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2- January 28, 2009The Chronicle
co-ordinator Ernest Andrade and the division of businessservices.In a press statement Riley said Oakman would work with minority businesses. Charleston’s controversialMinority Business Development Office is the only one of its kind operated by a local municipality and has encoun-tered continued scrutiny since its inception. Oakman’s hir-ing raises questions about the office’s past and futureaccomplishments.Councilman James Lewis, starting his 14th year representing District 3 said the city’s Minority BusinessDevelopment Office has accomplished nothing during histhree terms in office and calls the reorganization of thedepartment and Oakman’s hiring “just another high paying job for a white person with the city.” He said the Minority Business Development Office is “a joke.” Dist. 4 Representative Robert Mitchell, like other council members is unfamiliar with the reorganization of the economic development department, Oakman or hisresponsibilities. “I know he (Riley) brought Andrade back, but Idon’t know the mayor’s agenda,” said Mitchell who hasserved on council since 1997. The minority business development office has had minimalsuccess over the years, Mitchell said. But since councilmembers have had no input in the department’s reorgani-zation or Oakman’s hiring, he can’t say if Riley’s actions will result in improvements to the minority business devel-opment office.Councilman Larry Shirley said council is being told the city is meeting its minority business participationgoals and he feels the minority business development officehas done a moderate job of reaching out to the minority business community. But ultimately it will be minority business leaders who will determine how successful theoffice can become, Shirley said. The nation is entering a new era led by President Barack Obama and the president’s proposed stimuluspackage to cities offers local minorities an excellent oppor-tunity for inclusion, Shirley added.Councilman Timothy Mallard, like his colleagues,is unfamiliar with Riley’s reorganization or Oakman. “We have not done a good job with economic development in the past, business development or job cre-ation,” Mallard said. With regard to the city’s minority business development office specifically Mallard said, “Inthis city if Joe Riley doesn’t want it, it doesn’t get done. “I think the minority business development officecan be more successful, but Riley has to put more money into it for marketing purposes. The minority businessdevelopment office hasn’t been promoted,” he said.
Councilman Lewis--------------------------------------cont. from pg 1
high minority, high poverty schools. That’s always so.” Henoted no schools in the predominantly white constituent districts of Mt. Pleasant, James Island or West Ashley ever were targeted for closure. That high minority/poverty schools are the target for theadministration is troubling, said Butzon, but more trou-bling is his belief the current low performing and enroll-ment conditions existing at the schools being used to justi-fy their closure have been created by the administration. The administration developed criteria to identify schoolsthat could be closed such as low student performance andenrollment. Those criteria are a history of the administra-tion’s failure to educate all children, “But their acting likethat’s not their responsibility,” Butzon said. “The responsibility for all that sits at 75 Calhoun St. The way to avoid low performance is to provide schools first rate resources. When that doesn’t happen you get low per-formance and of course you’re going to lose enrollment when schools don’t perform well,” he said. “Somehow we did it again. Maybe we didn’t mean to do it,but we didn’t mean not to do it either. By not doing thethings it takes to avoid problems, we did it again.” Darrin Griffin who chaired the committee appointed todevelop restructuring alternatives to the initial administra-tion proposal for Constituent Dist. 23 said he doesn’t believe the administration’s proposals have anything to do with economics. Low performing schools and studentsmake the administration look bad, “I don’t believe this hasanything to do with money,” he said. The administration has said employees displaced by theclosures would be absorbed in other positions with thecounty. Closing the buildings but continuing to employ the staff results in only minimal savings, Griffin said.Like Butzon, Griffin who has three children which attend-ed schools outside Dist. 23 said past policies created prob-lems for the district’s schools.Linda Gadson, Director of Rural Missions, Inc. on JohnsIsland lives in Hollywood echoed Butzon and Griffin say-ing, “The proposed closing of Schroeder Middle Schoolsaddens me, but it all reverts back to money and who getsit. It’s hard to say what those folks have planned down theroad, but they definitely have a plan. “It’s hard for anybody in the minority community to holdonto anything now because the justification will be that there’s no money. This gives families the chance to rise up,stay diligent and attend all the meetings,” she said.
