Mayor Recounts State of the City Address

ZANESVILLE, Ohio-Mayor Don Mason delivered his annual State of the City address to the city council on Monday, March 22nd. 

His speech recounted his extended commitment to making Zanesville a better place to live through infrastructure repair and beautification processes. Mason wants to attract homeowners to create a better sense of community. 

“The American way of life calls for home ownership. I don’t wanna grow the city by annexing other houses outside the city limits. That’s not the point. What I wanna do is grow the city by developing houses on these empty lots that we have and empty properties that we have. Working with developers to remodel existing homes. The interesting thing is, we have around 11 to 12 thousand structures in Zanesville, but only about 10,200 are actually occupied.”, Mason explained to WHIZ.

The mayoral administration is also looking to continue its many park projects as well as other larger endeavors such as the Dug Road rebuild. The city recently received a grant to help with financing these plans. 

“We are in receipt of a grant award of $593,000 to clean up and create a passive park, basically on the west main portion of where the Y-Bridge is. We wanna clean that up, and then as I’ve mentioned, we wanna rebuild Dug Road and then extend those enhancements through the Putnam Area. We want connectivity so that we bring the city back together.”, Mason explained.

Mason says he wants to build a brighter future for the city that still honors its storied history.