COLUMBUS: Assistant Senate Minority Leader Shirley Smith (D-Cleveland), Senate Minority Whip Lance Mason (D-Cleveland) and Senator Dale Miller (D-Cleveland) hosts the sixth of seven Listening Tours on Friday, June 27, 2008. The open forum explores potential legislative strategies to strengthen Ohio’s urban infrastructures, with a focus on obstacles confronting the City of Cleveland. 

The panel of speakers will examine the challenges facing Ohio’s urban infrastructures, including: home foreclosures (with a focus on abandoned properties and urban blight), economic development, linking Ohio cities through urban development, and impact of Governor Strickland’s $1.57 billion job proposal on Northeast Ohio

Upcoming Listening Tour include: on Wednesday, June 25, 5:30-7 p.m.: Cincinnati (Community-based strategies for confronting urban crime) – Senator Eric Kearney (D-Cincinnati); and Friday, July 11, 1 p.m.: Next-generation Technology, hosted by Senate Minority Leader Ray Miller (D-Columbus) - Center of Science and Industry (COSI), Columbus.

According to organizers, the Listening Tour is a statewide series of public forums designed to build awareness of and support for the legislative vision of the Senate Democratic Caucus through a comprehensive Economic Security Agenda. These public forums will serve as a catalyst to develop specific legislation to spur job creation, provide quality health care, advance clean-coal technology, reduce crime, invest in our urban neighborhoods and end foreclosure. The Listening Tour is an opportunity for the public to inform the Senate Democratic Caucus as it develops legislative solutions for issues relevant to local communities throughout the state of Ohio.

WHAT:           Listening Tour - Urban solutions for urban problems
WHERE:        Cleveland City Council chambers,
                     601 Lakeside Ave., Room 220,
                     Cleveland, OH 44114.
WHEN:           1 p.m. Friday, June 27, 2008