Part OneLast week I had Christopher Smitherman, the president of the NAACP, and Sean Rugless, the president of the African American Chamber of Commerce, on the show to discuss the criticism of the city for not utilizing more minority contractors on city financed jobs.
Immediately after the show, I got an email from Ed Rigaud, the former president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Ed suggested that the Freedom Center's success in including minority contractors, nearly 35 percent of the construction work was contracted out to minority firms, could be used as a case study for what it takes to be successful incorporating minority firms.
Unfortunately, Ed is not in town this week, but he suggested that I invite the attorney who guided the process of identifying and selecting the construction firms to build the $110 million project. I am joined now by Steven Justice, who is a graduate of the U.C. College of Law, and clerked for Federal Judge Nathaniel Jones in the mid-1990s when the Freedom Center was first taking shape with the help of Judge Jones. Mr. Justice then became an attorney with Taft Stettinius and Hollister and is now a partner in the Dayton office.
Part TwoEarlier this month the United Nations moved to implement a 2007 plan to create an efficient and effective system of internal justice to will ensure that individuals and the organization are held accountable for their actions. The UN created a two tiered system consisting of a dispute tribunal with five judges with registries in New York, Geneva and Nairobi, and an appellate tribunal with seven judges that will sit in New York.
Mark Painter served for 13 years as a Hamilton County Municipal Judge and since 1995 has served as a judge on the Ohio First District Court of Appeals. Judge Painter is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and the U.C. College of Law, where he has long taught as an adjunct. He is active on a number of local boards, and perhaps most importantly, he was once the proprietor of Murphy's Pub in Clifton Heights. That makes Judge Painter a member of the cincinnati Saloon Keepers party, that includes Jim Tarbel, Dave Crowley and of course was once led by boss George Cox.
