League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund
Hamilton County, OH September 13, 2005 Election
	Mark L. Mallory Answers Questions Candidate for Mayor; City of Cincinnati

Questions & Answers

1. What are your qualifications for office?

Cincinnati needs new leadership, and leadership is my main qualification. The current city leaders fight with one another instead of leading. As a state legislator, I have a 10 year record of consensus building. I will bring my leadership and an ability to work with everyone to the mayor's office.

2. What plans do you have to address your top three priorities?

Our current leadership at city hall simply isn't working. City leaders fight with one another and there is too little communication between the mayor's office and the council members. Before anything else can change, the way Cincinnati's leaders work with one another has to change. I will bring a new style of leadership to the mayor's office, one based on respect, openness to citizens' concerns and working to build consensus.

Our policy focus will be on making the city safer and improving our neighborhoods, our riverfront and our downtown. We will take guns off the streets, create programs to keep young offenders from becoming career criminals, and build upon the city's assets such as historical neighborhoods, the arts and parks to expand the economic vitality of our city.

3. What steps would you take to ensure that all public facilities are accessible to people with disabilities?

Passing the Americans with Disabilities Act was a tremendous step forward, helping to bring an entire class of Americans into the mainstream. I support both the letter and the spirit of this law. As mayor, I will assess all city-owned public buildings to be sure they are fully accessible to citizens with disabilities. I will direct code inspectors to pay extra attention to accessibility issues when they inspect new or remodeled buildings. During my first 100 days in office, I will convene a task force on accessibility that will include representatives from groups like the Inclusion Network.

4. What specific steps will you take to expand recycling services in your community?

I support recycling and I don't think it should be considered some kind of luxury city service. Some cities run recycling programs that make money. Ann Arbor recycles more than half of its household waste, one of the highest rates in the country. They do it through a nonprofit reuse and recycling agency. Ann Arbor also runs a huge reuse center that collects and then sells household goods, scrap lumber, household fixtures, furniture, plumbing and countless other products. Ann Arbor uses a huge outreach and education effort with the introduction of recycling in each neighborhood. We can move Cincinnati in the same direction.

5. What steps would you take to provide affordable housing for all residents of your community?

As a state senator, I have already begun taking steps to provide more affordable housing in Cincinnati, and I have worked to keep seniors in their houses by cracking down on predatory lenders. But we have to do more. As mayor, I will provide incentives for private developers to renovate apartments and single family homes. I will provide further incentives to make residential structures +rental and owner-occupied + more energy efficient, which will make the cost of utilities less and reduce the number of bankruptcies. Finally, I will ensure that vacant buildings are maintained so they can be reused as soon as possible.