Dayton mayor Nan Whaley delivered her annual State of the City address on Wednesday. For just over twenty minutes, the mayor touched on issues including the city’s opioid crisis, education, and the announcement of the closing of Good Samaritan Hospital, which Whaley said was one of her toughest days in office.
“The commissioners and I are very concerned about health access for the residents who live in the northern and western parts of Dayton and Montgomery County,” she said. “In addition to the economic and health access concerns, the loss of the hospital has been an emotional blow as well. The stories people have shared with me about what the hospital has meant for their lives is touching.”
The mayor stated emphatically that the city would move forward while addressing access to healthcare. She also notedthe city’s thirty-five percent increase in drug overdose deaths from 2016 to 2017. Whaley said almost no one in the city remains unaffected by the crisis.
“Nearly every week, almost every day I encounter a personal story of loss to the opioid epidemic. All are different but many have similar threads. One that nearly eighty percent of all the stories have it where it all started, with a prescription pain reliever. That is why in June, Dayton was the fourth city in the nation and the first city in Ohio to file a suit against the drug manufacturers, the distributors and doctors who started this mess.”
The Mayor praised local organizations working on the drug epidemic and Dayton public school leaders who are working on the district’s educational challenges. She outlined six education goals to be accomplished in 2018.
You can hear what those goals are and the mayor’s full speech in the audio below.
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