Of course, this is the time of year when we all reflect back on the preceding months -- and frankly, after the November election, I was completely demoralized, and it made me feel that much of my time in the last year had just been wasted.

But there I was on First Night, with the fireworks exploding around me at midnight, and I guess I thought about some of the positives the year had brought -- the new companies we had attracted to town that will provide more jobs, the houses we helped to build, the community centers and libraries we had dedicated, and I suddenly realized that I had much to be thankful for this past year -- for the citizens of Akron and me personally.

And last summer, Mary and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary -- our daughter Michelle and son-in-law Mike gave us our second grandchild -- and I got the chance to experience first hand with my son Dave, riding on a float in the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans and the thrill of running with the bulls in Spain.

All in all, a pretty good year -- and except for that one front-page picture of me with wet eyes -- it would have been a great year! I should have been as smart as Jim Thome at his news conference, and told the Press that it was just my allergies acting up!

So as not to bore you with too many statistics, we have provided you at your table -- a list of accomplishments for the year 2002 which you can review at your convenience.

I want to highlight some accomplishments, as well as some mistakes, and disappointments before I discuss with you today three major topics:

• Our fast - changing relationship with state and federal government;

• Our need to promote regionalism; and,

• Our need to continue to focus on Akron public schools.

Let me start with some successes in economic development because although it is one of the newer city services, it has become one of our most important responsibilities – to help create job opportunities.

Expansion Management magazine this past year listed Akron in 13th place among ALL American cities in attracting European investment, with brand-new employees -- not jobs moved from one neighboring community to another---new jobs, new residents, and new housing.

This July, we will have completed another development inside our very successful Ascot Industrial Park. One that will produce 300 jobs within three years.

Coltene/Whaledent is a worldwide dental products manufacturer -- the world leader in these products. They are constructing an $8 million corporate office and production center. Our other industrial parks continue to thrive as well with a high demand for even more space for growth and expansion.

I’ve said many times that our employment base today is made up, not of the large Fortune 500 companies but of businesses creating 5 jobs here, and 10 jobs there. So it’s important we do more to support small business in this community.

With the Small Business Administration and four Akron banks the City of Akron has formed a partnership to provide small businesses with access to hard-to-get working capital.

We call it the Akron Initiative, and it combines SBA loan guarantees with a down payment that the City of Akron will contribute, and then forgive, if the business stays in place for 5 years.

This creates unique growth opportunities for businesses to start or grow here.

And now, Akron small business owners will not only have the funding, but also legal, financial, accounting and other valuable support services available at affordable prices.

The Ferchill Group is proposing roughly 250,000 square feet of development between Main, State and Bowery streets. This is in the center of town where development can now take place, because we have set the stage with our public improvements and other downtown developments.

This is the last major piece of the downtown renaissance plan, and we’ve been working on it for years.

We just finished the beginning phase of Lock III Park, an outdoor entertainment venue including an outdoor stage between the Civic and O’Neil’s that is set to open Memorial Day.

Dan Dahl, director of E-J Thomas and the Civic Theatre is already scheduling events, so this year, there will be more entertainment than ever in downtown Akron.

I mentioned our public improvements, our "investments" in downtown earlier. I want to take a moment to talk about the return on our investments, and a new investment we are proposing to make.

Especially when you consider that Cincinnati will lay off 34 city workers; Dayton is looking at 75 possible layoffs; Columbus has proposed a budget with 80 fewer positions. Canton is laying off 7 police officers and 6 firefighters. In Medina 58 city workers are gone this year including 7 police officers.

And get this -- sun belt cities like Tempe, Arizona --despite the dollars spent by Ohio State fans -- is laying off 130 city workers. It’s happening all over the country.

But, in great measure because we have made investments to help private sector job growth, and because of the dedication of real managers such as Service Director Joe Kidder who has been right sizing his work staff even in good times -- we’re in good financial shape as compared to most cities.

I need to thank Joe and the leaders of our unions CSPA and AFSCME for their work to develop teams to improve efficiency in our public utilities department. They’ve also worked on a plan to install modern-day water meters that will transmit readings remotely, and eliminate the need to bother you with meter readers coming into your home.

