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ALMOST A MILLION DOLLARS AWARDED TO UMKC
I was thrilled this week to inform leaders of UMKC that they have been awarded almost $1 million in grant funding for digital innovation. I applaud UMKC for earning this award and look forward to following their continued success in expanding innovation, commercialization, and new enterprise formation in Kansas City.
This award recognizes UMKC as a soon-to-be model for innovating right here at home. And it will increase the quantity and quality of entrepreneurs coming from Missouri’s Fifth District. It will also create jobs and good opportunities for local economic development.
I was honored to go to bat for UMKC and help bring these dollars home. The Department of Commerce has recognized what we have known for a very long time – that UMKC is setting benchmarks for excellence.
This grant will fund UMKC’s Digital Sandbox Proof of Concept Center, which creates a new process for commercialization in Kansas City, by clustering digital innovation in a central hub and providing the needed technology infrastructure. The Sandbox addresses two immediate gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: connecting large industry to the entrepreneurial and university research networks and providing technical assistance funding for early-stage concept development. The project seeks to produce up to 15 new ventures over a two-year period.
GREEN IMPACT ZONE GETTING PEOPLE BACK TO WORK
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Essential Employability Skills Class Graduation
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The Green Impact Zone continues to hold Essential Employability Skills (ESS) classes. It is a part of the ongoing effort to teach attendees skills that will prepare them for interviews, help them write resumes, and learn self-management skills. This is a need that was identified after the realization that some residents were getting job opportunities but weren’t equipped with the full skill set needed to get and keep this employment. The ESS classes address this issue.
I applaud the leaders of the Green Impact Zone for also reaching out to businesses that are hiring and bringing them in to conduct job interviews. One graduate was offered a job right on the spot.
CIVILITY CORNER
During the 90’s, I served as Mayor of Missouri’s largest municipality, Kansas City, Missouri. It was a fabulously rewarding job. In fact, I told other mayors of that era that we stood on center stage in the national drama. We dealt with the most uncomplicated and nonpartisan issues facing Americans, like trash pickup, malfunctioning traffic lights, and the biggest issue in the world of city government, potholes. It makes sense that pothole politics was a big deal, because hitting one of those holes could do major damage to cars.
As a mayor, I would travel through the streets of the city, see a pothole, and then call the public works director to ask if he would send a crew to fill the hole. Later that same day I knew that the hole would be repaired. In Congress, it would take at least three years to make the repair. The legislation would be introduced one year, and one side would devise a way for the pothole repair to be used for messaging. One side would blame the other for the cold weather and snow, which caused the pothole. The other side would seek to amend the bill to also include an investigation to determine whether the hole repair is, in reality, an outlawed and evil earmark. Five or six years later, when the pothole becomes a canyon, a Dear Colleague would be signed by many, but to no avail. Each side would accuse the other of pothole hostility.
Anyway, after a few years of dealing with potholes, I would tell constituents that, in the main, I saw my Mayoral job as a hole fixer. And as I have thought deeply about my role as a U.S. Representative, I concluded that my colleagues and I are Federal hole fixers. Think about it! We are called to keep the American people, regardless whether they are Democrats or Republicans, out of holes. When we spot a hole, our job is to fill it, before U.S. citizens fall in and get hurt, of course. When an American is in a hole, we pull them out.
Not for ourselves were we elected. To awaken each morning with the goal of doing our uttermost to pull some Americans out and prevent others from falling into holes, will provide our soul with compensation and joy that winning elections can never duplicate.
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Emanuel Cleaver, II
Member of Congress
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