i'm going to lead off with a couple, but i want to pick up on something that mayor cabaldon said, and it is almost beyond belief for me as i talk about my growth and thinking that things were going in the direction that they should, but not too long ago -- probably within the last decade or so, when i appointed the first black police chief after having appointed the first black fire chief, i realized about a year later that two friends of mine stopped talking to me. it is really something that was amazing to me to think about this intolerance and thinking about people who i have grown up with to actually think the 21st century that i had done something wrong by appointing those two individuals, both of whom did a good job for the citizens of akron and judging them on their performance, i can say that.ink we looat what citis can do, what leaders can do, what mayors can do, and one of the things that happened in akron was recognition by our newspaper and the knight foundation, the knight chain of newspapers was founded by john s knight in akron, and they funded a program called "coming

mayor cabaldon. >> we have to model it and that the colonist but it is really a call around sort of whatwe value in america and what we think of as leadership. .. and show that and in some places be courageous but also show how basically human that is and how courageous it is in order to really understand the diversity of experience is all around us every day whether it is race or a variety of others because of the ecosystems that we are helping to inspire or the collection of all of those