We’re also developing a pretty sophisticated pilot program that will provide an integrated wireless gateway to the internet in an area around the University and downtown and which could be expanded in the future to the whole city.

It's also important for me to thank those private business leaders who also had the confidence in us to invest their own money to create those jobs I talked about.

Now let me tell you about a new investment the City will be making in the future. We have already spent a considerable amount of money to re-construct Firestone Stadium, one of the finest softball fields in the country.

I know that many people were disappointed last year when our women’s professional team, the Racers, took a very long seventh inning stretch -- but I’m happy to tell you today, they’re coming back.

During the last year, there have been several important developments.

The Women’s Fastpitch Softball League has re-organized. The league has won the support of major league baseball, similar to the way that the NBA supported women’s pro basketball.

Franchises have been offered for sale in a limited number of communities where there is great interest. The other teams in the league as of now, are in Arizona, Massachusetts and Texas…Eight teams in all will be in place for the inaugural season in 2004.

Akron has been as much of a "hotbed" for girls softball as any area of the country, it’s a natural fit for Akron, and when I realized that with a modest investment we could own the Racers franchise, we decided to become the actual owner of our own professional sports team.

Soon, I will ask City Council to approve the acquisition of our own franchise for the National Pro Fastpitch League.

This is an investment to secure first-class family entertainment and make certain if the league is successful, that the team stays right here.

I might also mention we stand to realize a profit as the league profits. The $150,000 investment is not much by today’s standards in pro sports. The league will pay the players, and the city will realize profits from ticket sales, merchandise and concessions at the ballpark.

Shortly after the plan was published in 2000, our police department began a series of community meetings.

As a result of citizen input, we have drawn new district lines citywide, have better staffing levels, and a zone command structure that gives each section of our city its own police captain whose responsibility it is to address the safety concerns in his or her zone.

As the same officers go back to the same neighborhoods on a daily basis, our officers get more time to solve problems as they become increasingly familiar with residents and trends in the zone they patrol. We're improving, and there are more improvements to come.

We also have improved the process of how we take complaints from the public. Can you imagine any service company not willing to take complaints from their customers?

I told you right here a year ago, there were two other recommendations from the Imagine.Akron report that I wanted to put into place.

I also said I would review the system of Civil Service, and last month, our outside consultants began taking inventory of our present hiring and promotional practices.

They got an earful from members of our internal Imagine.Akron committee, and I believe we are well on our way to seeing recommendations for future changes that will allow us to hire and promote good people, while providing flexibility to operate the city effectively.

And within the last two weeks, we implemented another initiative recommended overwhelmingly in our poll of Akron residents: I wanted to distribute a quality publication to every city resident that would inform everyone of what we are doing in the city….. and the evidence of that effort is on your tables today. I invite you to pick up extra copies at the exits for out of town Akron friends and family.

I also want to admit a mistake. We never should have sent you a 4-month calendar. The idea was to be able to update the calendar every four months, so as to provide better information. But we should have done a 12-month calendar and used the new City magazine to update the events.

I also may have made one or two other mistakes this year -- notice how the reporters are sitting up and paying attention now -- but I’m going to save those for my retirement speech down the road.

While there are many accomplishments of which we can be proud, the past year also brought us a series of events that I can only describe as disappointing and frustrating.

The first is how our state and federal governments have treated cities. Let me quickly say that this is not a political issue.

When Richard Nixon was president, he understood that most decisions are best made at the local level. But he also understood that local governments needed the resources to help themselves.

He developed federal revenue sharing to even out the distribution of resources between the poor and wealthy communities. He supported the Community Development Program, to use federal dollars to renovate local neighborhoods, and he helped provide programs such as Urban Development Action Grants -- UDAG -- that gave businesses the incentives to re-build in our cities. Quaker Square and the Goodyear Technical Center are two legacies of UDAG.

President Nixon, hardly considered a liberal, was someone who understood that it was good for the country’s interests to have Washington help cities do what cities do best -- provide services to our residents and energize the economy for the region, the state, and the entire nation.

Metropolitan economies drive the economy of Ohio. Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, and Akron have 25 percent of the state’s population, but these six cities drive 75% of Ohio’s economy.

