LIMA, Ohio — Sharetta Smith and Elizabeth Hardesty were both still in grade school when David Berger was elected mayor of this city in 1988.
Mr. Berger, a Democrat and 35 at the time, ran on reversing the worsening financial crisis in Lima, which was losing residents and jobs much faster than it could replace them. He managed to stanch the bleeding for the next three decades.
But in 2021, Lima is at another crossroads. Mr. Berger, now 67, is retiring as its longest‑serving mayor and the contest to replace him is nothing the city has ever seen: two women — a Black Democratic lawyer and a white Republican geologist — competing to see Lima through the next chapter of its postindustrial development.
The race is nonpartisan on paper, but tinged with battleground‑state political dynamics. Once an example of a reliably Democratic blue‑collar city, Lima veered right in the last two presidential elections. Hillary Clinton won it by fewer than 400 votes in 2016. Four years later, Donald Trump edged out Joe Biden by 104 votes.
Lima is still the closest thing to a Democratic city in this conservative swath of western Ohio, and also boasts the largest Black population outside of Dayton and Toledo, two much bigger cities.
Ms. Smith, 43, and Ms. Hardesty, 40, are opponents in November's election, but they're allies in the sense that many in Lima can agree on its rough edges: a glut of abandoned homes and empty residential lots, a recent spike in violent crime, and a lack of economic diversity to grow its tax base. Lima lags the state in major economic indicators, and almost a quarter of the city treads below the poverty line.
The city has also hemorrhaged population. It has lost some 15,000 residents since 1970, a slide that now could cost Lima, population 37,000, and surrounding Allen County its metropolitan statistical area designation under a new federal proposal.
Ohio has a poor record of elevating women to solve these problems locally and statewide, but that may change in 2022. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat, wants to be the first woman to clinch a major-party nomination for governor in 2022. As mayor, she confronted a mass shooting and destructive tornadoes, crises that raised her profile statewide.
Toledo has only elected two female mayors: Donna Owens, a Republican, and Paula Hicks‑Hudson, now the third‑ranking Democrat in the Ohio House of Representatives and the first Black woman to lead the city.
This month in Lima, Ms. Smith and Ms. Hardesty both emerged as the top‑vote getters in the four‑way mayoral primary. Ms. Smith, who received the most votes, is also the first Black woman to run in the general election for mayor in a city where a quarter of the population is Black — a reality that hasn't always been reflected in local government.
"I didn't set out to run because I'm Black or because I'm a woman. But I am Black and I am a woman, right? And leadership has looked the same for the last 190 years. The history of our city, every mayor has been a white male," said Ms. Smith, who put herself through college and law school as a young single mother.
"And so there will be change and it will be the future. But I think the key to that is making sure that city government is welcoming and that people see a place in the decision‑making," she said.
Red county, blue mayor
Ms. Smith has spent the past four years working for the current administration, which colors how she talks about what's been accomplished under Mr. Berger's leadership — she looks forward at her own agenda, not back at his record.
But that can be challenging: for nearly as long as Ms. Smith has been alive and living in Lima, Mr. Berger has been running Lima.
Ms. Hardesty, also a Lima native, believes that's what's holding the city back. "Not to bring partisan [politics] in, but we're sitting in a Republican county with a Democratic administration for the last 30 years, so ... I don't bring any of the biases that have been there for that long," said Ms. Hardesty, a former geologist for Shell Corp. who has never worked in government or run for public office.
The race hinges in part on whether voters see Ms. Smith as a new leader with a bold vision for the city or Mr. Berger's handpicked successor, and how much the national political climate factors into a local race. Neither woman believes the last presidential election and who's in the White House will tip the contest.
Tonya Thomas, a Lima resident for 40 years, said Mr. Berger has done a "fine job," but Lima has still gotten worse and she's leaning toward picking Ms. Hardesty in November as the more "balanced" candidate.
"It's more negative, definitely," she said. "There's definitely a whole lot more violence than we've ever had here. You can't leave your kids out walking. We were raised that you walked from one end of town to the other and didn't have to worry about anything. You definitely cannot do that now."
