Sojourner’s Truth Staff
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley visited Toledo on Thursday, July 15 for a meet and greet at the Onyx and was joined by a number of local elected officials and interested residents.
Cranley, who was elected mayor of Cincinnati in 2013, is completing his second term at the helm of the Queen City.
Mayor Cranley’s top priorities include jobs, safety, inclusion, reducing poverty, improving neighborhoods and protecting the environment. Since taking office in late 2013, he has helped bring more than 6,100 new jobs to Cincinnati; added officers to the street which has led to lower crime; added firefighters which effectively ended “brownouts” in the Fire Department; resolved the city’s pension crisis; approved a multi-year plan to repave and repair deteriorating roads; implemented a major anti-poverty program, the Hand Up Initiative; and is leading an effort to invest in solar energy to reduce the city’s carbon footprint.
Mayor Cranley created the City’s first Office of Economic Inclusion & Minority Contracting, aimed at increasing the number of minority firms awarded city contracts. In its first year of operation, the department increased spending with minority-owned businesses from $4 million dollars to $11 million dollars.
Cranley has been a leader fighting climate change. Citywide emissions are down 18 percent, and the city is close to breaking ground on a 25-megawatt solar array to reduce Cincinnati’s carbon footprint. Just recently, the city was awarded an American Cities Climate Challenge grant.
In 2002, Cranley co-founded the Ohio Innocence Project, an organization that has exonerated and freed 28 wrongfully convicted people through the use of DNA technology. He has also worked as a real estate developer and attorney.
Mayor John Cranley grew up in the Price Hill neighborhood and attended St. William Elementary School and St. Xavier High School. He has earned degrees from John Carroll University, Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School.