Our suburban communities provide important support -- places where people can make choices about the kind of home they want to live in, whether it’s rural residential in Bath or colonial living in Hudson.

But cities have the infrastructure for creating jobs. We have the water systems, the sewer systems, and today, what business really needs -- the bandwidth -- the fiber optics and telephone junctions which fuel today’s high-tech economy.

Legislators elected from suburban communities often fail to recognize the needs of cities as part of the whole economy. In fact, some (even legislators from our own community) have actually legislated against urban interests. This trend is reflected also in Washington.

The most recent example of this nationally, is homeland security.

If I asked for a show of hands in this room, I’ll bet most of you believe that cities have received funds from the federal government to combat terrorism.

President Bush and congressional leaders promised it. But today -- 16 months after the events of 9-11, not a dollar of federal money has made its way to cities to finance the demands of extra security measures that federal agencies actually urged us to take a year ago.

As chairman of the U-S Conference of Mayors Advisory Board, I’ve had several meetings and phone conferences with Governor Tom Ridge, the new director of Homeland Security.

He agrees that cities have expended millions of dollars in providing the extra security required after 9-11 -- whether it’s inspecting packages at large sports venues or answering every call after the anthrax scare -- but he’s having the same problem with Congress in getting them to realize that when a bomb goes off, your first call isn’t to the FBI or the United States Army — it’s the Akron health and fire departments.

If white powder falls out of a suspicious envelope, it isn’t the National Center for Disease Control who’s on the scene, it’s the Akron Health Department.

We were TOLD to beef-up security by the federal government, to hold more drills, to buy more equipment, to put more officers at major events -- but congressional gridlock has prevented dollars from being returned to cities where the expenses are being incurred, and if they ever do appropriate the money, they want to send it to the governors and allow the state to peel off 25% before it ever gets down to the cities.

Tomorrow, the mayors of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo are coming to Akron to meet for the second time in four months.

We are getting together to plan a statewide strategy on behalf of cities. Not for political purposes, but for the citizens who live in our cities who are being ignored.

I am hopeful that we will sign an agreement, promising to come to each other’s aid in the event of a disaster or an event with mass casualties.

In this region, Akron readily lends its specially-trained units to surrounding communities without hesitation, in times of emergency. And they help us on routine situations -- but larger events require special units. Our large cities have trained bomb squads, deep excavation rescue teams, hazardous chemical units, and other specially trained personnel. If Akron were to have an incident with huge casualties... we'd have to look to Cleveland and Columbus for their special expertise.

I thank Firefighters Union President Doug Bjerre for working with me on this initiative.

There are other ways we promote regionalism, too:

Akron residents built the sewage treatment system that treats most of the toilet waste from Summit County’s suburban communities.

Akron built the landfill that became the resting place for trash from almost every suburban community in Summit County.

Akron spent over one hundred million dollars building the recycle energy plant, a facility that should have been our county’s solution to our solid waste problem.

(By the way, do you remember any other mayor to take the transfer station?)

Akron built the water system that residents of Bath, Coventry, Springfield, Stow, and Tallmadge take for granted each time they open the tap.

Akron residents took the risk in building a convention center, a baseball park, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. These are good for us. But they are also good for all the communities around us.

That’s why it was so discouraging when we lost Issue 12 this last November -- when suburban voters turned their backs on Akron.

Except for Hudson and Green -- each of the other 14 communities snubbed Akron when we asked them to join with us to find a county-wide solution to meet every school district’s capital needs.

It wasn’t as if we were asking for a handout. We wanted each school child in Akron to get the same per-capita sales tax revenue as the kids in the suburbs.

Many residents of these communities are short-sited when it comes to evaluating the region’s interests. I’ve worked many hours with our chamber officials at the Hanover Trade Fair -- asking for German, French, and other business people to come to Akron to locate a new plant.

I haven’t seen the people of Cuyahoga Falls or Stow foot the bill for their city officials to be part of our delegation. Yet, I know that if we can generate interest in the REGION, we can benefit everyone in the region. And it’s paid off for us. For ALL of us. Even though only three of the 14 European companies recruited actually located in the city of Akron.

Today’s world demands a global approach to attracting new business, and it demands a regional approach to providing the resources that will make greater Akron attractive.

