EDITORIAL

companies to offer transportation help as a job benefit, Bartley said. An example is CPass, an initiative launched this summer in which Downtown employers collaborated with COTA and the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District to provide free bus passes to as many as 45,000 employees.

Another avenue Boyce cited to improved economic opportunity is to consistently gauge the effectiveness of tax incentives many government agencies grant to attract new employers and new jobs to their jurisdictions. That means assuring any new jobs promised in return for the forgiveness of local tax obligations are counted only when they provide full-time employment with benefits, not temporary contract work, Boyce said.

We agree wholeheartedly. Local municipalities should not undercut long-term aims or each other’s economicdevelopment progress by accepting anything less than full compliance with workforce-development goals for any taxes they forgo. We have seen too many examples recently of lax enforcement.

The county is right to help create a united front with the region’s elected officials toward insisting on real job gains for any tax incentives offered.

Another challenge is to align the county’s efforts with the economic-development work of Columbus 2020 and the Columbus Partnership, an organization that engages about 75 local corporate leaders in efforts to improve the economy and quality of life in central Ohio.

Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Partnership, sees the business community’s focus on growing the economy as consistent with the county’s intent to move residents up the ladder of economic opportunity. Fischer cites the Columbus 2020 goal to raise personal per capita income by 30 percent as especially relevant to the county’s initiative.

An important first step for engaging the business community was to include Kenny McDonald, president and chief economic officer of Columbus 2020, on the county’s steering committee.

It is also worth noting that Partnership member Jane Grote Abell, board chair of her family’s Donatos Pizza, is also on the steering committee. Abell’s involvement is a chance to expand the impressive work that she and Tanny Crane, president and CEO of Crane Group, have wrought in development of the Reeb Avenue Center on the South Side.

Nearly 40 community, corporate, education, government and nonprofit leaders are on the county’s steering committee, but their task is not to do this important work alone. Their real job is to enlist the rest of us in their worthy crusade.