Politics

Pureval defines first term in State of the City: being 'unafraid to take big swings'

91.7 WVXU | By Becca Costello

Published November 13, 2025 at 6:48 PM EST

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval gave his fourth State of the City Address on Nov. 13, 2025 at Music Hall.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval says his first term is defined by being “unafraid to take big swings.”

Pureval gave his fourth "State of the City" address Thursday night, reflecting on the past four years and looking ahead to another term after easily winning re-election last week.

“The state of the city is strong,” Pureval said. “And because of all of your hard work, it is getting stronger.”

What he talked about

Pureval says when he took office, his goal was not simply to “keep the ship steady” but to “shake things up” and meet challenges with urgency. He addressed several key moments of his tenure, including the controversial sale of the Cincinnati Sothern Railway, which voters narrowly approved in 2023.

“When we took office, we walked into a staggering deferred capital maintenance bill: underfunded roads, underfunded facilities where our employees perform essential basic services, underfunded rec centers and public spaces our residents depend on every day,” Pureval said. “Because of the sale of the railroad, and the $1.8 billion Railway Trust, we’ve been able to invest $60 million more over just the first two years of returns. More than doubling the previous lease payment and empowering us to make major improvements to our existing infrastructure."

Pureval took office at a time when tens of millions of dollars was available through federal stimulus, which filled budget deficits and helped fund many of his early policy priorities. With American Rescue Plan Act dollars now fully spent, the city’s future stability is less certain.

“It is a fundamental challenge of government, even when it is not a time of economic uncertainty, to find efficiency without sacrificing services,” Pureval said. “There will continue to be challenges ahead as costs rise faster than revenues. But we have been committed to maintaining our financial health, while we continue to invest in our values and our residents.”

Although he did not address the issue in his speech, Pureval has recently confirmed he is not opposed to asking voters to approve an income tax increase. That’s one recommendation of the Futures Commission, a panel of regional business and labor leaders that Pureval announced in his first State of the City address.

The report of nearly 40 recommendations was released in April 2024; city officials have said many recommendations already were in progress, and called for further review of other suggestions. Yet, the Futures Commission report is now rarely mentioned in public meetings at City Hall.

Pureval’s speech did include mention of the Futures Commission’s focus on solving the decades-long problem of an underfunded pension fund for retired city employees.

"We are actively working with retirees and partners to build a path toward a fully funded pension," Pureval said.

It’s unlikely that path will include the Futures Commission's specific recommendation, which is to regionalize Greater Cincinnati Water Works — which would require approval from voters and significant cooperation among multiple governmental entities — to fully fund the pension.

Pureval touted City Council’s passage of the sweeping zoning reform ordinance known as Connected Communities, another controversial topic.

“I want to reiterate that it is a choice to grow, and to be thoughtful about what that growth looks like. And it’s also a choice to do nothing,” he said. “We’ve made some difficult decisions. We’ve made decisions that upset some of our residents. But doing something meaningful will necessarily come with conflicting opinions. Especially when it comes to building, to deconcentrating poverty, and to creating the foundations our next generation need and deserve."

What he didn't talk about

Notably absent from Pureval’s speech: the word “crime” or mention of Police Chief Teresa Theetge (currently on paid leave pending an investigation) or Interim Police Chief Adam Hennie.

A few people stood outside Music Hall holding "I stand with Police Chief Theetge" signs, and a truck with a large version of the same sign circled the block.

A truck with a large sign that reads "I stand with Police Chief Theetge" drove past Music Hall as people entered to attend Mayor Aftab Pureval's fourth State of the City Address.

Pureval addressed concerns about public safety more broadly, referencing “challenges we’ve had this summer and fall.”

“Especially in our urban core, but throughout our city, the violence we experience is unacceptable,” he said. “There have been tough, but necessary decisions around both police and non-police interventions this summer.”

Pureval referenced new curfew rules (citywide, in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, and most recently on Short Vine in Corryville), new foot and bike patrols for police visibility, and expanded use of drone technology.

“We will keep building our investments in what is working, to be ready to adjust when needed, and to be responsive to the data and the lived experiences of our residents.”

The State of the City speech included two new announcements: a grocery delivery pilot program and a new solar array, both in Winton Hills.

