COLUMBUS – Gun violence and affordable housing were two of the main topics during Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther’s annual State of the City Address, delivered virtually on Tuesday.
After “a year that was unlike any other,” Ginther highlighted his administration’s accomplishments and outlined plans to address issues such as crime, economic inequality and health care disparity.
After two years of record homicides, most of which he blamed on guns, Ginther, a Democrat, said he has declared gun violence a public health crisis and took a swipe at Gov. Mike DeWine and Republicans in the Statehouse who have loosened gun-control laws.
“We cannot ignore the effect of governors, legislatures and courts who have repeatedly tied our city’s hands, limited our ability to determine our own destiny, and stood in our way as we seek to protect those we are entrusted to serve,” he said.
DeWine on Monday signed a bill eliminating the need for a permit to carry a concealed firearm, undergo training or to notify police of the presence of a concealed weapon. Law enforcement agencies across the state objected to the bill.
A so-called “stand your ground” law passed in 2021 expanded circumstances where individuals are able to legally use deadly force and earlier legislation prohibited cities from enacting their own gun-control ordinances.
Ginther said the city is devoting more than $660 million toward community safety, including the training of 170 additional police officers.
Ginther said the FBI reported that 2020 saw the largest single-year increase in the number of homicides nationwide since the bureau began tracking these figures in the 1960s.
Columbus has also ushered in police reform efforts in the wake of violent protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
The city has expanded a pilot program, called Right Response Units, which team up social workers and mental health professionals with police dispatchers to handle calls and address some incidents that would have been handled by police. Most of the calls received by these units did not require police or fire personnel to be dispatched, Ginther said.
He also detailed programs to assist violent crime victims, refer likely suspects and victims of gun violence to case workers and interventionists, and the Group Violence Intervention initiative, which Ginther says tries to steer offenders or people who have been associated with criminal activity in the past to new pursuits.
Ginther also described plan for revitalizing the Eastland area through a plan similar to those created in Linden and the Hilltop.
He said the next phase of city’s “equity agenda” would include an initiative dubbed “Opportunity Rising,” designed to dismantle systemic racism and focus on health, infant mortality, economic stability, early childhood education and workforce readiness.
The administration would also continue to improve the stock of affordable housing in the city.
“If you’re making $50,000 a year, you shouldn’t be paying more than $1,200 a month to live in the neighborhood of your choice,” Ginther said.