Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein announced on Thursday that she will retire in March.
Dickstein has worked for more than 30 years for the city of Dayton. She moved through the roles of senior development specialist, special projects administrator, assistant city manager, and then became city manager. She has worked with six mayors and 13 city commissioners.
"Leading this organization has been an honor and a privilege. I am deeply grateful to the colleagues, community partners, businesses and residents who trusted me with this work and who continue to invest time, talent, and resources in Dayton’s future," she said in an announcement.
Her tenure ran through some large and impactful events in the city's history, including the Memorial Day tornadoes in 2019, a hate group rally and counter protests just days before the tornadoes, a mass shooting in the Oregon District, the COVID-19 pandemic, and events surrounding the NATO Parliamentary Assembly coming to the city last year.
She stated that through these major events and everyday demands "our team remained steady, compassionate, and results-driven."
Her retirement announcement included a long list of city accomplishments during her time in leadership. Some of these include
- $3.2 billion in community investment, including nearly $800 million in housing that delivered nearly 2,000 new units and thousands of rehabs and impacted nearly 60,000 jobs
- Projects that reshaped downtown, including the revival of the Dayton Arcade
- Investment across the city, such as Gem City Market, Hoover Place Senior Housing, Grand Place, Hallmark Meridian, Ruskin Commons and Homes, Germantown Crossing, Homefull’s Gettysburg Grocery, Dayton Children’s new West Dayton urgent care Feldman Center for Healthy Futures, the Boys and Girls Club, Dayton Children’s Kinship Care Housing, the Ronald McDonald House, and MVCDC’s Lincoln Hill Early Learning Center
- Dayton’s first income tax increase in 32 years, directing over $100 million to streets, parks, public safety, universal preschool for 3 and 4-year olds, and neighborhoods
- city operational innovations such as solar investments and beneficial reuse of wastewater byproducts reducing costs to the regional water utility, the Mediation Response Unit, Community Paramedicine, and the Real Time Crime Center
Her time in office has also included controversy and some resident pushback.
This includes the recent public frustration over the city's use of Flock cameras that use AI to read and track license plates. On May 1, the city suspended its automated license plate reader camera program. That came after an internal review revealed data was shared widely with local, state and federal agencies, against city policy. At a public meeting, several residents in the audience said Dickstein should be fired.
