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Florissant Council OKs Resolutions To Support Local Jobs
BY CAROL ARNETT
The Florissant City Council passed two resolutions that support keeping jobs in the St. Louis area. The first urged the St. Louis Post Dispatch to “reject the predatory practice of job outsourcing and keep St. Louis area jobs in St. Louis.” The second resolution shows the council’s support for efforts being made by U. S. Senators Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill to save Boeing jobs in the St. Louis area.
Councilman Keith Schildroth worked for the Post Dispatch for 32 years. “I would just like to thank the council for supporting this resolution…I have a long history with the Post Dispatch. The newspapers are the lifeblood of our community and the lifeblood of the democratic process,” he said.
“I wholeheartedly support this,” Mayor Robert Lowery said. “We’ve had enough outsourcing of jobs.” Lowery said he hoped that the Post Dispatch could continue as a daily paper and to do this, he said, they need to quit outsourcing jobs.
In the second resolution, supporting Bond and McCaskill, the city joins other neighboring cities in supporting efforts to keep Boeing jobs in the area.
“[Losing the jobs] would be one of the severest blows that’s ever been rendered on the St. Louis metropolitan area should it occur,” Lowery said. He said he had talked to both senators and they are working hard to keep contracts and jobs in the area. “If we should lose these contracts and they go elsewhere, we’re going to lose potentially 15,000 jobs,” he said.
In other news, the council approved an amendment to the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). The amendment was necessary because the program received an additional $61,000 in stimulus funds.
Denise Mandle, who administers the grant for the city, said that the funds would be used for the city’s home improvement program. She explained that there were restrictions on what the funds could be used for.
“This will allow us to do ten to twelve additional homes,” Mandle said. She said that it would help with energy efficiency in those homes, and with economic development, as they would use local contractors. She explained that the city had a very short time to prepare the bill for the council and asked that they approve it immediately. The council passed the bill.
