404 Oak Street,
Lower Level
Syracuse, NY 13203

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VISION

VICTORY!!!!!!

Yesterday (June 10th 2009), Syracuse took a small step towards accountable economic development. The Syracuse School Board unanimously passed a Community Benefits Agreement that will provide training opportunities for Syracuse School students, and start a pipeline of trained young people for careers in the construction field. The Syracuse School System will be embarking on a ten year, billion-dollar rehabilitation of every school in Syracuse. Juniors and Seniors from various Syracuse City Schools will shadow and observe what it takes to get a large project done – and how they can have a career. Working with the various building trades training programs to ensure that when the students graduate from high school, they will be prepared to become apprentices and eventually, journeymen and women.

A Community Benefits Agreement is a legally binding agreement between community groups and developers that lays out how the development will benefit the local community. Usual components are job quality and wage standards, job training, affordable housing, environmental standards, and other items that the community deems as needed for their community.

This CBA is a first small step for our community. The next step is to have a CBA with a private developer that truly redefines economic development in our area and shows, as this agreement does, that we can all win when it comes to using pubic resources in economic development.

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SANE is working to build a vibrant local economy where the community participates fully in decision-making and shares equitably in economic progress. SANE believes that everyone in Central New York is entitled to: