Making Dayton Work for You

Shenise Turner-Sloss: On the Issues

As your next Mayor, my vision is to put residents first by rebuilding our neighborhoods block by block—creating space for small businesses to grow, strengthening community ties, and expanding resources that uplift working families.

I will champion bold, progressive policies that tackle the root causes of inequality—ensuring every Dayton resident has access to safe housing, good jobs, quality healthcare, and a government that truly works for them.

REBUILD HEALTHY NEIGHBORHOODS

Housing First Initiative
Offer permanent, affordable housing as quickly as possible to individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Evidence based approach to reduce homelessness.
Establish a new city fund for acquiring, refurbishing, and managing rental properties to grow our city’s supply of deed-restricted affordable housing. Expand city housing stock by increasing the number and variety of quality affordable housing units in Dayton.
"ResidentS First" Property Program

Residents should have the same opportunities that “out-of-town” developers have when investing in our communities! My plan is to establish the “Residents First Property Program.” This program will give Dayton residents the first option to purchase property located in the City and provide residents with a financial advantage over nonresident purchasers.

Dayton residents will be able to purchase vacant lots and property.

  1. Dayton residents can purchase vacant lots next door to their existing property for only $1 and vacant properties for $2,000.
  2. Non-Dayton residents can purchase vacant lots for $2,000 and vacant properties for $5,000.
"Fix My Block" Program
Every resident deserves to live in a clean and safe neighborhood. As Mayor, I will create the “Fix My Block” program that will encourage existing home owners to invest in their property by providing grants and low-interest loans for repairs. The “Fix My Block” program will be supported by the City partnering with other community stakeholders to create an aggressive demolition program for vacant properties that are beyond repair and the management and elimination of overgrown trees and grass making Dayton “Beautiful”. The program will also protect longtime homeowners from unaffordable increases in property taxes by advocating for a county’s Longtime Owner Occupant Protection tax exemption.
Healthcare Services
Every resident in the City of Dayton should have access to medical, mental, and emergency health care services. My plan is to work with each health care provider in the City to ensure that residents are aware of the physical health care facilities and to expand options for satellite facilities to address the urgent medical needs of our economic disadvantage communities.
"Dayton Renters Initiative” program
Dayton residents need support! My plan is to launch the “Dayton Renters Initiative” program within the City’s housing code enforcement department. The program will provide Dayton residents with a direct link to the City of Dayton’s Housing Inspections division with support with Code Enforcement . This will streamline the process for residents to report neglectful property owners to the City. Also, the process will ensure that the City’s response to alleged neglectful property maintenance is timely and aggressive towards providing safe spaces for our residents. The Dayton Renters Initiative program will provide low-interest loans for property owners to address code violations through contracted services from city certified small business/ minority contractors.

STRENGTHEN BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS

"4-Way Business District" Plan

Local businesses should be within walking distance of all of our neighborhoods! The “Dayton 4-Way Business District” has three components for investment:

  • Main Street, Third Street, Salem Ave., & Gettysburg Ave. will have similar zoning for restaurants, retail shopping, grocery, and business related offices.
  • Vacant commercial buildings should be sold to developers at reduced market rates with contract provisions that the properties are developed within three years.
  • The City of Dayton should partner with local small businesses to establish affordable physical stores in the newly established Business Districts.
"Cut the Tape" Program
Businesses represent the heart of economic security within every community, and are a significant indicator of our city’s economic well-being. Businesses must have avenues to strengthen their operations and expand their markets. As Mayor, I will launch the “Cut the Tape” program that will work to eliminate barriers and restructure policies that restrict or complicate access to capital, resources, and development by partnering with businesses, institutions, and stakeholders to create and transform policies that are beneficial to entrepreneurship, business development, and long-term planning.
Pro-Worker Agenda
I will advocate for a livable wage and fight for a “pro-worker” agenda by supporting our existing local unions that engage in collective bargaining for workers’ rights, fair pay, and benefits and foster the creation of new organized labor units. I will fight to increase the financial incentives of our jobs to lessen the burden that Dayton families deal with in order to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. As a proud member of the local AFGE Union and the only active union member on the Commission, I understand that workers are the foundation of every economy.

