Thursday, August 13, 2009

on c-span: mayor announces 500+ job expansion to downtown youngstown

Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams appeared on c-span on Wednesday and discussed primarily the economic situation of the city. You can watch the 30 minute segment here.

This was the mayor's second time on the nationwide program this year (a description of the first interview here).


The Business-Journal did a nice job of capturing the content of the segment, which can be found here.
"During the segment, Williams characterized Youngstown's economy as "a mixed bag," coping with current economic circumstances as well as the lingering affects of the collapse of the steel industry more than a generation ago. While the city is feeling the effects of the downturn, he said the city is "holding its own," and has a number of economic development projects in the works."
The mayor referenced on the air how a major announcement was coming later in the afternoon.

Then *boom* ... at 2pm in City Council Chambers, it was announced VXI Global Solutions of Los Angeles is looking to expand 500 new positions in their growing company into downtown youngstown. By October 1st, 150 people will be in 20 Federal Place, adding 50 more a month until they hit five-hundred more people working downtown.

That's 500 people eating, walking, looking for services... all downtown.


But you need to go to the Business-Journal's main website today and here the 3 minute conversation on how the deal got done.

To hear Mayor Jay tell it, the fact that Youngstown was just named this month by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the top 10 cities in the U.S. to start a business verified the decision to expand their operations to Youngstown.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday restated the fact Youngstown was named one of the top 10 cities in the U.S. to start a business.

quick reactions, access to leadership, skilled labor force.

that's Youngstown 2010.

relocating support staff are already inquiring about where to live in the region.

good work, team Youngstown.

- - - -

ps. why are the c-span interview filmed in Pittsburgh? Can we get a location in the Mahoning Valley to do that, with a shot of the Youngstown skyline in the background?

3 comments:

Mike Prelee said...

There are at least two TV broadcast studios and one professional media marketing company in the city to yeah, I bet C-Span could conduct an interview here.

Good to see the jobs and it's also nice to see they are a cut above the normal telemarketing call center type jobs we usually see.

Anonymous said...

That's 500 people eating, walking, looking for services... all downtown.

We need to ask if these jobs pay a living wage. If they do not, there won't be much spending downtown. Nor will jobs that can't support a family do much for the area.

Katie Libecco said...

I think the issue isn't the broadcast studies, but haven't the right kind of satellite uplink.