Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Vindy article takes the lead

Kudos to Harold Gwin, who wrote an article in today's Vindy which clearly showed a commitment to the city following the shooting death of a man at the South High School football stadium. In Gwin's summary story, which recapped the incident and the community reaction, there were many angles he could have lead with (the victim, the shooter, the witness reaction, the city resident vs suburban resident), but his lead focused on the mayor's simple comments from the day before (which also appeared in the previous days paper) urging people to stay in the city, look out for one another, and take back the community. I often disagree with the Vindy for one reason or other, but today they got it right.

Vindicator article: "Mayor: Let's take the city back"

YOUNGSTOWN — Mayor Jay Williams believes people can choose to do one of two things after the shooting death of a man at a youth football game Saturday: Sit at home, or push forward with renewed commitment to safety and taking back the community.

He's choosing to do the latter.

It would be unfortunate should teams from suburban communities decide to no longer bring their children to play in Youngstown, Williams said.

There have been peewee games played in the city for decades without incident, and those games will continue to be played at city venues, he added.

Fears for children's safety are shared by every parent in Youngstown. No one can guarantee absolute safety, but Youngstown will do everything it can to make those venues as safe as possible, Williams vowed.

1 comment:

Mike Prelee said...

The article was good but Mayor Williams didn't make a strong enough statement. The issue is not security at the games but rather a sense among the criminal community that they can run rampant without consequences to their actions.