Tuesday, January 15, 2008

local production for local consumption

Mayor Jackson wants local companies to get more city work - cleveland.com -- Our friend Norm Ezzie promotes "local production for local consumption" as something that's integral to a healthy community.

Frank Jackson's new initiative, based on his proclamation yesterday that "We have to invest in our own people," should help turn the tide when it comes to the letting of contracts, but he has a lot of work to do. Doner (rhymes with "boner"?) Advertising of Southfield, Michigan, seems to have a real toehold when it comes to advertising Cleveland+; the airport (CLE) advertises very little, if any, local business through ClearChannel and its Allentown, PA, based office, formerly known as Interspace; and, those irritating, tacky street kiosks come to us compliments of Omni Media/Astral Media, a Montreal firm with a skeleton token staff here.

I'm hoping these initial opportunities for Clevelanders aren't those of street bootblacks and sandwich-board wearers outside the new casinos, whenever the "businessmen" get ready to take another run at it.

4 comments:

  1. Just FYI... the Cleveland+ stuff was handled by Doner's Cleveland office, not Detroit. So if you don't like the campaign, blame the locals.

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  2. I have no real beef with the campaign. As a matter of fact, I've grown rather fond of it, for many reasons, one of which is that it lends itself so to all sorts of takeoffs.

    My point is that the community-spent dollars go to the out-of-town "experts" with regularity. There's some sort of psychological pathology going around this town, in which some think that their community members just can't be good enough, because they live and work alongside them. It's about self-esteem.

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  3. you have to admit though - there is an unusually large number of idiots in this community. how else to explain voting these same incompetent boobs into office time and time again, failure after failure after miserable failure?

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  4. I guess I just explain it as a typically American phenomenon we all just have to change, in the next few years, even though it's a lot of work.

    Your comment also reminds me of the fact that I'm going to have to begin requiring identities on the part of my commenters/commentators. It's so much better having a community dialogue if all parties are known and carry the same risks and responsibilities.

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