Lima's Smith joins pedestrian safety program
Apr. 9—LIMA — Lima Mayor Sharetta Smith announced she will join a cohort of 12 mayors from across the country for a national pedestrian safety leadership program.
The mayor will join the 2025 Mayors Institute on Pedestrian Safety for the Mayors Innovation Project to learn best practices and hear from peers about how to design streets to increase pedestrian safety.
"It's a series with a two-day, in-person workshop in Washington D.C., and then there is a series of virtual workshops that we are participating in over a number of weeks," Smith said. "Smart Growth America sponsors this, so it will not have a direct cost on the city's budget."
The institute will see participants work alongside national experts and fellow mayors to address safety challenges over six months.
Smart Growth America Director of Transportation for America Beth Osborne called the institute essential through the city.
"Whether you're a business owner or the parent of young child, safety is absolutely fundamental to thriving communities," she said in a press release. "Mayors are essential to this work and we are eager to work with this year's cohort to share and implement more of what we know creates safer, more vibrant communities for all."
Smith tied the work of the program to the city's traffic calming efforts.
"It's timely for us because we have a number of transportation improvement projects in the pipeline," she said. "With respect to our neighborhood traffic calming program that we're working on, the transportation improvement projects through (Lima/Allen County) Regional Planning and the improvements that we're looking at for Cable Road, city engineer Ian Kohli and I are taking advantage of this opportunity to learn how we can continue to design our streets in a way that we put pedestrian safety above car mobility in Lima."
Other cities represented in the cohort include Alameda, Calif.; Brevard, N.C.; Evertett, Wash.; Alton, Ill.; Lauderhill, Fla.; Tigard, Ore.; Superior, Wis.; Lansing, Mich.; Little Rock, Ark.; Brockton, Mass.; and Williamsport, Penn.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
Featured Local Savings
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Tennis great Stan Smith on life lessons, Arthur Ashe's legacy and his namesake shoes
Fancy footwork won him Wimbledon. Simple footwear won him everything since. 'The shoe has had a life of its own,' said Stan Smith, 78, whose eponymous Adidas kicks, with their timeless lines and leather uppers, are the king of all tennis sneakers with more than 100 million sold. 'People from all walks of life have embraced them.' Not surprisingly, Smith has a head for business to match his feet for tennis. With that in mind, he and longtime business partner Gary Niebur wrote the just-released 'Winning Trust: How to Create Moments that Matter,' aimed at helping businesses develop stronger relationships with their clients, with tips that readers can apply to their personal relationships and to sports. 'The book is about developing relationships that can elevate the element of trust, which is a depreciating asset in today's world,' Smith said this week in a call from the French Open. When it comes to building and maintaining high-stakes relationships, Smith and Niebur have distilled their process into five key elements they call SERVE, a recurring theme throughout the book. That's an acronym for Strategize, Engage, Recreate, Volley and Elevate. For instance, recreate — as in recreation — means to build bonds through fun shared experiences, and volley means to trade ideas back and forth to find solutions. 'When people realize that you care more about the relationship than the transaction,' Niebur said, 'trust follows.' A onetime standout at Pasadena High and USC, Smith was a close friend of the late Arthur Ashe, the UCLA legend whose name graces the main stadium court at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., home of the U.S. Open. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Ashe's victory at Wimbledon, when he beat the heavily favored Jimmy Connors in the 1975 final. Ashe remains the only Black man to win the singles title at that storied tournament. 'Arthur was a good friend,' Smith said. 'He made a huge impact, and much more of an impact in the last few years of his life when he was fighting AIDS and the heart fund, and obviously for equal rights.' Ashe, who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart-bypass surgery, died in 1993. Although he was four years older than Smith, the two developed a close friendship when they traveled the globe as Davis Cup teammates and rising professionals. Smith has vivid memories of traveling with him, Ashe in his 'Citizen of the World' T-shirt with his nose forever buried in a newspaper or magazine. Smith was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. at the time, two spots ahead of his pal, yet the wildly popular Ashe always got top billing. 'When we went to Africa, I was the other guy who played against him in all these exhibitions,' Smith told The Times in 2018. 'They would introduce him as Arthur Ashe, No. 1 player in the U.S., No. 1 in the world, one of the greatest players to ever play the game … and Stan Smith, his opponent.' Smith laughs about that now, but it used to chafe him. Finally, he raised the issue with his buddy. Recalled Smith in that 2018 interview: 'Arthur came up to me and said, 'I'm sorry about that. If we do a tour of Alabama, I'll carry your rackets for you.' He was in tune with everything. 'Arthur was a quiet leader walking a tightrope between a traditionally white sport and the black community.' Smith will be at Wimbledon next month, where his UCLA friend will be honored. As for his shoes, they're everywhere, and have been since the 1970s. Adidas originally developed the shoe for French player Robert Haillet in the mid-1960s, and the sneakers were known as the 'Haillet.' In 1972, the company switched to Smith, naming the shoes in his honor and printing a tiny picture of his mustachioed face on them. There were subtle changes to the Haillet, including a notch in the tongue for laces to pass through and a heel better shaped to protect the Achilles tendon. They sold like crazy. In 1988, Stan Smiths made the 'Guinness Book of World Records' for the most pairs sold at 22 million. Yet that was only the beginning as sales surged with the release of the Stan Smith II and retro Stan Smith 80s. The most common ones were solid white with touch of green on the back. 