Cleveland mayor: Homeless ‘enthusiastic’ about GOP convention

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (D) said Friday that even the homeless are excited about the Republican National Convention coming to the city in 2016.
 
{mosads}“It doesn’t matter if they’re sitting in a corporate boardroom or they’re standing in line at a homeless shelter, everyone is talking about this convention and they’re enthusiastic about it,” Jackson said during a ceremony at which he and party officials signed contracts making the host city official.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced last month that the party chose Cleveland, and on Friday, at the RNC’s summer meeting, committee members unanimously approved the choice.

Speaking shortly after Jackson, Sherwin Williams CEO Chris Connor, the co-chairman of the Cleveland Host Committee who helped secure the bid for the city, said Jackson’s suggestion was emblematic of the overall enthusiasm in the city for the convention.

“Everybody that we talked to, everybody that we asked to help, everybody that we suggested to contribute, everybody that needed to play a role stepped up,” he said. “I didn’t know about the homeless people until Mayor Jackson mentioned they too are excited about your arrival as well, and I think that’s absolutely the spirit of what’s happening in the city.”