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Lima Mayor David Berger's annual State-of-the-City speech fell on Martin Luther King Day and he began by recommending two books we should read: the biography of Ulysses S. Grant written by Ron Chernow and the biography of Frederick Douglass written by David Blight. "We need to know that history because those same kinds of civil rights can be lost again. So on a day like today when we can certainly herald the man and the civil rights movement we need to understand the context was real and affected lives of people in our community and across the nation in ways that truly were not our best days as a nation." Berger also explained the recently created Youth Commission. It is comprised of agencies, governments and individuals who are working together to improve the lives of youth in our community. "We continue to see the suicide rate among young people. We continue to see children who are being placed in foster homes because parents have died as a result of the opioid epidemic. We continue to see the effects of children who are being raised in households where there is violence. We as adults have to step in. We have to intervene. We have to create other ways for these children to have lives that are healthy, where they are motivated to seek excellence, where they are motivated to do well and be well." The Youth Commission is going to begin with pilot programs next school year at North Middle School and St. Gerard that will offer enrichment activities and mental health resources. He hopes to expand the program to every neighborhood in the city. Berger was very pleased to see congress pass and the president sign revisions to the Clean Water Act that would allow communities to prioritize compliance with EPA mandates to deal with their most pressing environmental concerns and budget constrictions. Nearly as long as he has been in office, Berger has been fighting EPA mandates that would have cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars. "It's important for cities to set priorities, decide what we will do and we're going to postpone." Berger said he was surprised at how little fanfare there has been about the new work at the Join Systems Manufacturing Center. He credits Task Force Lima with advocating for the future of the plant on the state and national levels. "There's in excess of $100 million being spent in that plant. There are hundreds of millions of dollars of product contracts now in place. We went from roughly 400 employees two years ago, we're at 600 now and on our way to more than 1,000. A terrific upturn that will last."
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