COLUMBUS – In his first State of the City address, newly sworn-in Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther outlined plans to revitalize a couple of the city’s most overlooked neighborhoods, curb infant mortality and improve early-childhood education.
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“Linden and the Hilltop neighborhoods are areas I have talked about consistently, and it’s time to lift up the people that live there,” he said.
Ginther announced plans to turn the Linden Park IGE Alternative School building on Myrtle Avenue and a nearby neighborhood recreation center into a preschool education center. The city plans to partner with Ohio State University and Columbus City Schools to create 14 classrooms that will begin serving 200 pre-kindergarten students in the next year or two. The center also will be a resource to help parents learn about job placement and preparing their children for kindergarten.
Ginther also will announce his plans to lobby state lawmakers to allow busing preschool students to schools.
“We are going to be focused on increasing the quality of preschool education citywide with the help of Ohio State,” Ginther said.
The $27 million in capital improvements earmarked for the Linden neighborhood will largely go toward rehabbing Linden Park and the recreation center.
The Hilltop neighborhood also will see $34 million in upgrades that include new sidewalks along Mound Street and streetscape improvements along Broad Street.
Ginther also announced during his speech that he is rebranding the city’s 311 call center services, community pride programs and Community Relations Commission under one building as the Department of Neighborhoods.
In Franklin County, Ginther says 150 babies die before their first birthday and, to combat infant mortality, the city is using a $1.7 million grant from United Health Foundation to launch the CelebrateOne Connector Corps program, which supports what he called “boots on the ground” work in hard-hit neighborhoods, including training conducted by OSU’s College of Nursing for dozens of workers to educate mothers-to-be, mothers and families.
The Connector Corps program alone will reach 27,000 women each year, Ginther said.