Back in April, the Hillsborough Organization of Progress and Equality (HOPE) invited three members of the Tampa City Council to a meeting in East Tampa before 1,000 of their members. The group asked the invited guests if, with unemployment in Hillsborough County higher than the national average, and with the rate for ex-felons even higher, would the council members support a policy that required companies that do business with or get tax breaks from the city to agree to hire from a pool of local, unemployed job seekers that had been pre-screened and put into a registry?
Those council members — Frank Reddick, Lisa Montelione and Harry Cohen — tentatively agreed, with Reddick then requesting the City's legal staff to research if the Council could lawfully pass such an ordinance.
On Thursday afternoon, and without making any judgements about the merits of the proposal, City Attorney Allison Singer said yes they could. The Council then voted to hold a workshop in late September to discuss the issue further.
A second part of the proposal the Council will also research is HOPE's request for removing the box on an employment application asking if a prospective employee has ever been arrested or convicted of a crime.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2012.