Even with editing, our Mayor the trainwreck.
The Drum Major Institute of Public Policy out of NYC has started MayorTV where they post video inteviews of American Mayors.
They interviewed Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin in Miami, Florida at the Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors a few months ago- even with kind editing- you can understand why the citizens of “greater Dayton” don’t have a lot of faith in our Mayor. Watch and weep as you hear a whine about the problems- with no hope in sight. No answers, no questioning how we got here- just- poor us.
On the foreclosure crisis- she’s talking about people losing their pets- instead of outrage against a banking industry that’s being bailed out by the Fed after years of unregulated profiteering.
On the subject of “young people” she talks about the city working to entice them back. Let’s see- the Rob Drydek skate park is in Kettering, after the city of Dayton refused to build one. Motorcyclists who used to come to the Oregon District got chased off with the “one vehicle per spot” parking idiocy. The city of Dayton can’t even build a public dog park downtown for urban dwellers.
I like Rhine as a person, however, her public persona screams clueless.
Compare her interview with Nashville Mayor Karl Dean (Nashville has UniGov):
Your thoughts?
Not so fast! The mayor may not be as articulate as Shillary at CroakInDayton.Comeuppance, but she’s at least trying to grab the bull by the horns. That’s better than talking bull; just go to DaytonMostMediocre.Commedy if you don’t believe me!
^
I have to say Esrati at least had the honesty to provide the context for this clip, linking to the Mayor TV site, which also had links to Drum Major.
So one can see McLin’s statement, and the other mayor’s statements, are part of a political campaign to generate political pressure for a federal urban policy.
The Nashville guy is a much more focused and polished speaker and obviously knows a lot. He’d be great to have here but I’m not sure what he would do if Country Music closed down in Nashville. McLin is not Barack Obama, and was not a great interview on whatever the topic was supposed to be, but I’m not sure what she should do differently, in terms of being Mayor of Dayton. Perhaps someone as articulate as the Nashville guy could dominate a media movement to create public support for doing more for cities. Probably the only way to make that happen is for suburbs to recognize their fates rise or fall together. That’s hard because suburbs exist to escape the problems of cities, particularly schools and crime, not to fix them. Political dynamics have been that suburbs have controlled state and national office, so cities don’t get much. Maybe things are better in Nashville where the suburbs must be at least somewhat committed to a metro system. Mostly Dayton suffers from the globalization of manufacturing and the lack of resources to do much about it. The schools, over which the City Commission has little control, are driven by and drivers of race and class segregation, enhanced by basing the funding on property taxes which many can’t afford. Foreclosures reflect the economy and demographics. Again resources have to come from the outside for the City to say recycle houses to first time homebuyers or make rescue funds available to catch up mortgage payments. McLin did not have much influence on GM’s mediocre quality and emphasis on high gas using trucks. According to another recent Dayton OS post the area is doing well on getting “high impact” firms. No City Hall is great, but these people are not doing that badly given what they has been dealt them. And of course McLin is mostly one vote among five, unlike many more high profile mayors who have executive power. If anything they all get used to thinking small because they have so little to work with. As far as the foreclosure crisis… Read more »
Stan-
It comes down to people don’t have any faith in McLin having any answers- or even any juice in representing them based on her answers.
In San Diego they are creating a “Foreclosure Free Zone” forcing banks to renegotiate loans instead of throwing them into default.
McLin couldn’t ask to borrow a pen-
Hint- we get better candidates when we have fewer offices to fill in the region. Unigov is the first step we need to take.
Weep and whine indeed! And you’re comments on amenities young urbanites are seeking (great parks, even dog parks, better schools, and an interesting downtown) is right on. See a really interesting article in The New Republic on the state of cities at: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=264510ca-2170-49cd-bad5-a0be122ac1a9
I’d be interested on how Dayton aligns (or doesn’t) with its premise.
P.S.: What’s up with the Mayor’s glasses?
The Ehrenhalt piece Ise linked to is pretty good…Ehrenhalt is one of the better urban affairs writers…but I think with his emphasis on Chicago he is looking at a special case. A case that doesn’t apply to stagnant mid-sized metro areas like Dayton.
Does Dayton have enough jobs downtown to fuel that kind of large scale change? Some of this is happening, despite the lack of amenities. Schools are a big driver for people with kids, and that seems true elsewhere too.
FYI, the Humane Society has a free dog park in Dayton located behind their building, about 3 minutes drive from downtown. The City helped by giving the land for free. The private sector stepped up and donated everything else. I’m sure the Humane Society could build more dog parks if the private sector could continue to put up the funding. No pesky government grants required!
@dog owner, isn’t that point of living downtown- NOT having to drive.
Maybe that’s what they should put in on the old Patterson Career Tech site- after the demo :-)