Washington. -- Selection as an empowerment zone is Baltimore's chance to enter the 21st century as a city that offers real opportunity. Let's make sure this is not a hollow opportunity. We must make sure that when the money runs out, the empowerment doesn't.
The empowerment zone is a substantial federal investment in Baltimore. Baltimore will receive direct grants totaling $100 million over the next two years. Employer tax credits are estimated at $225 million over the next decade. This money requires real stewardship. Baltimore needs to make sure that what we start is sustained long after the empowerment zone's federal benefits expire.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Baltimore. The empowerment zone's purpose is to create sustainable and reliable jobs, get Baltimore's citizens workforce-ready and have safe streets. The means to achieve these goals -- tax credits, some direct grants and streamlined federal regulations -- are all designed for that end.
If it doesn't relate to jobs, it shouldn't be part of this effort. This is about employment, not social-service eligibility. It is about work, not welfare. An empowerment zone is about helping those willing to help themselves. The family goal is to enable people to raise their standard of living and become self-reliant. The community goal is that long after the tax breaks and the grants expire, Baltimore has sustainable jobs and workforce-ready citizens.
Make no mistake. It is not intended to be a bigger social-service program. It is not an infusion of taxpayer money for the bureaucracy. It's not trickle-down do-goodism. It's not social engineering. And, it's definitely not about funding every program with a good intention. The primary purpose of the empowerment zone is sustainable and reliable job generation and workforce readiness.
It is critical that Baltimore do everything necessary to ensure strong economic growth. New jobs will be created by incentives -- for heavy industry in Fairfield, new ventures in biotechnology in the Life Sciences Growth District and spinoffs in the health-care industry from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical Center.
At the same time, the City of Baltimore must get people workforce-ready through job training at the Life Sciences Training Center at Baltimore City Community College and many other opportunities that the Empowerment Zone will offer.
Empowerment must be more than a zone. Baltimore needs to create a new attitude and state of mind for success. All must work together to make the empowerment zone work. The focus must be on results. City Hall, the mayor's cabinet, business, foundations and community organizations must join together -- using the best of their creative and executive abilities -- to work for Baltimore's future.
None of this will really matter unless Baltimore's streets and neighborhoods become safer. Safe streets will give businesses an incentive to invest in Baltimore. That's why some of the money will support the work of Police Commissioner Frazier and our law-enforcement community. Block by block, enforcement and prevention activities will be coordinated with other city agencies. Enhanced community policing will increase police outreach centers and add mini-posts for police on patrol. Mobile police stations will move into areas where neighbors are fighting off outbreaks of crime.
Mayor Schmoke's decision to bring in Matt DeVito of the Rouse Company and Ed Hitchcock of Tydings & Rosenberg is welcome. We look to their entrepreneurial, leadership and management skills to help solve Baltimore's problems.
Jobs, workforce readiness, careful stewardship and safe neighborhoods are the keys to success for the empowerment zone.
Twenty-five years ago, I joined a fight to save Baltimore's neighborhoods from a highway that would have destroyed some of our most stable communities on both the east and west sides of the city. We stopped the highway and helped clear the way for the development of today's Inner Harbor and the revitalization of Baltimore's downtown. In the process, we bought Baltimore 25 more years.
The empowerment zone is the next step. With strategic planning and investment, the empowerment zone can help Baltimore break the cycle and culture of poverty in many of its most distressed neighborhoods. The empowerment zone can create a new energy and state of mind to get Baltimore's citizens competitive for the economy of the 21st century.
Barbara Mikulski is Maryland's junior U.S. Senator.