Until last year, the downtown district and the tax base of Lima, Ohio (pop. 55,000), were disappearing at approximately the same rate. The bus sys tem had broken down, the turreted old railway station was closed, and the streets were full of potholes.
Then, in last year's mayoralty campaign, along came Businessman Harry J. Moyer, 56, with a campaign slogan:
"Let's get together and make Lima better — without any new taxes." In surprisingly short order, