Some residents said their neighborhoods desperately need new investment and these federal funds are the chance of a lifetime to make that happen.
But some people also fear their neighborhoods will be left out or the city won’t put the money to the best uses.
“People want to know where the money’s going,” said Mitzi Daniels, 52, who attended a public meeting on Thursday and said she had never seen so many people at a hearing before.
The city needs to invest in Residence Park, at Elmhurst Road and West Second Street, and install surveillance cameras in the neighborhood to deter crime and unwanted activities, Daniels said.
“That’s why people don’t take their kids to the parks ― they’re scared,” she said.
The park has some aging playground equipment and basketball courts, and its tennis courts are cracked and have weeds growing out. The neighborhood also has far too much blight and overgrown lots, Daniels said, and it needs a beefed-up police presence.
Daniels said she really hopes these federal funds will lead to major improvements in her neighborhood.
Judy Screetch-Philpot, a Westwood resident of more than 60 years, said she wants the city to tear down the “sickening” number of vacant homes. She also hopes the city can find a way to bring new retail and other businesses to the area, possibly through incentives.
City parks in the neighborhood need amenities like new playground equipment or splash pads, because right now they are bare, she said.
Kids “shouldn’t have to go way over to another area to play and have fun,” said Screetch-Philpot, who is 73.
Gettysburg Park in the Westwood neighborhood has knee-high weeds, and the basketball hoops are rusted and the court is deteriorating. Playground equipment is nestled in among the tall grass.
Dayton owns the park, but officials say it has been offline for years and the city expects to do a study of its greenspaces.
Neighbors need to attend these public meetings to make sure their voices are heard, Screetch-Philpot said, because there probably won’t be a funding opportunity like this again.
For Sheila Woolfolk, blight removal is the most urgent priority.
The 78-year-old resident said tearing down vacant and abandoned housing would be a major step toward revitalizing the area.
“If they’ve been there years and years, they need to come down,” she said. “One of my neighbors across the street had to call the city because racoons started invading her home from the empty house right beside her.”
Youth in the neighborhood need things to do, like new activities at updated parks, Woolfolk said, and roads need resurfaced and replaced ― not just patched. She also would like some of the money to go toward supporting Black-owned businesses.
Pearl Howard, president of the Residence Park neighborhood association, said she would like the city to acquire the now-closed World of Wonder school to convert it into a community center. Dayton Public Schools shut down the school two years ago because of low enrollment.
Howard said the facility is fairly new and in good shape and could become a neighborhood asset.
The city hopes to get final guidance this month from the U.S. Treasury about how it can use its federal dollars, said C. LaShea Lofton, Dayton’s deputy city manager.
It wants to make investments that have a long-term impact on neighborhoods and quality of life, she said. The city also wants to support diversity, equity and inclusion, partly because the minority community and minority-owned businesses were most severely affected by the pandemic, Lofton said.
The city hopes to support and grow Black-, brown- and woman-owned businesses, which she said is the right thing to do but also makes economic sense.
Growing minority-owned businesses to be more on par with their nonminority-owned counterparts would mean more than 500 new companies and 4,000 new jobs in the city, she said.
Dayton hopes to elevate quality of life in neighborhoods across the city, City Manager Shelley Dickstein.
“We know there are too many neighborhoods that don’t have valued amenities,” she said. “What can we do to address that?”
“There are too many neighborhoods that don’t have the basic, high-quality infrastructure ... We know that there is housing development that we need ― but not every neighborhood has the same needs,” Dickstein said.
Upcoming community meetings about the federal rescue funds
Wed., July 21, 10:30 a.m., Lohrey Recreation Center, 2366 Glenarm Ave.
Monday, July 26, 3 p.m., Connor Child Health Pavilion, 1010 Valley St.
Tuesday, Jul 27,12:30 p.m., Dayton Metro Library, Downtown, 215 E. Third St.
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