As a public service to readers, the Dayton Daily News asked the candidates to respond to a series of questions about the race. Each candidate responded, except Denning. Below are lightly edited excerpts of their answers presented in alphabetical order. Additional questions and full responses are available online at vote.daytondailynews.com.
Q. What are the biggest problems facing the community? What do you propose doing to tackle these challenges?
Beverly Campbell: A major problem is the opioid drug epidemic that affects families and ties up the city's police and ambulance resources such that they are less available for the needs of others. I will work to get the city government involved in county-wide drug assistance programs and referral programs to help our citizens.
Brenda Fry: Riverside is experiencing the self-reinforcing challenges of low economic growth and being in the center of the opioid epidemic. According to a recent Dayton Daily News article, many of the people who need jobs are ineligible for them because they can't pass a drug test. These problems reinforce each other. I believe working toward a healthy community will improve our economic prospects. For this reason, the primary focus of my efforts will be on providing community engagement and support. These efforts include ensuring our community has adequate access to 12-step programs.
Tony Kraus: Riverside faces many similar problems to most communities in our area, such as economic growth and aging infrastructure. Promoting the city's existing vacant commercial and retail properties to local and national businesses, along with exploring new avenues for redevelopment should assist with economic growth and job creation. As for infrastructure, options are continuing current programs as well as researching the feasibility of any and all other available possibilities.
Sara Lommatzsch: The city's residential streets need serious attention. Economic development that brings jobs and revenue to the city is also a priority. I will work to aggressively restructure the city budget to focus more on infrastructure and citizen needs, and will press the staff on aggressive business recruitment. City leadership must become a results-driven organization in order to make significant progress in these areas.
Edward Schock: Listen to the residents when they express their feelings about finding a suitable business that would fit our community and making sure our residents fully support the location of this business.
Kyle Winning: Riverside is not unlike many other communities in that we have an aging population and a stagnant tax base. For us to overcome our challenges we must actively work to attract new business to invest in our city. In order to draw new investments we must have a workforce ready and willing. We have to tackle the opioid problem our city faces by helping our citizens get treatment while going after the dealers. We have to make sure our residents have the correct education and skill sets to be employable. To accomplish this my dream would be to work with outside organizations to offer GED classes, ESL (English as a second language) classes and other classes to cover not only skills for the workforce but also to help with personal finances and personal health. We need to do more for our citizens then putting our hand out asking for tax money. We must have a plan to invest in our citizens or how can we expect others to be willing to invest in our city?
Q: What can you do if elected to help grow the local economy and add jobs? What ideas do you have for attracting new jobs and investment?
Beverly Campbell: I will push to get staff out of the office to physically recruit businesses. We cannot be successful by passively waiting for business execs to drive by and discover us! We should be recruiting businesses that complement our current business base and recruit their business partners. We should incentivize our businesses and even our citizens to help the city to recruit businesses. The city could pay "incentive bounties" for successful results.
Brenda Fry: I have studied what the keys are to a growing economy, and fundamentally, it's about networking and community. When the folks with great ideas are in close contact with the investors and the experienced entrepreneurs, and they are supported by the greater community, synergy happens and new companies are born. I believe that we can create that synergy in Riverside by bringing folks together and working with them and supporting them to chart a new path forward. Identifying the skills and assets (that) are unique to our community and promoting them throughout our region is also key. We have tremendous untapped potential in our community. The key is to make use of it.
Tony Kraus: To improve the local economy, one approach is to work directly with city employees and local business owners to receive their ideas and feedback; along with researching any and all tax incentive possibilities that could help to attract businesses.
Sara Lommatzsch: The city has studies that show the type of business base it has and the types of businesses to recruit. The city needs an aggressive recruitment program that goes after these businesses and brings new jobs to the community. This important function cannot operate in a passive mode to be successful.
Edward Schock: I feel that the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base tax lawsuit is hindering Riverside in attracting new companies. As your councilmember I will review the status of this lawsuit to make a determination on how it is affecting Riverside's abilities to add jobs. If this is true, I would make a motion to cease and desist all action against Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
Editor’s note: The Dayton Daily News confirmed with city law director Dalma Grandjean that the lawsuit is no longer ongoing.
Kyle Winning: I think to help grow the local economy in Riverside, we have to look outside the box. We recently lost Kmart and while I keep hearing we should go after this big box store, or that store, I disagree with this approach. I would rather see the site redeveloped into a mixed use parcel. That way we can diversify ourselves and be in a better position should any one industry or business take a hit. If we go from one employer on the site to multiple, any single closing of a store or business will impact a smaller group of employees. I feel like a mixed use property will also help to bring in visitors from outside our city limits, thus helping to grow our tax base. We can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and reasonably expect different results.
Beverly Campbell
Experience: Long-time office administrator Jergens Construction. Former Riverside council member. Former Avondale Community Improvement Corp. board member.
Education: Stebbins High School; Various professional workshops.
Mike Denning
Experience: Incumbent Riverside council member.
Brenda Fry
Experience: Senior Software Engineer, 16 years; Girl Scout Leader and member of Service Unit Leadership Team, 3 years; Junior League of Dayton, 2 years
Education: Bachelor of Arts, Computational Sciences and English, Hollins University, Roanoke, Virginia.
Tony Kraus
Experience: Chairman, City of Riverside Parks and Recreation Commission
Sara Lommatzsch
Experience: Retail sales professional skilled in customer service and attention to customer needs. Former school board member overseeing multi-million dollar budgets and major education program development. Current member of Riverside city council, skilled in teamwork in planning and delivery of city services. Long-time member of Miami Valley Military Affairs board, working to raise funds and supporting programs that benefit local military organizations and their families. Board member, Riverside Chamber.
Education: College Degree, East Carolina Univ.; Numerous schools and city professional seminars and workshops.
Edward Schock
Experience: Chaired on the first Riverside Charter Commission, Chaired at the Board of Zoning appeals, Chaired Property Maintenance Appeal Board
Education: Beavercreek High School, Past Member of Sinclair Tech Prep Program
Kyle Winning
Experience: I have worked as a Fire Fighter and Paramedic in both the public sector and private.
Education: Completed a technical program from Sinclair to get my Ohio Fire Fighter and Paramedic certification.
Note: Candidates provided the Dayton Daily News with biographical information. Denning did not provide answers.
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