'Hugh Grant turned around last year in the [Wimbledon] royal box and said, `First girl I ever kissed, I was wearing your shoes,'' Smith told The Times in 2022. 'Another guy said he met this girl when he was wearing my shoes. It was so meaningful that they both wore the shoes for their wedding seven years later. 'It started off as a tennis shoe. Now it's a fashion shoe.' Smith's personal collection has climbed to more than 100 size 13s in all sorts of colors, including his favorite pair in cardinal and black, an homage to his USC roots. In 2022, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Smith's Wimbledon singles title, Adidas gave all of its sponsored players a pair of shoes with SW19 on the tongue — Wimbledon's postcode — with the date of that match against Ilie Nastase inside the right shoe and the score of the match inside the left. At Wimbledon this year, the spotlight swings to the other side of Los Angeles, to an unforgettable Bruin, a sports hero who impacted so many lives. For Smith, his friendship with Ashe was an early example in his career of a relationship forged with trust. The book, incidentally, is affixed with a unique and fitting page marker. A shoelace.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Property assessments are out. Here's how much home values went up in your area
Property values have increased again in Ada County, but not as fast as in previous years. In 2024, the median home value in Ada County increased by 5.3%, according to the Ada County Assessor's Office. That's just a smidgen more than the 5.03% increase in 2023, according to Chief Deputy Assessor Brad Smith. 'It's encouraging to see a more stable market after the erratic valuation swings of the past,' Smith said in an email. The latest annual property assessments have been mailed to homeowners. The assessed value is what the office believes each property could have sold for in the real estate market. The new median assessed value in Ada County is $480,000, up from about $455,000 last year. Home values have certainly been erratic. Residential assessments skyrocketed in the early 2020s, when for multiple years the median assessed value for Ada County homes jumped by close to 30%. Then in 2023, most residents saw their assessments decrease. Homeowners have until the fourth Monday in June to appeal their homes' assessed value. So far, after a historically low year in 2024, appeals and phone calls are up, according to the office. Some homeowners may not see much change in their new assessments. Star has the lowest median assessed value jump in Ada County, an increase of 1.6%. Values jumped by over 7% in the 2024 assessments. On the other hand, North Boise took the top spot this year with a 7% median increase. Northeast Boise followed close behind at 6.6%. That brings North Boise up to a median $668,000 and Northeast Boise to a whopping $729,000. Times have changed in the last decade. In 2015, Northeast Boise homes were valued at less than half of that, right around $300,000. Northeast Boise is not the highest-priced neighborhood in the county though. That distinction belongs to Eagle, at $803, two lowest-valued neighborhoods are Garden City and West Boise, which both come in at under $398,000. Commercial property values increased 1.3% this year, down from last year's growth of around 2.7%. Property values and property taxes are not the same thing, the Assessor's Office stresses. Just because home values go up, residents don't automatically pay more in taxes. Tax increases also depend on how much money is needed to pay for local-government budgets. Local governments are working now to develop their budgets for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Only then are levy rates set and actual taxes on your home determined. Idahoans will receive property tax bills in November Payments are due in December. Assessments are public record, and homeowners can look them up at Ada property assessments are out. See how homes in your neighborhood are affected See where Canyon County homeowners' property values rose fastest in the new assessments
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Statue honoring Lancaster's first Black business owner completed
LANCASTER, Ohio (WCMH) — There is a new statue in the city of Lancaster honoring Scipio Smith, the man who became the city's first Black business owner in the 1800s. The statue is along Main Street, not far from where Smith's tinsmith shop was located. The statue shows Smith holding an open shackle with the day he was emancipated inscribed on it. He was enslaved in Virginia before being brought to Ohio. 'That was his way of showing you can't stop me, even this chain didn't hold me down,' said Michael Johnson, a local historian and the marketing director for the Fairfield County Heritage Association. 'You can't get much more of an underdog than being born a slave and losing your leg as a child.' Johnson found a brief entry about Smith in a history book. He said he'd never seen an entry quite like it, so he dug deeper. Eventually he learned about Smith's history as a slave. Four years after Smith was freed, he founded the AME church in town, which is now Allen Chapel. Italian eatery from Columbus couple behind Chapman's, Ginger Rabbit to open Friday 'To know he was right here, to know he was responsible for this church,' said Evan Saunders, Pastor of Allen Chapel. 'You don't even know the lives he's touched but yet here 2025 we realize he's touching a whole community with that so his legacy still continues to live on.' About two years after opening the church, Smith opened a tinsmith shop in Lancaster. That made him the city's first Black business owner, according to Johnson. 'He was pretty quick to act once he got his freedom. He knew what he wanted,' Johnson said. 'Opened door for other Black business owners.' Johnson wrote about Smith's story. But he wanted to do more to honor the local legend. About two years ago he started fundraising for a statue. It's now completed, full of symbols and Smith's story. 'For me I think statues are celebrations, they are people we should be looking up to, the ideals they represent, and Scipio, you can't beat his work ethic, his faith, his tenacity, the ability to overcome unbelievable obstacles. You can't beat that story,' Johnson said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