Grocery delivery

The grocery delivery pilot is part of the city’s Financial Freedom Blueprint initiative, which also includes medical debt relief and child education savings accounts. Originally, the city planned to pilot a guaranteed basic income, which would have required significant private investment.

Instead, the city is partnering with Kroger to offer $100 a month for groceries and free delivery to 200 households in Winton Hills for 12 months. Kroger will waive the $99 annual fee for their Boost delivery service, and the city will provide the $100, which will be loaded into each household’s Kroger account; it can be spent on delivery or in-store.

“This project, which Council member Anna Albi and our Office of Opportunity helped lead the way on, is not only especially important given the uncertainty around federal benefits right now,” Pureval said. “But it is a thoughtful, and critical, new model for us to measure when it comes to addressing food accessibility.”

Office of Opportunity Director Tiffany Brown says Winton Hills was selected for the pilot because it has the highest number of SNAP households per-capita in Cincinnati, is considered a food desert, and 40% of households do not have access to a vehicle, among other factors.

At least 130 households already are signed up for the pilot, with the Winton Hills Community Council continuing recruitment. The program is expected to launch Dec. 1.

Solar energy

The city’s 900-acre, 100 megawatt solar array in Highland County came fully online in early 2024.

The new solar array will be constructed on the former Center Hill Landfill at the intersection of Este Ave. and Center Hill Rd. in Winton Hills.

“This will turn 65 acres of unused brownfield into enough clean energy to power 1,200 homes each year, providing financial savings on electricity and eliminating 60,000 tons of carbon annually,” Pureval said.

The city had been awarded a nearly $10 million federal grant for the project, but Trump’s EPA canceled the full $7 billion "Solar for All" grant program earlier this year.

Director of the Office of Environment and Sustainability Oliver Kroner says the city is able to move forward with the project by pivoting to a Power Purchase Agreement, where a developer will build, own, and operate the array, and the city will purchase the energy.

It’s very similar to how the city built the Highland County solar array. Kroner says in this case, however, the city will retain an option to eventually buy the array in Winton Hills.

“We aspire to own it, but need the project to start in 2025 to quality for the tax credits,” Kroner told WVXU. “It has been a very challenging project in the face of federal complications — we are very excited to have a path forward.”

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Full speech

The transcript below is the mayor's address as-prepared and may differ slightly from the final speech. Web links to WVXU reporting have been added for additional context.

Cincinnati,

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for joining us this evening.

Four years ago, I and many of us here tonight were spending our winter planning a transition into office. Into the most important jobs we had ever taken on.

Four years and a thousand grey hairs later, it is an extraordinary and humbling privilege, to have the opportunity to look back on how far we’ve come, and simultaneously look ahead to our next chapter together.

Cincinnati, it has been the honor of my life to go to work every day, knowing that I am surrounded by this unstoppable community of partners, of neighborhood and business leaders, workers, and the 6,000 City employees who show up to make our City the best it can be.

And that includes our wonderful City Council. Both the sitting members who are actively engaged in our shared mission, and those who have moved on – Congressman Greg Landsman, Reggie Harris, and Liz Keating.

These past four years have been a long road. They haven’t always been an easy road. But in the wake of existential threats to our economy, of severe blows to our community’s trust in local government, each of these elected officials and the staff supporting them stepped into their roles and chose to serve with integrity, with intention, and with a spirit of cooperation and action.

Cincinnati, it is thanks to the employees who show up each day, the public servants who stepped up and chose progress, and the dreamers who move our mission along in every corner of our city that I proudly say: the state of the city is strong. And we will stop at nothing to make it even stronger.

The past four years have been defined by the fact that we – all of us, inside and outside City Hall – have been unafraid to take big swings.

We talked a great deal upon taking office about the crossroads we faced as a community. The dire economic pressures brought on by COVID. The hollowing out of urban cores in cities like ours around the country. The existential housing and affordability crisis that has left Cincinnati leading the nation in rent increases.

And the lasting impacts of generational poverty, of an unacceptable racial wealth gap, of systemic barriers that for far too long have held many of our neighbors back from accessing the opportunities we all deserve.