Yet, we can’t seem to overcome this intra-county battle that seems to overshadow each of our initiatives to make the whole region better.

Fortunately, Jane Campbell, the new mayor of Cleveland understands. Bob Reffner, Dan Colantone, the greater Akron Chamber and regional leaders such as Pete Burg are helping to forge a relationship with others to create Team NEO -- to better market our area and to attract even more employers to northeast Ohio.

While we join with our neighboring communities as partners in economic development efforts, we need to be more competitive in one area -- attracting people to make their home in the City.

It’s a fact, and market studies have shown, that many young homebuyers do not want to invest in older homes in our existing neighborhoods.

We have to be creative about the housing we can offer, given our limitations on land availability. Soon, we will be announcing a new initiative as well as additional partnerships to develop even more housing opportunities.

Among the unfinished work is the financing of new construction for Akron Public Schools.

As of now, we are the only major city in Ohio that has not come up with our local match for the Ohio School Facilities Commission grants.

All the major cities have passed bond levies -- funded by property taxes -- to meet their local share, even financially strapped Youngstown.

Nothing is more important on our city agenda.

Last year, we tried to solve the capital needs problems of every one of Summit County’s 17 school districts.

As an update, we are looking at various alternatives, examining both the legal as well as the practical aspects. But as much as I thought Issue 12 was a good idea for all of the school districts, and as much as I appreciated the leadership of Jim McCarthy, county council members, superintendents Pat Corbett and Joe Siegferth, Green mayor Dan Croghan, and Hudson Mayor John Krum, and Hudson board president Vicki Soukup, and truly all of my other, new suburban friends, I don’t believe we can place Akron’s future in the hands of misguided voters in Cuyahoga Falls and Stow.

We need to develop a plan for Akron, and then deal with others who want to be our partners. This is not out of vindictiveness; although I must admit I felt some of that the last couple of months, but rather it is just facing reality.

I’m continuing to have discussions with key people and will do whatever I can to help our schools. It’s just a shame and about as demoralizing as can be, especially when I look at cities like Louisville, Kentucky, who last week began the year 2003 by jumping to the 16th largest city in the U-S by merging their city and county operations together. They realize that they are stronger working together as one, instead of working against themselves.

But certain people in Summit County spoke loudly and clearly -- they seem to care only about themselves. Time will show that Issue 12 was the right idea, at the right time, in the right amount.

If Issue 12 had passed, it wouldn’t have put a penny into my pocket. I wouldn’t have had any say in how to spend it.

This wasn’t about me. My kids -- At 29, and 27 years old - are doing pretty well. My son has his master’s degree. My daughter is a teacher in the Akron schools, and my son-in-law has a fine job and is a dedicated father. My grandchildren will be just fine.

And as I look around this room today, I’ll bet your children -- and grandchildren -- will be just fine, as well.

But Issue 12 was about "other people’s children." Children who grow up in a household where they may be lucky to have one dedicated parent. Some of our children grow-up in households where fathers are gone and mothers are overworked or worse. Households where there is alcohol or drug abuse, and often family violence. All, circumstances not the fault of the children.

We have grown much as a society, and all of us are proud of our downtown buildings, our technology, our businesses, our parks, and our neighborhoods.

But I’m not sure if we have a right to call ourselves a mature society... until we can demonstrate through our own actions, that we care just as much about other people’s children as our own.

We can’t afford to let ignorance win the day. Now, I don’t mean that it’s ignorant just because you vote against a tax increase -- there may be a good reason.

It’s when ignorant arguments are made, and the press repeats them without even a challenge, and people follow these wrong-headed arguments.

Like the 73-year-old guy who said to me, "I went to Mason School, and it was good enough for me, it should be good enough for kids today." But at his age, Mason School was practically new when that gentlemen attended it.

And by the way there were senior citizens alive back then -- who helped pay for his school.

Or consider the woman from Cuyahoga Falls who wrote me several nasty E-mails. She assured me she understood math. And although she couldn’t come-up with a better system than an equal dollar amount per student, she still thought that Akron got too much.