Targeting Minority ---------------------------------------cont. from pg 1
after he delivered a verballashing to a California Highway Patrol officer. The eight-page ruling included examples of lan-guage the court said hadonce shocked people but now is generally acceptedthroughout society. “Who in that earlier gener-ation, can forget the shock waves generated by Clark Gable when, as Rhett Butler, he said to Scarlett, ‘Frankly my dear. I don’t give a damn,” the justicessaid, quoting from themove classic, “Gone With The Wind.” Callahan was convicted by a jury of a misdemeanor charge of uttering offensive words in public that couldprovoke violent reactions. According to court records, Callahan cursed a CHP during a heated
Vulgarity to ------------------------------------------------cont. from pg 1
store, still in business, at Line and Percy streets.Henry Brooks died in 1952 and Benny went into business with younger brother Albert. During the mid-1950s thebrothers closed the Cumberland Street restaurant andopened a grill on Morris Street.Several years later they bought three houses on Washington Street for use as rooming houses. They expanded their businesses on Morris Street to include a motel built in 1963 at Felix and Morris streets, a new restaurant on Morris Street built in 1963, a real estateoffice housed in the old grill and a pool room on MorrisStreet.Like most Black owned businesses the coming of integra-tion ushered in an era of declining business for the broth-ers. Albert’s death in 1993 and Benny’s failing health has-tened further decline.But Jean Brooks Murphy said during their years of pros-perity her father and uncles created a legacy that touchedhundreds of employees, their families and countless other Black entrepreneurs. “They took care of everyone who worked for them, helping some get homes and sending others’ children to college. If an employee was sick they’d give the family money and insome cases they paid for burials. They gave a foot up tomany young men going into business,” Mrs. Murphy said.Fielding added, “A lot of young people probably don’t know it, but Benny and his brothers were an inspiration toa lot of us coming up in that era.”
The Passing ------------cont. from pg 1
always ready to listen to the problem of others. It was dur-ing the era of strict segregation in this city that he, along with his late brother, Albert, owned and operated BrooksRestaurant and Motel, which was the gathering mecca of African-Americans where many of the strategies designedto counter the racism so prevalent at the time. He gave of himself because that was his way.On a personal note it was Albert and Benny Brooks who invited, on my Navy Retirement, me and my young family to stay in the motel and dine in the restau-rant, and when I decided to start this newspaper with big dreams and no money, they arranged for the bank to accessthe funds I needed. That will stay with me forever.It was at the motel where local and national lead-ers, denied accommodations in area high-end hotels, foundcomfort and soul food, including Coretta Scott-King, Rev.Ralph Abernathy, Daddy King, Walter Reuter, Herbert Fielding, Gussie Humes, Big John Chisolm, Arthur Christopher and many others, all legends made welcomed-by Albert and Benny Brooks. What makes this particular breed of man tick? Is it the hope that he may gain something? Or, is it the hopethat he may gain something? Or, is it in hope that he willbecome the knight in shining armor for someone? Wethink none of these is so. We also thing that the Benny Brooks of the world are placed here by the Creator to givehope in a hopeless world. While most folks will not know Benny Brooks or his brother, Albert, per se, there have been few to measureup to their monumental contributions to a community both loved so much, and they deserve whatever tributethat can be paid. They have earned it, with love and com-passion for others.So long, Brother Benny. Jim French
Benny and ------------------------------------------------cont. from pg 1