It was not our goal, with this short time in office, to simply address the problems of the day and keep the ship steady. It was our goal to shake things up. And meet the moment with the urgency it demanded, that residents throughout our neighborhoods demanded from us.

We still have a long road ahead together, but I am proud that we have done exactly that. And the results are all around us.

We’ve made a collective and intentional choice in Cincinnati to grow. To ensure there is a strong central engine driving our economy, to unlock the potential of our underinvested neighborhoods, and to build a city with the jobs, the housing options, and the core services our residents expect. And the choices we’ve made are reshaping the foundations of Cincinnati as we speak.

In January, in two months, the Convention Center reopens after a nearly 300 million dollar renovation.

We know that attracting visitors into our city is a necessary part of the entire region’s success. This investment puts us back in the game in a dramatic way, to attract visitors from around the nation and reaffirm that we belong on the world stage. The latest projected annual impact of the renovation was 48 million dollars annually, and the cultural impact of a state of the art convention center is just as important.

But even more importantly, this is anchoring an entire district of investment the likes of which western downtown has not seen in decades. This month, Elm Street Plaza opens. A brand new outdoor public commons in the Convention District where residents will want to spend their time.

We are just a few months away from construction beginning on the 700 room Convention Hotel, the first substantial addition to our skyline in years, and hopefully the first of more to come. Just down the road, we have fully filled the Foundry building right on top of Fountain Square. We have converted the Saks building, growing our economy by attracting Paycor to the heart of our downtown and providing the space for Salazar’s signature new restaurant location on one of our busiest corners.

Businesses and civic leaders alike are bought in on our Downtown because they know that unlike many of our peer cities, we are growing and we are flourishing.

And we’re just getting started. A year into my first term, we welcomed President Joe Biden to town as he announced the single largest federal grant in our nation’s history. The Brent Spence Corridor Project spent more than 20 years as an idea on a piece of paper. Now, next year, major construction begins.

Beyond the historic impact of the companion bridge itself, this project creates at least 700 quality trades jobs and launches the start of a transformational opportunity to better connect Downtown, Queensgate and the West End.

Thanks to advocates outside and inside City Hall, particularly our Department of Transportation and Engineering, we have taken advantage of a generational opportunity to change the landscape of our urban core.

11 new acres of developable land, right next to the new Convention Center. Plans to pedestrianize our overpasses and help stich together neighborhoods that were torn apart by the construction of the highway.

On top of the momentum our Downtown has already seen in recent years, we are in the midst of a golden opportunity to bring new life, new energy, and new connectivity to an historically underserved corner of our urban core.

But this strategy of intentional growth has touched communities throughout Cincinnati.

Earlier this year, we broke ground on the Findlay Community Center, a brand new space to serve as a hub for North OTR, to provide high quality afterschool opportunities for our children, and to give families a safe space to come together and build community. But further than that, the Community Center is a chance to catalyze even more investment, with new housing, new programming and new businesses following an investment of this magnitude. We all see the promise of North OTR’s future, and this is, at its core, an investment in moving toward our primary goal in every part of our city: helping create the foundations for safe, healthy, thriving communities where folks of all backgrounds can take part.

We are not letting up on these strategies. Whether it’s the investments into Avondale Town Center, or the upcoming community engagement and planning around our Council’s 7 million dollar investment in reimagining the Swifton Commons site in Bond Hill.

These are the kinds of large scale, thoughtful, and community-focused swings we have to take if we want to create transformative change in our neighborhoods. Meeting the urgency of the moment and working with our partners and neighborhoods to get things built.

That’s exactly how our Administration and Council have approached the housing crisis during our first term. I think everyone in town has heard me get on my soapbox about housing, but I cannot overstate how central this work has been to our broader mission of building vibrant neighborhoods, deconcentrating poverty, and expanding economic opportunity.

Out of the gate – with the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, our Council’s investment in the first sustainable stream of revenue for affordable housing, the work of the Cincinnati Development Fund and partners throughout our region – the decision to say yes, to lean in, and to make sure the dollars are there, had a dramatic impact. Tripling the rate of affordable housing production. Of new, quality homes for Cincinnati families.

