.!.. ~~ohr.- ,(~c~-..b:4u ~" dz ~,k"., {, ~ If,/,(/~ ::' ! '. ; /prj ...... /&f-ds/JI) / tQd; ~?, ~L ?'V:Z:;:1'b/!/n.L /""\ ~~-= """'" &r)·~7 L/~~~ M~nz & /b- ~ ~c?')57? LV ¢tr , <tel rJ&/7) { /A 6~ <12£~ / ~7bW // ' tk ,LZ .~~ «Jz;1;AJUh &on 3bz;k - ~ ,~ · 4- II Ii ~ .li c!-m ~~ .~.tt~C-/L./ ~~1It¥::::= ~b?1¥~v~~ . ~/,4 4. .~~-;t:> ~/b~L ~.a.4&!.rr,,! , MEMORANDUM To: Mayor and City Council From: Marc A. Ott, City Manag Date: March 11, 2010 Subject: Bidwell Training Program The City of Austin has recently been presented with an opportunity to partner with AISD, Travis County and Dell Corporation to conduct a feasibility study for a dynamic program that would provide educational opportunities and job training to youth and adults in our community. When I first arrived as City Manager, it was easy to notice the prosperity Austin had experienced over the years. However, like many cities, there was and still remains a void of opportunity for many of our unskilled adult workers and at-risk youth. At the time, I was only somewhat familiar with the work being done by William E. Strickland, Jr. to address similar issues in Pittsburgh, but was interested in his program and attended a presentation ofhis in Boston. At this presentation, I was enlightened and my interests reaffirmed. Through his examples of once­ desperate single mothers regaining a sense of pride after becoming productive workers to young children migrating from the streets to an afterschool art class, Mr. Strickland gave way to a truly inspirational cause. Mostly, I was inspired by the thought that through collaboration and partnership, we could duplicate the program in Austin and provide our community with an invaluable opportunity. It was also at this presentation that I learned Dell Corporation was interested in Mr. Strickland's program and that they were planning to bring Mr. Strickland to ... Austin for a meeting. I took the opportunity to coordinate other governmental officials to attend this meeting as well. On Monday, December 7, 2009, the Austin Community Foundation and Tim Mattox of the Dell Corporation hosted a community meeting to introduce a successful trade/arts program developed by William E. Strickland, Jr., to serve disadvantaged youth and unemployed adults in Mr. Strickland's Pittsburgh neighborhood. In attendance at this meeting were Board Trustee Cheryl Bradley, County Judge Sam Biscoe, Mayor Leffingwell, Council Member Cole, representatives from the offices of Council Members Spelman and Riley, and myself. Strickland is author of the book, "Make the Impossible Possible", about how his life was turned around by a high school art teacher, leading to an art scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1972, Strickland transfonned a failed vocational center in his home neighborhood into a center that provides after-school art classes (ceramics, digital media, sculpture, etc.) for high school students and vocational education for adults who mayor may not have finished school. The Bidwell's Center model specializes in addressing the training needs of the Pittsburgh commlll1ity. Currently, the program is preparing adults as "pharmaceutical techs", "chemistry techs", gounnet cooks, and photographers. Approximately 200 vocational/academic students attend classes from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. In addition, 500 public school students, ages 13-17, attend an after-school arts program, where they receive five hours of arts instruction per week. Strickland believes that the arts are crucial to unlocking the students' imaginations, which he says is necessary to unlocking their potential. He said this program has data to show that parent engagement is high, dropout rates and absenteeism are down, and graduation rates are up. To date, the Bidwell Training Center Program has been replicated in Grand Rapids, Cincinnati and San Francisco. Plans are under way to replicate the program model in such communities as Boston, Charleston, Columbus and Minneapolis as well as abroad in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Israel. The $15 million center in Pittsburgh was built with significant help from the Hienz Corporation, and a large part of its operating budget is provided through state Vocational Education funds. The Dell Corporation will provide half the $150,000 budget for a planning grant if the Austin Community matches that amOlll1t. AlSO and Travis COlll1ty have agreed to provide $25,000 each to the feasibility study. I have authorized $25,000 from the City of Austin and expressed our commitment to perform the role of Convener, responsible for coordinating the study with the Bidwell Corporation, The 6-8 month planning process would determine the feasibility of replicating the program in Austin. I am very optimistic that the success of the Bidwell Training Program can be replicated here in Austin. We are in the process of completing the initial required documentation for the study and anticipate the study beginning shortly after all documentation has been submitted. Prior to study implementation, I will provide you with a more detailed briefing of the program. Please contact me or ACM McDonald if you have any questions. c.c. Assistant City Managers .' Page 1 of 1 Riley, Chris From: Akwasi Evans [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 20109:30 AM To: Riley, Chris .