The city offers half price memberships to the city facility if applied for before July 5th of each year. That condition regarding half price membership to RESIDENTS has to stop. It has to apply during the entire season the facility is open.
Additionally, the city has to open FREE memberships based in income for the individual. That means all children are admitted without a fee. The city's social work department should automatically qualify low income families as a SERVICE to those individuals and family by the city.
Ferguson has a Parks and Recreation Department and this is not a joke. There needs to be an assessment to the hiring practices of Ferguson to Equal Opportunity Employment. It is one thing to have a job opening within the city's park department, it is another thing to actively recruit minorities to those jobs within and outside the city.
Their parks and recreation department is not the ONLY city service. Each department that has a hiring capacity has to be assessed for the balance of ethnicity within those departments. The city has to actively recruit minorities for jobs AND they have to actively seek participation of residents, especially low income residents, to fill those jobs. There needs to be a job counseling service in their personnel department that can assist minorities to success within their job.
There also needs to be a SPECIAL program for minority youth in Ferguson that offers Summer Jobs to the resident's children. As a part of such a program there needs to be counseling available to assist success of the youth acquiring those summer jobs. If the city is finding their finances too tight for some of these changes, there are monies to be applied for in Washington, DC and quite possibly at the level of the state.
The State of Missouri has to be assessed for participation of minorities in any jobs at the state and private level. If there are ethnic differences skewed from the country, there needs to be a strong effort to change the demographics of those within Missouri that find themselves without a job although wanting one.
If minority candidates are not qualified the state needs to double it's effort to bring minority populations up to the level needed for quality of life choices.
It was noted in the demographics of Ferguson public transportation is important to the citizens. Here again is a chance for the people to find work, benefits and good pay. Not only that but understanding the needs of the people in that community will bring about the reality they are dependent on outside transportation to get around the city and outside the city. Residents who do not have access to personal transportation are TRAPPED inside their own lives. When people feel trapped without choices or potential for improvements of quality of life, the local community suffers with different forms of criminality. If there is no chance to earn, there is no chance to buy and therefore entitlement pursues and everything within sight and reach are also part of their daily activities.
There is not one minority youth in the USA that is so tainted they can't be provide opportunity. They want to be like everyone else. They have the same feelings of acceptance and friendship and where those needs fall outside the legal basis of THEIR LIVES they will find a way and ultimately end up being jaded and a problem the rest of their lives.
I strongly suggest this problem in Ferguson needs complete study and how much exists nationwide. What troubles me more than I can put in words is the fact these young black men are the promises to our country's future and they are cut down for no good reason at all.
President Obama likes to promote minorities and that is good thing. He likes to elevate the minority brain trust and that is the first time a President was determined to bring minority insight to our country at the highest levels of government. But. If he and his administration are NOT more vigilant to the 'CONDITION' of minority life in the USA, there won't be those available for any job in government or qualified to be President of the USA.