It is incredibly complicated and incredibly difficult to get anything built. That’s particularly true for truly affordable homes, and it’s particularly true right now. We have seen, this year, given the macroeconomic factors, tariffs and the skyrocketing cost of materials, that it’s harder than ever. And that is all the more reason why it has been so critical to have a coordinated ecosystem in Cincinnati, dedicated to making it happen.

This year, thanks to our Department of Community and Economic Development’s work with CDF [Cincinnati Development Fund] to streamline and strengthen the applicant pool, more than double the number of new units received Low Income Housing Tax Credit awards. And thanks to our Administration’s prioritization, three times the number of units received funding under our NOFA program.

However, local governments unfortunately do not have the resources to move the needle of the market with our dollars alone. That is exactly why we worked to reform our residential abatement incentives to shift incentives toward underinvested neighborhoods. And it’s exactly why City leaders and our City Planning team took on the two-year engagement process that resulted in Connected Communities. Cincinnati’s first comprehensive reform of our zoning and land-use in generations.

This is complicated work. But out of it came a new system that makes it easier to bring more homes and more affordable types of homes to our business districts. That helps us make the most out of Metro’s Bus Rapid Transit expansion, by encouraging investment along our major transit lines. And that, hopefully, helps create the kinds of neighborhoods residents throughout our city want to live in.

Through Connected Communities, the explicit goal is that projects can move forward with a faster timeline, with more certainty, and with more benefits to residents of all income levels. That is the vision.

I want to reiterate that it is a choice to grow, and to be thoughtful about what that growth looks like. And it’s also a choice to do nothing. We’ve made some difficult decisions. We’ve made decisions that upset some of our residents. But doing something meaningful will necessarily come with conflicting opinions. Especially when it comes to building, to deconcentrating poverty, to creating the foundations our next generation will need.

We need to keep everyone at the table. We need to make sure the voices that too often don’t get heard are listened to. And ultimately, we need to have the courage of our convictions.

That is what I firmly believe you have seen from us, and it’s what you will see in the next four years. We will continue to work toward our ambitious housing goal of 40,000 new units, established under Councilmember Mark Jeffreys’ and colleagues’ analysis of our local shortage. We will have the tough conversations we need to have, and we will maintain the humbleness to adjust and solve problems when we have to. Because I firmly believe that we have no other choice if we want to thrive as a city in the next generation.

Tackling these systems-level challenges our City faces has been at the forefront of these past four years.

When we took office, we faced an underfunded pension. Because of our Council’s reform of the close-out budgeting process, to ensure that housing and our pension are the top priorities for our surplus funds, this year brings us to 17 million additional dollars contributed to the health of our pension fund. To make sure the employees that make this city run are taken care of.

Reporter's note: this includes funding in the Fiscal Year 2025 carryover budget, which has not yet been released publicly or presented to Council.

And right now, we are actively working with retirees and partners to build a path toward a fully funded pension. This has been a key focus of the Futures Commission, and solving it will have a significant impact on our fiscal health.

When we took office, we walked into a staggering deferred capital maintenance bill. Underfunded roads, facilities where our employees perform essential basic services, rec centers and public spaces our residents depend on every day.

Because of the sale of the railroad, and the 1.8 billion dollar Railway Trust, we’ve been able to invest 60 million more dollars over just the first two years of returns. More than doubling the previous lease payment and empowering us to make major improvements to our existing infrastructure, particularly in the areas in most need of investment. That includes Dunham Rec Center in West Price Hill, a nearly one-hundred-year-old facility that is now getting a needed renovation to be the kind of welcoming space our children and families rely on. And it includes community projects throughout our neighborhoods, a core priority Councilmember Seth Walsh has worked to advance.

Thanks to the Railway trust, we were able to boost facility improvements for police, fire, and public services, and we were able double our investments in paving and rehabilitating our roads. These problems won’t get solved overnight with spending increases alone, and I understand that many may have not yet seen or felt the impact. But these funds empower us to put Cincinnati back on the path towards ensuring the strongest and most reliable existing infrastructure possible.

Something I’m sure folks have noticed, we’ve put speed bumps everywhere. Our City has installed over 150 traffic calming improvements on our streets over the last four years. I’ll pause for your boo’s.

