New member a key activist in his community
Emmanuel Remy hasn’t been on a ballot since he was elected student body president at Adrian College in Michigan in 1992, but he said he’s still been serving the public.
The Columbus City Council unanimously chose Remy last week to replace former council President Zach Klein, now the city attorney. He was selected over 13 other finalists, including Jasmine Ayres, a local activist who finished fourth in a field race for three council seats in November.
Remy said he took issue
Emmanuel Remy acknowleges applause after his appointment to the Columbus City Council at a meeting Monday. Remy was chosen to fill the seat vacated by Zach Klein, who was elected city attorney in November. with the portrayal after his selection that the council had chosen a real estate agent over an activist.
“I’ve been pretty active over the past six to eight years,” he said.
Remy has been the president of the Northland Community Council since 2012 and led the Clinton Estates Civic Association since 2010. He has worked on school councils and parent advisory groups for Columbus City Schools. He has served as a director with Columbus Realtors and the Ohio Association of Realtors.
Combine those activities with his work as a real estate agent, a wife who works as a teacher and three children younger than 10, and Remy’s calendar is always full. He said his family is understanding, but he has always worked hard.
In college, Remy loaded trucks in the morning and worked a retail job in the evening on his way to a degree in business administration. He had to do that to pay for attending the small private, liberal arts college.
When Remy met his freshman roommate, Geoff Hoffa, grandson of famed Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, they agreed to alternate paying for groceries each week. But Hoffa spent about $400 in the first week, buying fancy cheese and other snacks. Remy, working two jobs, told Hoffa that they would need a
new arrangement.
“It was just in my nature,” said Remy, now 45. “I always worked.”
He said he took the same approach to seeking a council appointment. Remy applied for an appointment three times, starting in 2015. Each time, he said, he learned something new, but it always came down to working hard.
Other leaders in his neighborhood said that approach has been fruitful for Northland.
“He made it an emphasis of his to go Downtown and meet with City Council members about project after project after project,” said David Cooper, president of the Northland Area Business Association. “He didn’t wait for them to come to us, he went to them.”
Columbus Police Officer Scott Clinger said he has Remy’s phone number “on speed dial.” Remy often relays information about problem properties and hot spots for crime from other residents to the police, he said.
And when the city developed new laws to shut down nuisance hotels, Clinger said Remy and the Northland Community Council were big supporters.
“He’s boots on the ground out here with the community and he didn’t get paid a dime for it,” Clinger said. “He put many, many hours in because he cares about the community.”
Remy said he already has some ideas about how to address public safety across the city.
He wants Columbus to consider building a real-time crime analysis center where crime analysts would monitor trends to show where officers should be working. He also wants to replicate a Detroit program in which gas stations installed crime cameras that the city can access.
“There’s real interest. We are talking about it now,” he said of the cameras. “When we’ve got limited resources, we’ve got to be creative.”
Remy also has said he wants to do more for immigrants living in Columbus. The city does a good job of providing “settlement services,” but Remy said it has an opportunity to provide other resources.
Northland is home to a large concentration of Columbus’ Somali population, including the offices of the Somali Community Action Network. The organization’s executive director, Jibril Mohamed, said the city must do more to encourage Somalis to join the ranks of law enforcement and build a pipeline for leadership opportunities within the public sector.
He said he is optimistic that Remy will help with those issues as he takes his seat on the City Council.
Remy “has already pledged that he will keep the community as a priority,” Mohamed said. “I have high hope he will keep his word and produce results for all citizens of Columbus.”