The City Club of Cleveland Podcast

When Secretary Pete Buttigieg first joined us at the City Club in 2019, he was \"Mayor Pete\" of South Bend, Indiana, and already emerged as one of the nation\'s most visionary politicians. In 2021, he was sworn in as the nation\'s 19th Secretary of Transportation and is the first openly gay person confirmed to serve in a president\'s Cabinet. During his tenure as Secretary, he has worked to achieve organizational excellence in the department's operations, and his focus as Secretary has been to deliver the world's leading transportation system for the American people and economy.\r\n\r\nIn his first year at the Department, he prioritized supporting the development and passage of President Biden's signature Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Since the law's passage, Secretary Buttigieg and his team have focused on effectively delivering the investments provided by this legislation, enabling the most significant improvements in U.S. transportation infrastructure in over half a century.\r\n\r\nSecretary Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014. He lives in Traverse City, MI with his husband Chasten, their two children, Gus and Penelope, and their dog.

Beth M. Hammack is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, one of 12 regional Reserve Banks in the Federal Reserve System. She began her term on August 21, 2024. In this capacity, she participates in the formulation of US monetary policy and oversees 1,100 employees in the Bank's Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh offices who conduct economic research, supervise banking institutions, and provide payment services to commercial banks and the US government. Prior to her appointment as Cleveland Fed president, she was cohead of the global financing group at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and a member of the management committee.

In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, four years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees, a small selection of specialty foods, and exceptional sandwiches.\r\n\r\nToday, Zingerman's Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman's Community of Businesses has grown to 11 businesses with over 750 employees and over $65 million in annual revenue. Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first four of his six book series Zingerman's Guide to Good Leading.\r\n\r\nThe conversation will be moderated by New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle. Coyle\'s book The Culture Code was named Best Business Book of the Year by Bloomberg, BookPal, and Business Insider. Coyle has served as an advisor to many high-performing organizations, including the Navy SEALs, Microsoft, Google, and the Cleveland Guardians.

On November 22, 2014, just after 3:30 in the afternoon, a 12-year-old boy was shot by a police officer outside of the Cudell Recreation Center. Tamir Rice had been playing with a toy gun, an airsoft replica that was missing the telltale orange tip. The officer shot Rice twice less than two seconds after getting out of the police cruiser which had not even come to a complete stop. Rice died from his wounds the following day.\r\n\r\nThis tragedy was seen by many to be part of an ongoing pattern of excessive force by the Cleveland Division of Police. In the intervening years, many reform efforts, including a consent decree and a new citizen-led oversight commission, have been attempted and implemented to not only reduce violence but also improve relations between police and the communities they serve.

At a time when the world seems fraught with polarization and violence, it\'s important to pause and witness the resiliency and solidarity of communities who are committed to working together to address poverty, injustices, inequality, and many other disparities.\r\n\r\nFounded in 1974, as a response to the predominate mission model at the time, IPM was as groundbreaking then as it is today. A global organization based right here in Northeast Ohio, IPM is the premier, intersectional and multi-faith organization that nurtures & affirms justice, solidarity, and peace.\r\n\r\nAnyang\' Nyong\'o, the current Governor of Kisumu County, in the Republic of Kenya, is known by many as the Mandela of Kenya. He has a long list of exceptional political accomplishments focusing on education, economic development, health, and social services. Along with his wife Dorothy Nyong\'o, who is incredibly remarkable as the First Lady of Kisumu, Kenya and Founding and Managing Trustee of the African Cancer Foundation. Dorothy also serves as a member of IPM's International Executive Board and Regional Vice-Chair for Sub-Saharan Africa. Both are the parents of five children, including Oscar award-winning actress Lupita Nyong\'o.

