Written with the help of AI from the Dayton City Commission agenda, October 14, 2026 and the meeting video.
What commissioners approved
This recap is based on the meeting video and the agenda for the Wednesday, October 14, 2026 Dayton City Commission meeting. The commission approved the minutes of its October 7 meeting and then approved the city manager’s recommendations on a motion and a second followed by a voice vote. The vote count was not read aloud in the portion of the video reviewed.
The recommendations included purchase orders totaling $920,857.80 for the Police and Public Works departments. Police will buy twelve Motorola radios, with programming and template updates, from Motorola Solutions, Inc. c/o P&R Communications, Inc. for $78,757.80. Public Works will spend $157,100 with Duncan Oil Company and $670,000 with Mansfield Service Partners LLC for gasoline and diesel fuel through December 31, 2026, plus $15,000 with Palmer Trucks, Inc. dba Kenworth of Dayton for Kenworth vehicle parts and repair services.
Two construction contracts were on the list. Brumbaugh Construction, Inc. received a $1,984,100 contract for Phase 1 improvements to the Dayton Juice Building at 3975 Dayton Park Drive, running through May 31, 2028. The agenda lists a 2% minority business enterprise participation goal and 2.87% achieved. Visu-Sewer of Ohio LLC received a $1,512,500 contract for Phase 5 of the Wolf Creek Sanitary Liner Installation, running through September 30, 2028.
The package also included a lease agreement with Kuntz Farm, LLC to share agricultural revenues and expenses for farming properties around the Dayton International Airport and maintaining native warm-season grasses there. It is expected to bring in $720,000 in revenue against $310,000 in expenses through December 1, 2029. Mars Tomorrow, LLC will pay the city $200 to install a 29-by-10-foot concrete pad with block walls and a metal roof in the unimproved alley right-of-way at 848 East Monument Avenue. The commission also approved a $15,000 legal settlement with Marites O’Neal and the Law Offices of Blake R. Maislin, LLC in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court case 2026 CV 00651.
On legislation, Emergency Resolution No. 6962-26 authorizes the levy of the voter-approved one-mill additional property tax for building and operating a city public hospital in West Dayton. It also asks Montgomery County to pay the city in advance the tax money collected for 2027. The commission voted four in favor and one abstention to declare it an emergency, then adopted it by the same count at second reading. Commissioner Fairchild abstained on the second-reading vote.
Emergency Resolution No. 6963-26 accepts a fiscal year 2025 Assistance to Firefighters Grant of $110,510 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and authorizes the required matching funds of $11,051. It was adopted with five votes in favor.
Ordinance No. 32218-26, which amends sections of the city’s code related to civil citations, passed at second reading with five votes in favor. An ordinance is a city law. Ordinance No. 32219-26, which appropriates property designated as Parcel 58 SH for the Smithville Road reconstruction project, had its first reading.
Presentations and commissioner questions
The city’s chief engineer updated the commission on Revive 35, a planning effort to rethink US 35 through Dayton. The city received a $2 million Reconnecting Communities pilot program grant from the Federal Highway Administration in 2025. The study area runs from Gettysburg Avenue on the west to Steve Whalen Boulevard on the east. The engineer said the project began with a July kickoff with consultants and is scheduled to close in January 2028. He said the goal is to rebuild connections between neighborhoods that the highway divided and to end with a plan that is ready to compete for federal, state and local funding.
He described three advisory groups: a technical committee of experts, a community committee of roughly 30 to 40 members, and a racial equity subcommittee. The project website, revive35dayton.com, has drawn just over 100 community members. Four formal workshops are planned: a visioning workshop at the end of October, a design charrette in January 2027, design alternatives in spring 2027 and an implementation plan in fall 2027. Each will be held at three meetings, on the east end, the west end and in a central location. The first visioning sessions are set for the West Dayton Library, the East End Community Center and downtown during the lunch hour, and the engineer said he will appear at the neighborhood presidents forum on October 26. He said the city is working on translating its materials into other languages.
Commissioner Beckham asked what happens after the plan is finished. The engineer said the consultants are identifying funding sources for each phase and that some federal discretionary programs are uncertain, while the Ohio Department of Transportation is part of the steering group. Commissioner Fairchild asked whether the work would delay a safer route for children to the library near the Abbey Road crossing of US 35. The engineer said it would complement that effort and strengthen it by giving the city a federally funded plan. Commissioner Shaw thanked staff for using the grant opportunity. Commissioner Joseph urged skeptics to give the process time, citing other cities that reconnected neighborhoods. The mayor asked how community members were chosen; the engineer said the city used email blasts and outreach to neighborhood leaders, businesses and others, and the mayor asked staff to stay mindful of neighborhoods with less capacity to take part.
