Omaha Mayor’s Office To Add Brain Drain Prevention Hotline

The phone bill at City Hall is going to get a little more expensive thanks to the creation of a new telephone line dedicated specifically to brain drain prevention.
After several fruitless efforts to stimey brain drain, the mayor has turned to the old fashioned solution of setting up a prevention hotline. “It works for suicide and lead poisoning so I just thought, heck let’s give it a go” said Mayor Stothert boastfully.
The move was prompted by the mayor being made aware of a report from seven years ago showing that the city has been operating at a net loss of college educated millennials.
Local experts are skeptical that a hotline of any type could be successful in preventing college educated millennials from moving away from Omaha citing research that millennials are less likely to place phone calls than any prior generation.
Several insiders in Omaha’s small and ignored urban design community think that Omaha can attract and retain more young people by making its urban core more appealing. “It’s about dense, walkable neighborhoods” said former civil engineer and Futurewades lead singer, David Sawatzki, “it’s not that hard, just create great neighborhoods and have jobs and things to do close by. If you look at where Omaha’s millennials go when they leave Omaha it’s to places with great urban cores” he added.
Omaha’s mayor dismisses the notion that young people want to live in an exciting urban core saying,
“These kids don’t know what they want…one minute they’re taking out student loans and the next they’re putting avocados on toast. We never did that when I was young” added the mayor.
The mayor responded to the question of how the Brain Drain Prevention Hotline would work saying, “First they go to a touchtone phone and dial 1–402–782–9662 which spells “Stay OMA” like our airport code. My assistant, Joanie, came up with that vanity number” said the mayor.
The mayor went on to explain that after a millennial who was about to move away from Omaha called the hotline then the mayor herself would be the one to answer. “We got our IT director to route the calls directly to my telephone even though it’s a different number, he’s so tech savvy” said the mayor before making a noise that vaguely resembled an R2-D2 sound effect.
“After I talk to each of the whippersnappers on the hotline I’ll invite them out for dinner at my house and talk some sense into them, you know, help them realize what’s best for them and what they really want” said the mayor.
The efficacy of the hotline remains to be seen.
The hotline goes into full effect on 10/1. City officials have urged college educated millennials to save the number as one of their top five speed dial numbers.

