In the News: Stacy Mitchell
June 29th, 2018
Media Outlet: Next City
At the end of June, the Los Angeles City Council voted to add a ballot initiative for this fall to enable public banking to ensure that all Angelenos are banked with sufficient protections. For this article in Next City, Alejandra Molina reached out to ILSR co-director and Community-Scaled Economy initiative director Stacy Mitchell to answer questions on the benefits of community banking.
Here are our contributions:
In New York City, dozens of residents and community organizers in early June gathered in front of the New York Stock Exchange to launch the Public Bank NYC Coalition, a group calling for the creation of a New York City-owned bank. Oakland and San Francisco are exploring the idea. New Jersey and Michigan are also considering setting up state-owned banks.
A city- or state-owned bank would, for example, hold tax dollars and other fees or income for local or state governments. The Bank of North Dakota, created in 1919, holds all state government deposits and some local government deposits. Instead of competing with other banks for loans, it primarily makes participation loans — lending alongside other banks that don’t have the cash on hand to meet the credit needs of their clients. The model has allowed North Dakota to strengthen its local banks, resulting in having the highest number of banks per capita than any other state, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
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Read the full story here.
