WYSO's City Mayor Series continues in the new year with a conversation with Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr.
In this interview, Mims talks about his time in office and the issues some residents have spoken out about following our social media outreach efforts to determine what challenges they're facing and what cities are doing right.
This interview transcript has been edited slightly for clarity and length.
Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr.: I feel proud to be a part of the last three years as mayor, to see some of the things that I worked on with colleagues for eight years as a city commissioner. And I would say clearly passing the first tax increase in Dayton in 2016 was very beneficial, as far as the city is concerned. Because this city had been on a downward spiral for 50 years. The job losses issue in terms of predatory lending issue in terms of the foreclosure crisis.
And for those who may not know that — Montgomery County, Ohio, right here, Dayton was number one in the nation with job losses during the recession, 2006 timeframe, 2009 this period of time. We also are one of the victims, as an urban community, urban school system, to have 25 years of unfunded education as far as the Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland's, etc... And that's something that's missed by a lot of individuals and they're not understanding that we have for a decade, a generation, let's just say, plus of young people who are undereducated because they're undereducated now they're either unemployed or unemployed at the level that we would see as some of our more affluent communities. And that's one of the things that makes our progress probably more significant than what it would be under normal circumstances.
So when you look at the jobs that we've been able to create, having the fastest job growth in the region, having that population stabilize in terms of more and more people moving in, having almost $2 billion invested in downtown alone and having almost another $1.5 billion invested in the neighborhoods around us, that shows that clearly that there are more and more people who are on board with the right things that are happening as opposed to those of the wrong things.
And so it's changing the tide in terms of negative factors. Now, it doesn't mean that all the negative things just go away because we snapped our fingers or we have some good things in some parts of the city that everything is just automatically overnight, all the problems going on to themselves. We still have plenty and plenty of work to do as far as a serious concern. So I just say to people, let's help us celebrate the successes, but we keep our shoulder to the wheel. Understand that we still got a lot of work to do and we're going to need everyone to make those things happen.
Jerry Kenney: As you know, we reached out to residents on social media and, particular to Dayton, residents came back with a number of issues. One had to do with trash and the esthetics of their neighborhoods, whether that trash was coming from trash pickers the night before, trash pickup or how other residents treat their own properties. What can you tell me in the way of the esthetics of the city, what is controllable by your office?
Mims: Yeah, I'm happy to address that because again, you have to look at these situations as neighborhood by neighborhood. We have the overwhelming majority of our neighborhoods that don't have a trash problem. That's because the neighbors in the residence don't throw trash down. We also have had a large increase in members of the community who are taking more and more pride in their community because of some of these conversations that we're having. We have so many more organized community pickups in terms of trash. We have some of the younger people involved now. I mean, a kid that comes to my mind is now possibly maybe 20, maybe 21, Chaz Amos with "I love West Dayton," who has started about three years ago, a neighborhood trash cleanup. So they go to different neighborhoods that do that. And they have a lot of young people involved in that program as well. So I will say to you ride around, take some friends with you, ride around the entire city of Dayton — 65 neighborhoods — and you'll see many of our neighborhoods ... Like I said, the overwhelming majority of them are not those who are covered with blight and trash ... And try to find ways in maybe even some neighborhood meetings, some neighborhood groups like we do support with Community Block Grant dollars, if you have a program engaging some of the young people in your neighborhood that wants to figure out how you can pay them, how you do some other things with them to get them engaged and picking up trash. Get them engaged and not wanting to see people throw trash down, we'll figure out how we can support that.
Kenney: I think you have a monthly clean-up program, maybe from a volunteer organization or whether that city led or not, that did receive a lot of credit through our social media outreach as well. The other item that people mentioned, and this went across borders from city to city was crime, particularly car thefts, auto thefts and the overnight car door checkers looking for an available car to take. What can you tell me about that front?
Mims: We're constantly working on that and we're doing several things in that front. One, we're constantly trying to recruit more and more police officers. Two, we're working with technology because we have a shortage of about 35 police officers in course of being short of that. And so constantly trying to work with technology and our citizens, while I think initially were a little leery, if you will, for lack of another word, license plate readers or some other type of technology that we had in buildings downtown, or how we make connections with those who have like a ring or chime type of security camera on their homes, being able to, with the permission of the owner, only with the permission of the owner.