Plain and simple, we have done this, and we’ll keep doing this, because it works. On our biggest problem roads, we have seen dramatic reductions in speeding after improvements. A 20 mile an hour reduction in average speed on Hamilton Avenue in College Hill after installing speed cushions, and an 87 percent decrease in the number of drivers speeding on Glenway in West Price Hill.

Additionally, when we took office, we faced an operating deficit that depended on federal American Rescue Plan funds to fill. Because of our Administration under City Manager Long’s planning, the work of our Council and the process led by Councilmember Jeff Cramerding, we delivered a structurally balanced budget without ARP dollars.

It is a fundamental challenge of Government, even when it is not a time of economic uncertainty, to find efficiency without sacrificing services. There will continue to be challenges ahead as costs rise faster than revenues. But we have been committed to maintaining our financial health, while we continue to invest in our values and our residents.

In our first term, we put real dollars behind our equity goals, directly targeting the wealth gaps that have persisted historically in our communities.

With the creation of the Financial Freedom Blueprint, we created a roadmap to support residents in overcoming the burdens that too often hold them back from financial empowerment. And with the collaboration of our partners, the leadership of this Council and the tireless work of so many in our City Administration, we have been aggressive in establishing and funding programs aimed at the barriers our residents identified.

One out of every three residents we surveyed were affected by medical debt. And through our Medical Debt relief program, a 1.45 million dollar City investment led to the erasure of more than 200 million dollars in medical debt for over 100,000 Cincinnati residents. 100,000 Cincinnatians, neighbors of ours, whose lives have been changed on a deeply human level. When we had the chance to hear from Lois, from Westwood, she said it was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders because of the impact her debt had on her credit.

The Financial Freedom Blueprint identified the significance of the education gap in our community. This Council and Administration, in partnership with Fifth Third and Preschool Promise, established the Child Savings Account Plan, which to date has enrolled over 50 preschoolers into a college savings plan with a seed deposit of 153 dollars and the opportunity to earn another 400 in the first year. I want to thank Councilmember Evan Nolan for stepping in and getting right to work helping move this to the finish line.

And central to economic empowerment is housing stability. To date, our Access to Counsel program, in partnership with Legal Aid, United Way, and the County Help Center, has helped serve over 800 children in families facing eviction with legal and rental assistance. Keeping people in their homes, so a child can focus on learning and growing rather than whether their home is stable.

None of this work is possible without the incredible City employees who work behind the scenes to establish partnerships and manage successful programs. To Tiffany Brown who has stepped up incredibly to spearhead our Financial Freedom work in the Office of Opportunity, and of course Deanna White, leading our Human Services Work. To everyone inside and outside City Hall furthering the mission. Thank you for the impact you have made.

The work is not done. Just this Fall, we’ve launched a partnership with Kroger and the Winton Hills Community Council for a Grocery Delivery Pilot program, providing free delivery and 100 dollars a month in grocery credit for 200 Winton Hills residents.

This project, which Councilmember Anna Albi and our Office of Opportunity helped lead the way on, is not only especially important given the uncertainty around federal benefits right now. But it is a thoughtful, and critical, new model for us to measure when it comes to addressing food accessibility.

And it coincides with this year’s Impact Award, a human services funding reform created under Councilmember Meeka Owens’ leadership to fund larger scale systems-level approaches to our challenges. For a partnership with Cincinnati Children’s and over a dozen community organizations to expand access to quality food in high-risk communities through the creation of urban farms and grocery hubs. Put together, these initiatives represent a serious and thoughtful prioritization toward combatting food insecurity among our most vulnerable neighbors.

I am extremely proud of the work we have done, together, to chart the course we are on. Our Financial Freedom initiatives are part of a broader strategy, in addition to our expansion of youth programming and career opportunities, our expansion of community grants through Safe and Clean and Boots on the Ground – to not just promote vibrancy, but to address safety.

It is a sad reality that the root cause of so much of the violence we see is poverty. And since taking office, we have worked to disrupt and prevent violence at every stage and every level, in partnership with our Police, our Council under Councilmember Scotty Johnson’s leadership, and our community partners.