PUT RESIDENTS FIRST

Addressing Wealth Inequality

Increase strategic partnerships that will attract businesses that want to grow investments in high wage, high growth industries that support quality jobs for all workers.

Work with the county government – or alone if necessary – to establish a public bank that keeps our money local. These institutions lessen the reliance on payday lenders, help the unbanked population, have a duty to help and support the community, and any profits are immediately retained in the city and can be reinvested back in the community. The public will be the shareholders and we’ll all reap the benefits.

Establish partnerships with local farming communities to develop Fresh Food to Food Deserts programs such as farmers markets on city property or in collaboration with community centers.

Public Safety Reform

Public safety is a non-partisan issue that needs to be addressed with urgency. That urgency includes investing in programming such Neighborhood Watch / Ambassadors, Cure Violence initiative and other diversion programs that reduces the number of arrests while keeping our neighborhoods and police safe from acts of crime or violence. Public safety programming should be a permanent budget solution.
Addressing crime and safety requires community input. My plan is to ensure that an independent Public Safety Advisory Committee is established to investigate areas of concern and best practices. The independent body will be referred to as the “Public Safety Advisory Committee” and will consist of residents, businesses, subject matter experts, and community leaders. The Committee will work directly with the Commission office, and will receive the full support and access to City of Dayton resources that will be empowered to provide the Commission with recommendations.

In addition to establishing a Public Safety Committee, I will push for more diversity and the recruitment of Dayton residents in the Dayton Police Department. I will also work to increase the incentives provided to Dayton residents to become officers. In order to encourage the law enforcement as a profession, new recruits will receive:

  • Competitive wages
  • Paid training
  • College tuition
  • Incentives for living in the city

I believe we need to ‘re-imagine’ public safety and the role of our police officers:

Dayton Police Department is only one part of our public team but historically they have been expected to do too much. Teams are more productive when every player is at their best. We currently use the police to respond to things such as wellness checks, auto accidents, school discipline, minor traffic violations like a busted tail-light, the mentally ill, and the unhoused.

None of these situations are a crime; however, incarceration is oftentimes an outcome.

My plan is to expand the city’s staff of social workers and mental health professionals to respond to lower threat levels calls. The goal is to ensure the safety of our residents and officers in every interaction. A successful pilot program is already implemented through the Dayton Mediation Center, but we need to make this program a budget priority and to hire more Mediation Response Unit (MRU) officers.

It’s time to re-imagine public safety and create programs where individuals trained to deal with each of these things respond and offer help and solutions.

Environmental Champion

Clean air and water in Dayton must be a top priority. Ohio is well above the national average in rates of asthma and Dayton is one of the largest hotspots in the state. This is related to several environmental factors.

The PFAS that has contaminated the aquifer below Dayton and supplies much of Montgomery County is a significant issue. This has been a top priority for the City of Dayton with the significant investments made in acquiring one of the leading water filtration systems in the state to address concerns of contamination, and this included tackling crumbling infrastructure and systems at the well-fields.

However, more work is necessary to proactively address environmental concerns instead of paying a higher price later when the problems have spun out of control is not the answer. Therefore, I have introduced lead pipe policy that follows in the footsteps of other cities who have completely eliminated lead pipes in their communities. The City must not only focus on their own service lines, but also those “last mile” of service lines on private property that supply the homes and businesses of renters. Throughout Ohio, many of the service lines are “lead status unknown” and this is unacceptable. We must bring the problem into the light and then fix it.

Expanding urban tree canopy. Science has repeatedly shown that green-spaces can not only protect from some of the negative impacts of pollution, but also supports mental health.

Adopt a measure providing an automatic 100% real property tax abatement of the assessed property value for newly constructed or rehabilitated commercial or residential properties that earn a minimum of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. Similar to the program implemented in Cincinnati.

Connecting Residents: Broadband Initiative
Utilize current fiber optic and improve local infrastructure to build cable along our existing electric grid — providing all residents with faster, cheaper internet, while using the existing fiber optics to offer free public wi-fi within its borders. Use bond financing to start connecting the most underserved neighborhoods to fiber now, then use profits from the initial investments to continue building out the network.