The city of Dayton is launching a series of efforts to address several key issues impacting residents.
Dayton Mayor Shenise Turner-Sloss called her strategic vision for the city a "Flight Plan for a Stronger Dayton."
The plan calls for seven-to-nine residents to serve on committees and work with city staff in three areas: governance, public safety and economic development.
"I'm optimistic because most people are tired, they're frankly angry and they want us to do something," Turner-Sloss said. "So my charge and my ask is for us all to do something. This is not all on local government. This is for all to be involved."
The first area is people-centered governance. This includes creating two advisory bodies to develop initiatives with young people.
The second is reimagining public safety. This involves increasing police foot and bike patrols as well as supporting a violence reduction pilot led by Felons with a Future.
Curtis P-Nut Johnson is the program director. He said as a result of his volunteers working in the Northridge neighborhood, there have been 88 consecutive days of no violence.
"We've done mediation where we had two opposing factions or people had beef with each other and we sat them down and made sure they did not want to react," Johnson said. "We basically stopped retaliation as well."
And the pilot program, Street Outreach Initiative, aims to make stable housing, jobs and mental health services more accessible.
The third area is business & economic development. The mayor wants to streamline local regulations for small businesses, create a strategy for vacant commercial properties and establish an advisory board of area experts.
Turner-Sloss also believes this three point strategy will demonstrate the city leadership is working on behalf of all Dayton residents.
"Now more than ever is an opportunity for us to rebuild that trust. To really show that there is responsible, good government," Turner-Sloss said. "This is a way and a means for us to display our commitment, our leadership and uphold the tenets of our democracy."
By the end of this year, each committee will give recommendations to Dayton City Commissioners. They’ll then select which ones to execute.
Committee applications open later this week.
