Obama to name Ohio factory town mayor as head of auto communities office

President Barack Obama is set to name Jay Williams, the Mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, as his head of the Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. The post was created by executive order in 2009 shortly after both General Motors and Chrysler declared their respective bankruptcies. Williams is expected to resign as mayor before taking up the post in August.
The Detroit News reports that the automotive industry lost somewhere around 400,000 jobs between 2008 and 2009. Since then, just 115,000 of those positions have been added back into the mix. President Obama is set to sign another order on June 6 that will ask multiple agencies to work with the Labor Department to help offset challenges facing automotive communities.

The Government Accountability Office, meanwhile, says that Congress should consider refusing to fund the new office on the grounds that the Obama administration should provide more details as to how funds will be used to assist communities in trouble. Some municipalities have yet to receive any aid from the program. Detroit, for example, hasn't seen any funds while neighboring Flint brought in $6.8 million to help keep firefighters on the job.