• :'j:! -'.. ;1" . .i-.1 Subject: Economic Discrimination : ii: .. I:~ J-j: . lr,; :;:1:,; ,,"1 Chns, i' : r~ I need help and I would like for you to consider render that aid. The City Purchasing DepartmentPas~~pn using The Villager, NOKOA, La Prensa and Arriba for over 15 years to attract African American and Latino contractor to bid ()~ City projects. I September the City Purchasing arbitrarily dropped NOKOA from the rotation. When we comp.1~~ne9~bout checks being withheld and our being dropped we forwarded our concerns to the City Manager, Mayor and all the City Coun~P.'M¢jijtber. Only you and Council Member Shade responded. We did get paid for the July, August and September ads that we hadr~p, ~U:t;we did not get our ad reinstated. Instead The Villager, LaPrensa and Arriba were also dropped in October. :1 .. ,~ 'V Those publishers contacted me and asked me to join with them in sending a letter to the City Purcqasipt"Department asking that we all be reinstated as of October. I asked them to instead as Purchasing to reinstate all'of us from the tin:).e ~e>W~re dropped since I was dropped in September when all of them still ran ads. They declined so the three of them sent a letter askingto!lb~:Nirstated as of October. All three were reinstated. NOKOA remains left out. I have sent several correspondences to Mr. Benson aSking o/,hy we were dropped and why we were singled outfor this economic punishment, but he declined to respond. I have signed up for CitizeJ,ls Communication of Dec. 16 to discuss what I consider economic discrimination at a time when the City Council had recently comritit~d to Increase business with NOKOA and The Villager as part of its Quality of Life imitative. There is very little quality in my busi;riess life in Austin at this time and when we most need people to help us make conditions better we have people intentionally taking ~cfi6rt~ that make things worse. Below is the editorial that ran in last week's NOKOA. Please let me know if you can, or will, look into this rr(aiterr. I have contacted no other council members about this at this time because of the way they responded (not) to my earlier blanket reqtiest.:·:. M~ . ·;"f.': .. J ~ Ain't I a :Local Too : ",,'~.~ . By Mwasi Evans .' i' November 26 was "Black Friday". Black Friday is the day when retailers across the country promote their holiciay: -sl\le$ itb spur spending during the long holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last Thursday the local daily paper printed one of its largest issues of theyeq( The paper was filled with inserts and ads so plentiful that the paper almost weighed as much as the Thanksgiving turkey. Auto dealers, appliance stores, appai~h*l!ets, novelty shops, salons, supermarket~, liquor stores, bail bondsmen and bookstores were all offering select bargains to seduce citizens to be among the first in;line:i/t 4:00 a.m. to secure the best deals. But, if you look at Austin's Black owned newspapers or listened to its one Black owned radio station last week you saw no Bhi'(:~. If~jday ads or sponsorships. I can't be the only one who gets the irony of ignoring Black media on Black Friday. Corporate Austin wants Black and flio'l//! people to spend lots of green money, but they aren't willing to invest a copper penny into appealing to those consumer markets through those culture's primary'medi~.putlets of choice. Earlier this year I announced that this might well be the last year that we publish NOKOA in Austin. Some reader:~i i.fll#lir~ied that declaration as the latest episode of me "crying wolf'. Others expressed concern about the void that would be left if Austin's only left-leaning m(Jltil'1Jltu!.\\lil?rogressive weekly newspaper ceased to publish. Ultimately, however, the reality is that we simply can't afford to keep printing a newspaper that doesn'.t:Pfi~ll}n¥.ilOugh revenue to pay the bills. To make matters :-V0rse, this is a "work. and wait business": When we do attract advertisement~ we have to first p~int. the~~p;flr>:;~~4~·the client the invoi.ce and t~ar sheet, and then walt for payment. SometImes we have to walt two, three or four months. SomelImes we have to walt fIve, SIX or.