Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird touted work on her administration’s top priorities including street improvements, workforce development, affordable housing and downtown revitalization in her annual state of the city address Tuesday.
She invoked the words Lincoln native Ted Sorensen wrote for JFK Jr. — "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" — and how the former president's adviser and speechwriter credited the foundation growing up in Lincoln gave him.Â
"That foundation continues to nurture and inspire me and countless other Lincolnites to follow in his footsteps because Ted's spirit of service is immortalized by those iconic lines that ask us to ask not ... that's our spirit of service, too."
To that end, she touted her administration's accomplishments including street improvements over the past year — and focused on the benefits of the quarter-cent sales tax, the six-year, voter-approved street investment program that will expire next year.
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City officials are likely to ask voters to reup the program, though they’ve said only that it’s an important conversation they’ll need to have with voters.
To that end, Gaylor Baird said Tuesday that because of the so-called “Lincoln on the Move†program, Lincoln has completed 50 additional street projects and invested nearly $78 million in additional improvements.
This year, she said, the city has invested $47 million in street construction and resurfacing projects of 18 lane miles of arterial streets and 8 miles of residential streets. In the coming two years, she said, the city will invest another $87 million.
On affordable housing, Gaylor Baird said her administration has helped create 2,641 units of new or rehabilitated affordable housing — over halfway toward the city’s affordable action plan goal of creating 5,000 new or rehabilitated affordable units by 2030.
The second round of the city’s rental rehabilitation program, which offers grants of up to $15,000 for a variety of energy-efficient upgrades to apartments in the South of Downtown area, will improve 108 units over the next year, she said.
The city considers homeowners eligible for affordable housing if their income is at or below 80% of the Area Median Income ($48,250 for one person and $68,900 for four) and renters whose income is at or below 60% ($40,320 for one person and $57,540 for four).
“At City Hall, we understand that increasing the supply of housing at every price point helps make housing overall more affordable, which is why, during the past three calendar years, our city team has worked diligently to issue more residential building permits than any other three-year period on record,†she said.
Other accomplishments she noted include:
* The first city-owned 24-unit supportive housing project for people experiencing chronic homelessness, which will break ground at Eighth and J streets this month.
*The city’s job-training initiatives, funded largely through federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars, which have served nearly 1,500 residents; and the city’s contributions to early childhood education, which included earmarking $100,000 in casino revenue for grants and $200,000 in federal stimulus dollars to Cedar's and Lincoln Littles.
* How $21.9 million in tax-increment financing, which allows developers to use future property taxes a redevelopment generates to pay for certain up-front costs, has driven more than $183 million in private investments. TIF has funded numerous housing projects, some of which Gaylor Baird highlighted Tuesday, along with the $3.5 million in TIF for a new $150 million building for Instinct Pet Foods in west Lincoln; and the $36 million Shops at Lincoln in the Old Sears building in Gateway, which used $7.5 million in TIF and an occupation tax, both of which will create new jobs.
* The Lincoln Police Department’s recruiting efforts, including the latest academy class of 18, which has helped the department reach 94% of its authorized strength. She noted a new co-responder program on mental health calls and the opening of a new 911 communications center.
*The city’s efforts to replace all private lead water pipes by 2035, its universal home visitation program for families with newborns that served over 700 families during the first year, and the second phase of a heat-pump incentive program for homeowners.
*Work on the city’s efforts to secure a second water source along the Missouri River, which will include the start of construction next spring on the 60-inch transmission main from the Missouri River. Environmental testing has been completed on potential wellfield sites near the river and environmental testing is underway on potential treatment plant locations, with preparations underway for a new water treatment facility.
* The city opened two new neighborhood parks in north Lincoln, will begin building its first all-inclusive park at Mahoney Park and acquired land for a new 154-acre park in northwest Lincoln. She also noted city, county and West Haymarket Joint Public Agency dollars that contributed over half the cost of the new Sandhills Global Youth Complex.
* The Downtown Corridors project, which includes federal funding for streetscape improvements to Ninth, 10th and O streets that will begin in the spring of 2025. The project also includes creating a new music district on 14th Street, which will include “the Music Box,†a new venue for artists and the public.
She encouraged Lincolnites to get involved, to maintain and build on the foundation Sorensen appreciated.
"We have childhoods to nurture, homes to build, streets to pave, parks to develop, jobs to create, elections to vote in and wells to dig to ensure that our great city remains safe, healthy, strong, resilient, equitable, inclusive with a vibrant economy and quality of life."