In the 2nd youth led forum of the year, we will focus on how racial inequities in education are deeply entrenched in the American school system, affecting not just individual students but the broader landscape of educational achievement and opportunity.\r\n\r\nResearch shows that schools with higher concentrations of students from marginalized racial and ethnic groups are more likely to experience underfunding, overcrowded classrooms, and limited access to advanced coursework and resources. This systemic inequality can contribute to lower graduation rates and diminished college and career readiness across the board, impacting the ability of schools to produce well-rounded, critical-thinking scholars.\r\n\r\nAccording to a report by the U.S. Department of Education, schools serving predominantly minority students receive roughly $23 billion less in funding each year than those serving predominantly white students. These disparities not only hinder the academic potential of individual students but also compromise the overall quality of education in America, limiting the nation's ability to cultivate diverse, informed, and capable leaders for the future.\r\n\r\nThis forum will dive into the root causes of these inequities, their impact on students of all backgrounds, and what can be done to create a more equitable and inclusive educational system.

Whatever the outcome, this year's general election will be both historic and consequential. Majorities in both the House and Senate hang on razor thin margins that could reverse this November. And with the race for the White House a statistical toss up, our nation could be welcoming either a glass ceiling shattering Democrat or the return of an executive who remade the Presidency as much as he has remade the Republican Party.\r\n\r\nWhether Trump or Harris is victorious, Congress will have to find a way to work with the administration and across party lines to do the work of the American people. Among those doing that work for Northeast Ohio are Congressional Representatives Shontel Brown (D-11) and Max Miller (R-7).

The outcome of the 2024 election may not be decided the evening of Tuesday, November 5th, but regardless of the results, the next President will be faced with some of the most urgent and pressing decisions regarding foreign policy. Both Presidents Biden and Trump have attempted to move foreign policy in different directions, but with lukewarm results and pushback from both domestic and international powers. How will tariffs, immigration, climate change, multiple contentious wars, and more influence the next President\'s first 100 days?

Across America, we\'re still in the middle of a great re-making of the news industry. The decline that began several years ago hasn\'t abated, but new models of journalism are beginning to take root, many of them organized as nonprofits. Much of that growth is fueled by a new philanthropic collaborative. According to its website, \"Press Forward is a national coalition investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news, and to scale the infrastructure the sector needs to thrive.\"\r\n\r\nWhen Dale Anglin took the helm of Press Forward as its inaugural director, she spoke about the importance of proximity. \"We know proximity supports trust building,\" she said. \"Local journalism is proximity. It provides knowledge and information that's not only important for quality-of-life decisions but also can serve as a powerful mechanism for motivating people to take action.\"\r\n\r\nAs part of the City Club\'s 2024 Annual Meeting, and at a moment when voters prepare for one of the most consequential elections in a generation, Anglin joins City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop for a conversation about the state of free speech, the news industry, and access to information across our communities.

New federal legislation (i.e., Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act) is currently and will continue to deliver over a trillion dollars in new investments in states and localities. These historic investments have the potential to reshape local and regional economies, while creating good jobs, accelerating the transition to a green economy, strengthening and building supply chains, and rebuilding aging infrastructure. To untap the full potential of these investments, localities will need strong partnerships between communities, labor unions, worker organizations, employers, the workforce system, philanthropy and government. Please join us for this session to learn, share and explore more about the opportunities of building effective and durable coalitions and partnerships with lessons from Cleveland and across the nation.\r\n\r\nPronita Gupta is a Senior Fellow at Workshop focused on labor and worker rights issues. Most recently, she served in the Biden White House as Special Assistant to the President for Labor and Workers on the Domestic Policy Council, developing and implementing policies on worker rights, job quality, equity, workforce development, supply chain issues, and the care economy. Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Ms. Gupta served as the Director of Job Quality at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), promoting policy solutions to create more responsive workplaces, improve job quality for workers, strengthen worker protections, and increase economic security for low-income working families.\r\n\r\nIn the Obama Administration, Ms. Gupta was appointed Deputy Director of the Women's Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor. In that role, she worked to advance and improve standards, practices, and opportunities for women in the labor force.