Attendees: Valley must invest in jobs, future

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The Valley needs to devise new 21st-century jobs, one businessman said.

By SEAN BARRON

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

AKRON — Bobbie Dunn feels that the Mahoning Valley is at a point where it's critical to invest in the future, something that means more than people just showing up to vote during elections.

It means training more teenagers and others for trade-industry jobs as well as high-technology ones to keep more of them in the area, said Dunn, of Girard, a student at Youngstown State University.

"We need more jobs for high school graduates," she said.

Dunn added that she would like to see the Valley be the site for an industry designed to make products from recycled materials, one way she said more decent-paying jobs could be created and the area's ability to compete globally and locally might be enhanced. Workers, many of whom already have a trade, could be trained and "the Mahoning Valley could be put on the map," Dunn added.

About the event

Dunn was one of hundreds of people from Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana and 13 other Northeast Ohio counties to attend Saturday's Voices & Choices second Regional Town Meeting at Akron University's Rhodes Arena. The seven-hour round-table session was the culmination of about 18 months' worth of collaboration in which citizens and leaders worked together to solve what they said were key regional challenges facing Northeast Ohio and to come up with an agenda to improve the region's economic vitality and future.

During the 18-month process, about 20,000 people from the region came up with what they said were six main challenges: attracting and growing businesses in Northeast Ohio; addressing school funding and accountability; training workers for current and future jobs; dealing with government fragmentation and inefficiency; working on improved racial inclusion and income equality; and addressing sprawl and regional connectivity.

About 900 people at the town meeting formed small, interactive, randomly picked groups and sat at any of 88 tables to brainstorm and prioritize solutions. Each table was equipped with a laptop computer into which data was fed, as well as a facilitator who collected their ideas and helped keep the dialogue focused.

A "theme team" was set up to gather groups' input and identify common issues. Information was shown on a large overhead screen to allow participants to quickly see and respond to results.

Speaking out

Others from the Valley who attended were Sara Davison and her daughter, Katlyn, both of Newton Falls, and Joe Planey of Boardman.

Sara Davison, who works for Boardman Molded Products and Space Links International in Boardman, said education was important because it sets the stage for a more qualified and productive work force. Education also relates to and affects the other challenges, she added.

Katlyn, 17, a senior at Newton Falls High School, echoed her mother's sentiments, saying that developing more jobs will entice additional companies to locate in the area. A problem in the Valley, she added, is that there's an abundance of educational and training programs but not enough jobs, as well as available jobs with too little training for them.

"Work this out and more businesses will come here and would keep people here," she said.

Too many schools lag behind, causing some students to have to take remedial classes, Katlyn continued. Such students have to pay for but not receive college credit for the courses, which acts as a disincentive for them to consider college, she added.

A powerful tool

Planey, president of Planey Consulting Co. of Boardman, said that providing more jobs drives better school funding and a higher tax base, and feeds on itself by attracting new businesses. It's often too difficult for one person to impact government officials, so something like the regional meeting is a powerful tool to affect policy, he continued.

"We need to accelerate the amount of money and efforts in research and development and come up with new 21st-century jobs," he said.

Toward the end of the meeting, results were compiled into a report, which was to be distributed to participants and decision-makers. The next phase of the process should begin in March 2007 and will focus on outcomes clarified by data in the agenda, said Gwendolyn McDay, fund coordinator with the Fund for Our Economic Future, a collaborative effort set up to improve the region's economic competitiveness. Additional dialogue circles sponsored by Voices & Choices are set for October, she added.

For more information about Voices & Choices, visit its Web site at www.voiceschoices.org.

Sunday, September 17, 2006