exchange at an accident scene. The appellate court referred to the unmention-able name as “TheCallahan Epithet” through-out its opinion.By: Dinesh Ramde, APBusiness Writer MILWAUKEE - Please,please accept a high-paying job with us. In fact, just swing by for an interview and we'll give you a chanceto win cash and prizes.Sounds too good to betrue, especially in an econ-omy riddled with job cutsin nearly every industry.But applicants for nursing jobs are still so scarce that recruiters have been forcedto get increasingly inven-tive.One Michigan company lit-erally rolled out a red car-pet at a recent hiring event.Residential Home Health, which provides in-homenursing for seniors onMedicare, lavished regis-tered nurses and other health care workers withfree champagne and a trivia contest hosted by game-show veteran Chuck Woolery. Prizes included a one-year lease for a 2009SUV, hotel stays and din-ners."We're committed to find-ing ways to creatively engage with passive jobseekers," said DavidCurtis, president of theMadison Heights-basedcompany.Recruiters like Curtis may have little choice. Thelong-standing U.S. nurseshortage has led to chronic understaffing that canthreaten patient care andnurses' job satisfaction,and the problem is expect-ed to worsen. The shortage has beenoperating since World War II on an eight- to 10-year cycle, industry experts say.Each time the number of nurses reaches a criticallow, the government adds
Nursing Industry Desperate to Find New Recruits
funding and hospitalsupgrade working condi-tions. But as the deficit eases, those retentionefforts fade and eventually the old conditions return,often driving nurses intoother professions."We recently had a hiring event where, for experi-enced nurses to interview - just to interview - we gavethem $50 gas cards," said Tom Zinda, the director of recruitment at WheatonFranciscan Healthcare inthe Milwaukee-area city of Glendale. "We really try toget as creative as we can.It's a tough position tofill."Recruiters across the coun-try have tried similar tech-niques, offering chair mas-sages, lavish catering andcontests for flat-screen TVs, GPS devices andshopping sprees worth asmuch as $1,000.Even strong salaries aren't doing the trick. Registerednurses made an average of $62,480 in 2007, ranging from a mean of $78,550 inCalifornia to $49,140 inIowa, according to govern-ment statistics. Including overtime, usually abun-dantly available, the most experienced nurses canearn more than $100,000. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts about 233,000 additional jobs will open for registerednurses each year through2016, on top of about 2.5million existing positions.But only about 200,000candidates passed theRegistered Nurse licensing exam last year, and thou-sands of nurses leave theprofession each year.Several factors are in play:a lack of qualified instruc-tors to staff training pro-grams, lack of funding for training programs, difficult working conditions andthe need for expertise inmany key nursing posi-tions.Cheryl Peterson, the direc-tor of nursing practice andpolicy for the AmericanNurses Association inSilver Spring, Md., saidemployers must raisesalaries and improve work-ing conditions."The wages haven't kept up with the level of respon-sibility and accountability nurses have," saidPeterson, whose organiza-tion represents nurses'interests. Chronic under-staffing means nurses areoverworked, she said, andas burned-out nurses leavethe situation spirals for thecolleagues they leavebehind.Some hospital depart-ments where experience is vital, such as the emer-gency room or intensive-care unit, simply cannot hire newly minted nurses.So managers in those areashave even fewer staffing choices.Nurses qualified to teachaspiring nurses are scarcechiefly because they canmake at least 20 percent more working at a hospital,experts said."It can be hard to turndown that extra money,"said Robert Rosseter, theassociate executive direc-tor of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in Washington,D.C.Many recruiters havelooked for employees over-seas, and about one-fourthof the nurses who earnedtheir licenses in 2007 wereeducated internationally,most in the Philippines andIndia.Some health organizationsgo out of their way torecruit as many nurses aspossible even when they'reoverstaffed.Residential Home Health,the home-nursing company in Michigan, is alwayslooking to hire, Curtissaid. Even with 375 clinicalprofessionals on staff, hisrecruiters are eager to signup as many as 50 morenurses and therapists,hence the Chuck Woolery event.Zinda, the Milwaukee-area recruiter, said creativerecruiting helps to intro-duce nurses to his hospital.Besides offering intervie- wees $50 gas cards, he hasprovided $100 gift cards tothe local mall, and createda Facebook page to target younger nurses. Attracting good candi-dates is about offering good working conditions,he said, but creativerecruiting goes a long way in generating a buzz."Bottom line, you need toget people excited about what you're offering," hesaid. "If you don't, they caneasily go elsewhere."
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