To that end, the mayor said this year the city is going to help set up and launch a violence interruption program and a peace campaign.
On Wednesday night, Mayor Mims took part in his fourth State of the City address, which was held in a conversational format at the Salvation Army Dayton Kroc Center in the McCook Field neighborhood. This was Mims’ final State of the City address for his first term in office.
Mims, who was elected mayor in 2021 after serving two terms as a city commissioner, will seek reelection this year.
During his 30-minute conversation with moderator Fran Robinson, Mims said the city made a lot of progress in 2024 and there’s a lot more investment coming in 2025 and beyond.
Mims said the city has removed blight and is helping create new housing, and there are tons of new jobs on the way.
Joby Aviation is planning to bring about 2,000 jobs to Dayton when it opens an electric air taxi production facility in the city. The onMain project that will redevelop the former Montgomery County Fairgrounds could bring a couple thousand jobs as well.
“Dayton is hot right now,” Mims said.
But the mayor also said that the community has had an unacceptable amount of violence and the city must do more to address that.
Last year, Dayton saw a sharp increase in homicides, robberies, violent crimes involving firearms and kidnappings and abductions.
Serious crimes involving firearms in general also increased, and young people were victims and perpetrators of some of the violent acts.
Mims said the city is going to help set up a new program that takes a public health approach to combating violence.
The new program will treat violence like a contagious disease and will try to interrupt its spread and transmission. A new peace campaign will try to reduce violence and strengthen the community.
This story will be updated.
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