Residents like Ms. Thomas underscore how the contest isn't necessarily a lock for Ms. Smith. In 2017, Mr. Berger won reelection by just over 400 votes against a Republican opponent, the closest race of his career after Mr. Trump's blowout here drove western Ohio further into the GOP column.
Mr. Berger framed that race as a referendum on the local economy. He pointed to a marquee redevelopment project in Lima's Town Square, a once‑empty bank building turned into market‑rate and subsidized apartments, and a hot job market.
"We were in terrible financial circumstances when I was first elected, and we righted that ship and managed to meet the city's finances in good shape, and therefore going forward there's real stability," said Mr. Berger, who led a housing nonprofit prior to his mayoral tenure.
Mr. Berger's legacy includes keeping the lights on at what is now the Husky Lima Refinery, which had been in danger of closing under British Petroleum's ownership during the 1990s. He convened a task force to help locate its current owner, Canada-based Husky Energy, which bought it from Valero Energy Corp. in 2007.
Mr. Berger also worked to keep several presidential administrations from mothballing the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, the nation's last producer of the Army's storied Abrams battle tank and a major local employer. When Mr. Trump visited the plant in 2019 to tout his defense budget's investment as the reason for its latest resurgence, Mr. Berger didn't go, citing a meeting that day in Columbus.
Right‑hand woman
The main plank of Ms. Smith's campaign is housing, which draws on her experience running Lima's housing task force and her own lived experience as a young single mother who once qualified for Section 8 vouchers.
Ms. Smith grew up with her mother, father, and two sisters in an 800‑square‑foot home on Lima's south side before moving to a bigger house two miles away. Her grandparents on both sides migrated from Alabama to work in Lima's steel factory. Her mother has been employed by General Motors longer than Mr. Berger has been in office and still works on the assembly line at the Toledo transmission plant.
Her father joined the Air Force and worked as a laborer before serving almost seven years in federal prison on drug charges when Ms. Smith was a child. It was a setback for their family, Ms. Smith said, but he managed to turn his life around.
"I think being away from his girls and his wife really did something to him. I don't think he liked being away from us because he's always been a good dad. When I had my first child, my dad was at the hospital waiting for me to give birth," she said.
Ms. Smith had her first child at 18, and two more before she turned 21. She juggled classes at the University of Toledo while working, and eventually landed a sales gig with a construction services company and moved to Chattanooga, Tenn. The 2008 recession pushed her to complete her law degree at Ohio Northern University, and she became a public defender and then a magistrate in Chattanooga.
"For the first time I was living in a city where I really understood that where you live determines the outcome for your kids, and so I needed to figure out a way to improve myself so we could live in better neighborhoods and my kids can go to better schools and have better opportunities," she said.
Four years ago, Ms. Smith returned to Lima to work for Mr. Berger as his right‑hand woman, overseeing the budget and city departments. Her role leading the city's housing task force helped to shape her understanding of the systemic barriers facing the city's Black residents.
"It's tough because the systemic barriers are there. But people also have very strong, emotional feelings and ties to what's going on and who's to blame, and it's hard to break through that. But I think having come from this community and knowing that I really am one of Lima's daughters — Black daughters — they trust me. I talk to them about what's going on, what we need to do, and how we move forward," Ms. Smith said.
In a January, 2021 report to the task force, the Ohio Housing Finance Agency revealed that Black Ohioans were more likely than white Ohioans to be rejected for mortgages, contributing to lopsided homeownership rates in diverse cities like Lima. It also found that 49 percent of the city's housing stock was built before 1950, exceeding the state average and increasing the potential for toxic lead exposure.
Both are major issues for the city's housing outlook, coupled with the reality that most developers aren't jumping at the chance to build new homes in a city where the median home value, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is $66,600.
Lima has made strides when it comes to racial equality, some residents said, but it's still just a start after several challenging decades. In 1970, the police killing of a Black woman led to race riots. In 2008, police killed 26‑year‑old Tarika Wilson, an unarmed Black woman, and injured her 14‑month‑old son during a drug raid at her home targeting her boyfriend, once again igniting racial tensions.
