jobs/TAP program will enable those represented in the statistics to become a vital part of the rebuilding of our city.
Those participating in Jobs/TAP would be granted one year or more free tuition to attend a Newburgh/SUNY college program.
County Legislator Kulisek has agreed to have a meeting with me and others to begin to work on this project. I am hopeful that this will be the first step in moving our city forward, for when those who have the most needs begin to prosper, we all will prosper.
Jobs/TAP would enable people to eventually become homeowners, which in turn will increase the tax base of our city, and which will help to ease the burden of our present homeowners.
Large developments always have substantial social and economic impacts in many areas which are borne by the host communities. I intend to make sure that these impacts benefit those most in need, which will in turn benefit the whole community.
Jobs/TAP would help to mitigate the negative impacts by contractually insuring positive impacts. It would address issues such as the type and quality of jobs, training of local residents to fill them and provision for permanent economic activity and employment opportunities.
Because most planning processes do not include formal considerations of these wide-ranging impacts, Community Benefits Agreements, which are deals between developers and coalitions of community organizations, address a broad range of community needs. They can implement safeguards to ensure that affected residents share in the benefits of major developments, which the Newburgh/SUNY Project and the Waterfront Redevelopment Project truly are.
Union jobs are middle-income jobs that pay good wages; good wages are central to the city's economic health because they reduce the burden on social, health, and housing programs and assure an adequate supply of discretionary income, in turn resulting in higher tax revenue for the city.
For many development projects, the developer's primary selling point is jobs, but unemployed individuals may need job training in order to become qualified for the new positions; if not, the jobs may be filled by individuals who live in other areas.
One way to assure that our local residents get those jobs is to incorporate targeted hiring requirements that employers in a development hire local individuals - if needed, with the assistance of Jobs/TAP. Targeted hiring programs will help development projects fulfill what is often their most fundamental selling point: building an economic base in low-income communities.
Targeted hiring policies advance what is often the main function of development projects: to help a depressed area by increasing economic opportunities there.
This is often the main purpose cited to justify a development's public subsidy.
Targeting jobs to residents of the neighborhood development is also compelling.
Anytime a development project is built in a low-income neighborhood, residents of the neighborhood are urged to support the project based on promises of job opportunities the project will provide. It is only fair to require that projects promoted on that basis include some mechanism to ensure that local people actually get some, if not most, of the jobs. Therefore developers and local government dangling the prospects of local jobs should be willing to take concrete steps to make their promises a reality.
To that I say that this is one of the major reasons that I'm running for the mayoral seat of the City of Newburgh to assure that these types of safeguards are put in place so that our city can truly benefit and prosper, for when the low- and moderate-income residents are doing better the entire city will reap the benefits of it.
Respectfully submitted by:
Lillie Howard, Mayoral Candidate, City of Newburgh
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