Let's Hear it For Dayton Ohio! Doing Drew Carey Proud

     With so much bad news to report it's nice to have a man bites dog moment now and again. At the moment that moment is being giving to us by the people of Ohio. Ohio is no doubt doing us proud on a lot of levels, not the least in its ballot initiative to defeat SB 5 in the upcoming special referendum. The polls look good on that.

     Now the city of Dayton, Ohio has decided to be a safe haven for immigrants from places like Alabama and Georgia whose civil rights are under attack:

     "While other states are cracking down undocumented immigrants — and scaring away legal immigrants at the same time — one town is embracing them. Dayton, Ohio officials adopted the “Welcome to Dayton” plan on Oct. 5 to encourage immigrants to settle in their city. They see the potential influx of new residents as a way to boost the city’s economy, while states like Alabama and Georgia that have extreme anti-immigrant laws are seeing their economies suffer."

     "Before the Dayton city commission unanimously approved the plan, Mayor Gary Leitzell, whom the local Republican party endorsed in 2009, said immigrants bring “new ideas, new perspectives and new talent to our workforce. … To reverse the decades-long trend of economic decline in this city, we need to think globally.”

  City leaders aiming to turn Dayton around started examining the immigrant population: Indian doctors in hospitals; foreign-born professors and graduate students at the region’s universities; and owners of new small businesses such as a Turkish family’s New York Pizzeria on the city’s east side and Hispanic-run car lots, repair shops and small markets. They say immigrants have revitalized some rundown housing, moving into and fixing up what had been vacant homes. [...]

Dayton officials say their plan still needs funding and volunteers to help put it in place; they hope by the end of the year. Its key tenets include increasing information and access to government, social services and housing issues; language education and help with identification cards, and grants and marketing help for immigrant entrepreneurs to help build the East Third Street section.
“We will be more diverse, we will grow, we will have more restaurants, more small businesses,” said Tom Wahlrab, the city’s human relations council director, who helped lead the plan’s development.

           http://thinkprogress.org/

         Everyone once and a while someone gets something right. Congratulations to the people of Dayton, Ohio.