Or, the worst one -- the individual who in spite of admitting to practically every one that he only opposed Issue 12 so he could enhance his name recognition, a person who had been involved in two private schools that he left under the veil of suspicion -- was still quoted by the press, every time he spouted off.

Thirty years was too long? Well, a city income tax is forever. It’s permanent. Why is it in our state that we can’t realize that educating our kids is as important as picking up garbage, repairing our streets, or putting out fires?

Whether it’s meeting operating needs or capital, we have a system where every few years, superintendents, school board members, educators, and community leaders have to go back and beg for money.

Not because they’re any different than any level of government, but because of the archaic laws in the state.

States all around us -- including by the way -- ones with Republican governors, have found ways to correct their education funding problem.

We need to make that commitment, because we can’t let ignorance win the day. Having a high school education may have been good enough in the last generation, but it isn’t today.

I want to mention one other thing -- Issue 12 was not political in any way.

If anything, by almost exclusively devoting my energy to passing this school issue, I did no campaigning -- none -- for Democratic candidates for governor, the state legislature, and our local judicial races. I didn't want to confuse my message about what was most important.

This was not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue.

It was about our children’s future, and it was about the vitality of the whole region for years to come. There were times in my own experience as a public official when I knew I needed to do what was right for the community, setting aside partisan politics.

When Republican John Ballard, mayor of Akron in 1977 asked for my support of the levy to begin the Emergency Medical Service, I worked with him to successfully pass that issue.

When Republican mayor Roy Ray asked me for my support in 1981 for an increase in the Akron city income tax, to continue providing adequate police,fire, and other city services, I stood shoulder to shoulder with him in asking my 9th ward constituents for their vote.

In 1998, when Republican George Voinovich was a candidate for senator, we held a joint press conference to support his efforts to provide additional operating money for our schools.

When Republican Governor Bob Taft asked for my support on getting the Clean Ohio Fund approved by voters, I agreed to join with him five months before the election, not five days before.

In each case, I set aside obvious, potentially partisan politics and did what was right for our community. I wished I could say the same thing about the chairman of Summit County's Republican Party, but there's not enough time to start on him. I'll save that for later in the year.

But I'm serious. We have to stop being political about the future of kids. It’s terribly wrong and ultimately self-destructive.

When Republican George Voinovich asked me to support his efforts to provide additional operating money for Ohio schools in 1998, when he was actually the Republican candidate for U-S Senator, I held a press conference with the governor to show my support.

And the business community, not bleeding-heart liberals, not the social service workers, but business people should be leading the charge, because it’s about training the workers of tomorrow -- for tomorrow's jobs.

I’d like to close by suggesting that there’s one other thing that we as a community ought to do, and we ought to do it today. It requires five minutes of your time, and I’m going to ask you to do it this afternoon as soon as you get back to your office.

I’d like you to drop a note to one of our good friends. A friend who is having what some old timers would call, "a bit of a spell."

A generous friend who’s given money to every one of our arts and cultural groups, our athletic teams, supported our schools, both public and private; and a friend who has supported greater Akron when our community was down on its luck in times past. Our friend was there for us, and now I’d like to let our friend know that we’re there for it.

"It" is the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and right now, it is in a period of transition in this mysterious and ever-changing global economy, I know that Chairman Sam Gibara and CEO Bob Keegan read the newspapers every day, and from time to time they might wonder if anybody in Akron remembers all the good they’ve done for this community.

Let’s tell them.

I’m asking you, your friends, and your employees, to sit down and write a note.

Send it to Bob Keegan.

Tell Bob you’re thinking about Goodyear. You’re grateful for what Goodyear has done. Let him and all Goodyear Associates know that we value our friends, especially in times of need.

I can’t tell you that writing notes to Goodyear will turn the stock price around or generate new sales... but in Akron we have a tradition of doing things because they’re right.

And we care about our friends.

And as I look back on 2002, I’m grateful for my family and friends who have helped me so much over these last 12 months. Marco Sommerville and members of city council. Jim McCarthy and county council. Pete Burg, Rick Fedorovich, Dan Colantone, Donna Loomis, Pat Corbett, Joel Bailey and many other community leaders. And especially, the dedicated members of my cabinet and staff, and all the hard-working Akron city employees.