"Community benefit agreements, and policies, are a reaction to economic development practices that have left communities behind, workers impoverished, and the environment degraded. Too often public contracts have gone to employers paying low wages and doing poor quality work, with little thought to the environment and community impact. In the long run, we all pay for this low-road approach. The Cuyahoga County Community Benefit & Opportunity Initiative, introduced by Cuyahoga County Council in December 2014, is a comprehensive policy designed to maximize value of the county’s taxpayer dollars. The initiative will strengthen the local economy by: Creating more local jobs and ensuring workers in those jobs receive living wages. Ensuring our workforce reflects the great diversity of our community Creating opportunity for disadvantaged workers, targeting residents from the county’s poorest neighborhoods. Building career pathways out of poverty through on-the-job training opportunities and support for pre-apprenticeship programs. Ensuring high-quality, energy-efficient building, with cost-effective sustainable technology, which will reduce costs to taxpayers in the long run. It will also ensure the county considers health the impact of public projects over the long haul. The upshot is: More local jobs with higher wages Less poverty and stronger neighborhoods A more diverse and productive workforce Long-term economic and environmental sustainability"

Cities and counties from across the nation are pioneering new clean energy solutions that could help end our nation’s oil addiction and create good jobs, according to the most recent report from the Apollo Alliance. Four Ohio municipalities: Bowling Green, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, are highlighted in the national report. Policy Matters Ohio, Apollo’s Ohio partner, is thrilled that New Energy for Cities highlights dozens of representative municipal programs that promote renewable power, reduce oil consumption, make buildings more efficient and promote smart growth. The mission of Ohio Apollo is to work with Ohio’s cities to adopt these policies and create jobs through environmentally sound and energy efficient solutions.

Higher minimum wage would reduce inequality, benefit families, offer women and workers of color higher wages. The report recommendsto raise the wage in Columbus to $12 per hour by 2021.

The food assistance program (once called food stamps, now commonly referred to as SNAP, which stands for supplemental nutrition assistance program) makes a big dent in hunger and poverty. In the most recent annual data from the federal Food and Nutrition Service, SNAP food benefits reduced the share of Ohio participants living in deep poverty by 10 percentage points and increased the share living above the poverty line by 10 percentage points.

The new GOD federal tax law allow rich Americans who send their childrento private school a tax cut to save money for their higher education. However, the report states that the government should expand opportunity for all Ohioans not just rich people. Tax deduction are costly and does not make college more affordable to Ohioans. Such tax break will benefit the extreme wealthy but not benefit about college. The government should not use contribution to 529 plan to pay for K-12, but use to support public education.

This ordinance extends the registration requirements for non-owner-occupied dwelling units to encompass vacant structures; modifies the information required for registration statements; modifies the fees for registration; modifies or repeals certain registration fee exceptions; modifies the civil penalty for violation of these registration requirements; repeals the license fee for multiple-family dwellings and rooming houses; creates provisions relating to the registration of non-owner- occupied dwellings and vacant structures and to the licensing of multiple-family dwellings and rooming houses.

Unemployment compensation provides the most basic benefits to workers who lose their job through no fault of their own. It lets these workers keep the rent paid and the lights on for a short time, while they find a new position. Letting workers get real help with retraining and reemployment will do more to increase solvency while maintaining the shared benefits and important economic protections provided by unemployment compensation.

Jobs can be created by restoring public sector jobs, investing in infrastructure, and investment in green energy. Employmeent compensation can be created by improving the income tax credit, retaining expandd medicaid, raise the minimum wage, and promoting community benefit agreements. To protect workers' rights, the state needs to prevent wage theft, enforce labor law and preserve collective bargaining. Simultaneously, the state should offer earned paid sick days, provide parental leave and invest in job trainning.

This ordinance requires every person who possesses a firearm to notify the police department of the destruction, loss or theft of his or her firearm within 48 hours of when the person knows or should have known. An individual should also notify the department of a sale, transfer, inheritance or other disposition of the firearm within 48 hours. A person who violates this ordinance will be fined between $1,000 and $5,000 and be incarcerated for between 90 and 180 days. In addition, the ordinance requires an individual to report to the police within 72 hours the loss, theft, or destruction of his or her Chicago firearm permit or firearm registration certificate.

This report discusses the concept, features, and implementation of municipal-level community benefits agreements (CBAs) in California. This report notes that these agreements enhance trust and cooperation between employees, businesses, communities, and governments by contractually binding them to one another following CBA negotiations. Notably, where large scale development projects are bound to a community through a CBA, this report finds that the economic growth and development is more wide spread across the community where developers and communities have a CBA in place than in cases where developers are not bound to the community through some contract. This report finds that CBAs both open lines of communication between community groups and developers and foster greater coordination between communities and developers by establishing goals of development.