And then also certain things we do that only with the permission of the neighborhoods and they vote on whether or not they want to have that system connected to our police. And more and more, we're seeing that they do want to have those type of connections because we're picking up people sometimes as far away as Cleveland who have been involved in some shootings - shooting a lady and who's pregnant and some other individuals as well. And being able to track them through those license plate readers, again, as far away as Cleveland, and the fact that our police as well as policemen from the bigger cities, we, myself and some of the other large city mayors, requested a meeting with the governor. And he also had a meeting at his home, and he had all the technical personnel in terms of staff, explain to us the types of things that are happening right now, and so the kinds of things that they're planning to to make happen. And also share with us the aspect of how some of these things work that we may not be engaged in.
We do have a challenge that probably we don't have any place else in the state and that we have more of our young people who are living in group homes, because we have more homes than any other county in the state of Ohio, and so many of those young people, because they live in other counties, are sometimes engaged and stealing cars just to go back and visit friends or sometimes family in terms of those spaces. So we're asking more and more people to make sure they're locking up the cars. Even dealerships with the stolen cars, we want to make sure that's what dealerships who have felt comfortable that they give themselves a security system and be able to check that and show that data to the police and make sure we can do everything we can to minimize these challenges.
Kenney: Well, let's talk about any programs you want to highlight. I know when, before we started rolling tape, that you and I had a conversation about positive messages for young people. But maybe reiterate that program if you want or anything else you want to highlight that you started.
Mims: Well, let's start there. Okay. Because when I first came in as mayor, you know, of course, not just because of a former teacher, but clearly, I was influenced by that. Many of those young people have, because my long teaching career, are now adults, clearly, and they have children of their own. And so I still have that passion like I did with them when they were in school in my classroom, treating them the way I want someone to treat my child and creating the kind of conditions that will put them in a position to be able to make a choice of where they want to go to college, they want to go to military, they want to go into the workforce, or they want to go to technical school or any one of those combinations, that's our job as adults. And I see that more clearly even now being the mayor, because the day after graduation, if they're not going to college, they're not going to the military, they're not going to the workforce, and they're not going to technical school then they're my problem. Okay. So we have to understand that, and more of them understand that as well. So part of what I did from the very beginning was to have the Mayor's Youth Summit, so had 25 kids from each of our high schools in Dayton come together with me and with other adults who had training in the areas of mental health, jobs and careers, civic engagement and also mentoring. Because we want them, as they gain more skills, to be able to interact with their peers, and also some of the younger people to address some of those concerns as well.
Additionally, we continue to fortify the program that I was able to start with the public schools in terms of leadership in that space. The current superintendent, who was not the superintendent then, the current superintendent now and some others, and President Obama's My Brother's Keeper program to again help address some of the young men who consistently falling into some of these traps and where they're not able to utilize the skills and talents that they have with a program called My Brother's Keeper. We were the first city in the state of Ohio to start that program and moving in that particular space on a continuous basis. Just recently received a ten-year award from Senator Sherrod Brown in Cincinnati with all those young people there to help recognize and celebrate that success. Additionally, working with those young people, and I've been doing this for like 15 years already, taking young people to vote. And so taking young people to vote from, again that the different area high schools who are 18 years old, young people who are 18 at the time, that they are going to vote on Election Day and helping them understand, just like adults, there are four basic reasons why you vote for a candidate or you vote for an issue. Vote for a candidate or issue that benefits you, your livelihood, your family and your community. That's it. Nothing else. Not because they're tall or short, black or white, male, female, republican, democrat. None of those things matter. They have to be focused on the things that are benefitting those four issues. And it's easy to look them up, look their record up, see what they've done, been doing for ten, 15 years before they decide to run for the office and then again helps you to formulate your decision based upon data and not just based upon either misinformation or disinformation about a typical candidate during campaign time.
Additionally, working with young people still on the connection in terms of jobs. Just as I've shared that we've been the benefactor of the fastest job growth in the region and being able to help fortify our programs in the city, where we have a consistent body of applications for young people, and even those that have gray hair like us, maybe to apply for some jobs that we have throughout this region because the lack of jobs is not our problem. We have programs with The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, where they're having people apply in those programs, working for 4 to 5 years, getting paid while they're working, a competitive wage, you know, $25, $30 an hour. And then once they graduate, they become journeymen into that area, and they're set for life. Now, they got like $100,000 package in terms of them being able to work, have fringe benefits and they'll take care of themselves and take care of their family. Looking at those type of things and looking at how we touch all the different bases.