The executive director of the Norma J. Ross Memorial Foundation spoke for breast cancer awareness month. She said the foundation helps women and men regardless of insurance status with screenings and transportation to mammogram appointments. She cited estimates that more than 322,000 women and 2,700 men will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and said that in Montgomery County between 2018 and 2022, 31% of women were diagnosed at a later stage. She listed upcoming events: education at the Wright Dunbar cigar lounge that evening and again for men on October 22 (1135 West Third Street), screenings with Premier Health’s mobile unit in Wright Dunbar on Friday, October 16, National Mammography Day, and a B365 event on October 24 at Mount Calvary, 3375 Semmes Avenue. The foundation’s phone number is 937-281-4829. Commissioners thanked her for her advocacy.
In her comments on the calendar, the city manager highlighted two contracts. The Dayton Park Drive building is a 42,000-square-foot property the city has long owned because it sits in a sensitive wellhead area. After renovation it will house the water department’s engineering and IT staff, now spread across several sites. A later phase will include a backup for the water utility’s security system, and the Police Department will lease space for part of its specialized unit fleet. The Wolf Creek project relines clay pipe installed in 1940 using a trenchless method that cures a new liner in place. Four bids were received, and the manager said about $1.2 million of the roughly $1.5 million cost comes from an EPA grant, leaving about $257,000 from sanitary capital funds. She said completion is expected in September 2027.
What residents raised
Five residents registered to speak on calendar items. One supported the hospital levy, saying West Dayton residents have struggled to reach care since Good Samaritan closed. Another resident questioned commissioners’ travel, board appointments and funding for the hospital. A Hearthstone neighborhood resident who said he is the Dayton Miami Valley Democratic Socialists of America chapter’s liaison to the city urged a public progress report on forming the West Dayton Hospital Board of Trustees, covering steps completed, when applications and nominations will open, and when proposed trustees will come before the commission. A resident of Pershing Boulevard welcomed the civil citations ordinance as a first step on rental property standards and asked how monitoring would work. A Wabash Avenue resident asked for public records on the search for a new city manager, including proposals, scoring and disclosures for the recruitment firm under an $80,000 contract, and said she was not alleging wrongdoing.
Nine residents spoke during general comments. A resident spoke about the September 11 attacks. A Arbor Avenue resident asked commissioners to prioritize children in the budget, saying recreation programs are concentrated at Northwest Rec Center and fewer are offered at Lohrey and the Greater Dayton Recreation Center, and asked for adequate funding for the Cure Violence Initiative and Peace Ambassadors.
A Park Drive resident said it was her fourth appearance this year on Flock license plate cameras. She urged the commission to adopt a contract with a firm to investigate how the data was used and to cancel the Flock contract and take the cameras down. A West Grand Avenue resident who had also spoken earlier said elevators in her senior apartment building had been out for almost two weeks, and also raised questions about enforcement of a youth curfew, road lane reductions and bicycle lanes on Main Street.
A resident of Alfred Drive, who had also spoken earlier, criticized the commission’s follow-through on the use of force committee and asked that it be abolished and replaced by a revised version with more members and quarterly meetings. The Hearthstone resident returned to ask the commission to treat community wealth building as a city priority and to fund an independent import replacement study through the Miami Valley Community Wealth Initiative Network. The Pershing Boulevard resident then listed 14 rental properties among 45 run-down homes he counted in the Linden Heights area and gave their owners’ locations. The Wabash Avenue resident returned to urge a transparent funding plan and milestones for the West Dayton hospital. A resident of Ravenwood Avenue said she paid an $85 speeding ticket from a stretch of US 35 and had received two school-zone tickets near Belhaven, and asked for posted time frames on school-zone signs. She said speed camera revenue rose from about $300,000 in 2024 to $4.3 million in 2025.
Closing comments
Commissioner Beckham said the elevator outage at the senior apartment building is a building enforcement matter. The city manager said both building and fire inspectors are evaluating it. He said the rental property concerns call for a housing and inspection response and asked the Linden Heights speaker to share his list of addresses with the city. On the use of force committee, he said the members’ terms expired, that applications will open this month, and that the aim is to rebuild the committee in the fourth quarter. He also noted that Breeze Airways, a new low-cost carrier, launched its first flight from Dayton International Airport on Friday.
Source: Dayton City Commission agenda, Wednesday, October 14, 2026. Meeting video: watch on YouTube.
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