That means delivering on the goals of the Collaborative, it means continuing to identify and address the pathways to violence. It means leaning into innovation, such as our Alternative Response to Crisis initiative that established a non-police mental health response for some non-violent 911 calls. And it means making sure our law enforcement have the resources, the support, and the policies in place to protect our residents.

Ultimately, nothing else we do matters unless Cincinnatians feel safe going about their lives. While I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made, and the strategies we’ve implemented, to deliver on our core responsibility to our City – progress isn’t the same thing as victory.
Particularly not when we’ve witnessed the challenges we’ve had this Summer and Fall. Especially in our urban core, but throughout our city, the violence we experience is unacceptable. And it’s especially impacting our children.

In City Hall we have not, and we will not, relent on doing everything in our power to keep folks safe. There have been tough, but necessary decisions around both police and non-police interventions this summer. Implementing a curfew, boosting officer presence and bringing them out of their cars in our busiest areas, leaning into drones to support our law enforcement.

In Cincinnati, we will keep building our investments in what is working, to be ready to adjust when needed, and to be responsive to the data and the lived experiences of our residents. Throughout these challenges, it has been an incredible inspiration to see so many residents, businesses, and community leaders come to the table. It will take all of us, and that includes every level of government, especially as we work to combat the universal accessibility of guns.

We know we are capable of taking on complex challenges like this because we have done it. After years of advocacy by residents of Evendale and Lincoln Heights, we came together with the County and got the Regional Safety Complex project done. A historic win for our police and County Sheriff’s office, and a win for environmental justice. And it was thanks to our City, our County Commissioners, our partners in the State House, and of course our Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney. Leaders from the community and all levels of government, coming together to tackle a problem and solve it.

That’s been true for our all our local climate action. Green Cincinnati’s Seeds of Change program has invested more than a half million dollars into over 100 community-led sustainability projects in 47 neighborhoods. From community gardens, to microforests that soak up stormwater, to training for green jobs of the future – these are direct investments in the residents on the ground furthering environmental justice.

Our 100 megawatt solar array came fully online this term, and we are already looking to expand. Right now, our Office of Environment and Sustainability is working to finalize a contract for 10 megawatts of solar on the old Center Hill Landfill. This will turn 65 acres of unused brownfield into enough clean energy to power 1,200 homes each year. Providing financial savings on electricity and eliminating 60,000 tons of carbon annually.

What continues to give me confidence – as it relates to our work to build an even safer and more successful City, and as it relates to all our work in the four years ahead – is that our local government, our partners, and our communities are filled with people who do not shy away from what is difficult. Time and time again, we have leaned in. We have accomplished extraordinary things.

And in this moment, we are once again called by our residents to go further on our path and to do what it takes to create a brighter future.
It’s hard to fathom that I’m already halfway through my time as your mayor. And as we close the book on this term and look ahead to the next, I’ve been thinking about the final promise I made during Inauguration four years ago.

I will not waste this moment.

In the grand scheme, we have a short amount of time in these roles we have. That’s true for me, for my colleagues, for all of us. So we have to do what we can, while we’re here, to build things that outlast us. To create systems, make investments, plant seeds and bring things to life that that will bloom far longer than our time here. That thrive no matter who fills our seat down the line.

That has been the north star. And that will be the north star.

In our next four years, we will make the most of the time we have. We will tackle our housing vision head-on, and maximize the promise of Bus Rapid Transit. We will innovate and invest in the safety of every resident in every corner of Cincinnati. We will stand up for our residents, and make the hard decisions to secure our future, no matter what’s happening outside our city limits.

Now that you’re stuck with me for another term, I can start ending speeches with Shakespeare quotes.

"What is a City but the people."

Reporter's note: This is a quote from Shakespeare's Coriolanus — "What is the city but the people?"

We understand our strengths as a City. The assets we have, the advantages and opportunities that exist for us. But at the heart of it, the reason I know our best days ahead of us is not because of any of that.

But because we are a people, here in Cincinnati, who are unshakably invested in our home. At times defiantly proud, at times rightfully critical, but never giving up.

Our future is bright because you all are here, because you choose Cincinnati no matter what lies ahead. And I can’t wait to be here, with you all, choosing us again and again. That’s how we win.

Thank you.