From yesterday’s The Dispatch:

Mayoral candidate William M. Todd attracted criticism from school officials last week when he said Columbus Public Schools would better educate students under his control.

Yesterday, the Republican candidate took a second swing at the schools, saying he could better manage the district’s $500 million school-construction program, too.

Todd said district officials have reneged on a 2002 bond election-campaign promise to give local businesses and minority-owned businesses a healthy share of the contracts awarded for the construction program.

School officials maintain that they have exceeded their goal to steer 20 percent of the construction dollars to “local and economically disadvantaged enterprises,” or LEDEs.

But small-business owners at Todd’s news conference yesterday told a different story, saying their efforts to win contracts have gone unsupported by the district.

Todd also took aim at Mayor Michael B. Coleman, saying he should have stepped in to make sure more minority and local businesses were hired.

“This is one of the biggest public-works projects we’ve ever seen in the history of Columbus, and local small businesses have been excluded,” Todd said. “We need to have a much more hard-and-fast requirement to include these small businesses and minority-owned businesses in this project.”

Todd said that if he were mayor of Columbus, he would encourage state mandates that small businesses be hired for portions of school-construction projects. He also supports giving more weight to small businesses during bidding.

In principle, the mandating of hiring minority and certain small businesses is not always a good idea. However, Todd’s idea is not about attempting to create the type of utopia that liberals seek through the use of racial and economic quotas. Instead, Todd is fighting back against Mayor Mike Coleman’s excessive influence as a member of the Neighborhood School Development Partnership. Coleman is far too close to the Columbus Schools contracting, and uses his influence to give contracts to those who donate to his campaign.

By mandating that small businesses in Columbus are hired by Columbus city schools, not only is Todd trying to create more jobs in Columbus, but he has formulated an idea that would fight back against Mike Coleman’s corruption… and save money in the process.