When will politics be about the people instead of the GREEN paper? How many more affordable Housing buildings do we need in a city that’s only 4×4 square miles? Why are we continuing down the lonely dark road of addressing the effects and not the cause of our cities problems; soon we will be lost.
By no means are we against affordable housing but we have seen this type of blood sucking of black communities before. It was reported on the inquirenews.com that Chanel Hyde of Mothers of Mt. Vernon and The Shomari Knox Organization are proposing the “Mt. Vernon Reinvestment Act”. This proposal will would require private and non-profit developers seeking to build affordable housing structures in the city – to financially donate a percentage of the project’s total cost to a new social re-investment effort.
Interesting the last time we reported on Ms. Hyde she was appointed the Gang Intervention Coordinator. Again, Ms. Hyde had no law enforcement experience, not from Mt. Vernon, and no gang experience. Now she proposes legislation for city council. Ms. Hyde is a busy bee in Mt. Vernon politics, even though she has no experience whatsoever. We wonder who is pulling her strings. Lately, inexperience in Mt. Vernon city government has been the norm. In the words of the great Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as Stupid does”.
Instead of demanding percentages of the monies to go to programs that will have handpicked administrators of city government that most likely will be friends, family members with no experience and the funds would be absorbed in administrative cost before any child can benefit from the program. Why don’t we demand that these big companies, with the big construction contracts to employee our residents on these construction projects? That is true reinvestment in our community; employment! You don’t do business in our city unless you hire the unemployed in our city.
How do you think the city of Atlanta grew its Black middle class base to Black millionaires? The first Black Mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson gave 50 percent of all city contracts to the Blacks that had businesses in the city. From that single act the people of the city flourished. In the 90s Atlanta was the Mecca for blacks to do business. Black people traveled from all over the county to do business there. Unfortunately, we had many black Mayors in Mt. Vernon, oh well, next subject.
The main problem with our youth is the lack of jobs. It’s heartbreaking to see construction in a city that is over 60 percent Black and a construction crews with NO Black people working. We all know that there are electricians, carpenters and masons looking for work in Mt. Vernmon. This is unacceptable! It’s a slap in the face to people of Mt. Vernon and a slap in the face to those black businesses that are looking for contracts and are constantly overlooked.
This is not a new problem in Mt. Vernon, its decades of selfishness and personal agendas. We are now seeing the result of years of neglect. As Black people we are the majority. We run city hall, department of education, city council, and just making a complete mess of things. We went from Money Earning to Murderville and we still won’t look to revolutionary measures to solve a cancer that has spread throughout and we are in fatal condition.
The black community has suffered the hardest during the economic downturn, with an unemployment rate that currently stands at 15.6%. That’s a much higher rate than for all of the other races that the Labor Department tracks, including Hispanics (12.7%), whites (9.3%) and Asians (7.3%).
It’s elementary; no support of local business, no jobs for the local people. Then they scratch their heads in amazement why young black men are out of work. They wonder why young black men turn to gangs and selling drugs to make a living and feed their families. We are beginning to believe that these self-serving politicians just don’t give a damn. We have repeatedly seen the city sold to the highest bidder that has no interest in our youth and won’t employ them if we don’t demand it from them.
Wow, this is deep the people need to organize and fight for what’s right