"I know in 35 or 40 years there's been changes, but I also know there's still much more work to be done," said Sharon Guice, Ms. Smith's children's grandmother. "[Ms. Smith] is a kindhearted person who wants to see everyone survive. But you know as Black people, we've been down here, and she wants to help raise us up. And she's got the personality for it, she's got the smarts, and she's fought hard through many battles."
‘Abandoned, vacant, boarded up’
Earlier this month, a block away from Ms. Smith's childhood home in Greenfield Heights, a neighborhood known for being the south side's first largely Black subdivision, 62‑year‑old Harold Shurelds sat on his mother's porch overlooking their pristine green lawn and a neighbor's dilapidated, plywood‑covered garage.
"This over here," he said, pointing to his neighbor's house, "he can do better that. When a certain area looks nice and then you got this other area that looks messed up, it makes the neighborhood look bad."
"You're right," said Ms. Smith, who knows almost everyone on the generally well‑maintained block of small one‑story houses. "Better code enforcement and investment."
Blighted homes and empty lots are a top concern for residents picking a new mayor. "Housing is being abandoned, vacant, boarded up," said Shawn Muter, a 54‑year‑old letter carrier. "It would help a lot if they cleaned up this city, if people took more pride in the city. You go down to some areas of the city and there's garbage everywhere. People just don't care, you know?"
Ms. Hardesty also acknowledges that housing is an important quality‑of‑life issue, but her pitch to voters focuses mostly on crime and economic development.
"I'm very comfortable sitting across the table from another business owner to talk them into coming to Lima, some of the perks we have, some of the upsides to coming. But if they go online and just look at the public crime numbers, I can't argue with that. We're not even going to get them to sit down at the table," she said, referencing that Lima's homicides shot up in 2020, a trend that plagued cities across the country, including Toledo.
Ms. Hardesty is the only child of a lawyer and a swimming instructor, and was a competitive swimmer at Lima Senior High School and Wittenberg University. Her father, whose family owns a farm in Auglaize County, suffered a massive stroke two days before her 18th birthday, an event that propelled her from a happy childhood quickly into adulthood.
Ms. Hardesty said her main objective in running for mayor now is repaying her debt to the community.
"It's a great community and I feel the last decade not a whole lot of progress forward has been made, so it's time to come back and serve," she said.
Political tactics
It's unclear to what degree Lima's Republican establishment supports Ms. Hardesty. Keith Cheney, the county's Republican party chairman and Mr. Berger's opponent in the last election, didn't return calls for comment.
Ms. Hardesty works for a small rock analysis lab, a job she said allowed her to travel frequently before the pandemic. Her residency has become an issue in the race. The Allen County Board of Elections ruled that Ms. Hardesty, who has ties to Pennsylvania and Texas, met the residency requirement for candidacy. But local Democrats sued her in court, claiming that Houston is her actual residence. That case’s outcome might boot her from the ballot.
"It's a political tactic," said Ms. Hardesty, who argues her mother's home in Lima is her permanent residence and notes it's the address she uses to vote. "I still got through [the primary], but it did create doubt in people's minds."
Ms. Smith has also been dogged by civil lawsuits going back years from Toledo, Lima, and Tennessee, totaling almost $40,000, according to local media reports. Ms. Smith blamed her legal troubles on her lower salary at the time, student loan debt, her children's medical bills, and her own bout with lymphoma in 2009, and said her financial struggles make her like most of the people she's hoping to represent.
"I've always been very open about my story, and it's the story of a working single mom who's had some challenges," she said. "I've never gave up, I never shirked my responsibility. If I have to ... pay back whatever I owe, I'll continue to work to do that."
There are still Trump signs all over Lima — and a few Biden signs, too — signals that perhaps the national political climate is more of a factor than both women would like to believe. But there are also plenty of signs for Ms. Smith and Ms. Hardesty on lawns, bus stops, and billboards.
"When I go knock on people's doors, for the most part, they don't ask me whether I'm a Democrat or Republican," Ms. Smith said. "They want to know, what am I going to do about kids? What do I do about crime and safety? What about these houses around here? Those are the questions they're asking me."
First Published May 28, 2021, 12:27 p.m.
