Rochester City Hall hosted a job fair Thursday for people who want to work for the ride hailing service Lyft when that service becomes available on June 29. A similar job fair was held for Uber last month.
That fair provoked some controversy, after Democratic Mayoral candidate Rachel Barnhart filed an ethics complaint. It was related to the fact that Warren’s former chief of staff, Jeremy Cooney, now works for Uber.
Warren says her legal team has felt comfortable with city hall hosting the fairs, and she doesn't see a problem with allowing private companies to hold job fairs there.
“We’re not guaranteeing anybody any employment, we’re not guaranteeing anybody to show up, the only thing we’re doing is saying if you want to connect to any employer, this is an employer that is coming to our community, they’re looking for people and please check it out."
Warren says the issue is all about trying to create jobs for people in poverty.
“When you have the poverty rate that we have here in our community you want to do everything you can to let people understand that there are jobs out here, there are opportunities out here, and if they are looking for them we want to bring it to them and their communities and we will continue to do that," Warren told reporters on Thursday.
The city’s board of ethics has indicated it will consider Barnhart’s complaint.
