Mayor David Berger says Lima has everything it needs to succeed.
In 2013, James and Deb Fallows took a five year, 54,000-mile journey around America in a single-engine plane. They wrote their observations in a book called Our Towns. Mayor David Berger based his annual State of the City speech on the book's ten and half signs of civic success:
- People work together on possibilities rather than allow political disagreements to keep them apart.
- Local patriots
- Public/private partnerships
- People know their story
- They have a downtown
- They are near a research facility
- They have and care about a community college
- They have distinctive schools
- They make themselves open
- They have big plans
- They have craft breweries
Mayor Berger pointed to projects such as the Rotary Community Stage and Park, Rhodes State College's downtown campus, and both hospitals' expansions as well as many other investments as signs that Lima is seeing continuing growth. Regarding the recent triple homicide, Mayor Berger called it "a breathtaking violation of our community. Our attitude about it should be that we cannot allow that kind of behavior to define us. Our attitude about it has to be in fact that we will continue to support those doing business in our community because that is what we want. The city has been engaging on these issues for a long time. We've shut down a number of bars. We have in fact been able to succeed both with challenging the licenses of bar owners but we've also begun to use the nuisance statutes for the city and the state in order to take effective action to make certain that those that are operating businesses in our community in ways that are not safe are held accountable."
Berger says that with the downtown brewery in the works, Lima meets nine and a half of the ten and half signs of civic success. Lima is, "a place that has talent, energy. We are a place that cares for itself and has demonstrated that over time we can take a hit and come back. There are many things that are happening in our community that are positive examples of what can happen when people work together."
Also at Monday's meeting we raised $1,100 for PolioPlus by auctioning off a number of Valentine's Day packages. Thanks to everyone who bid!
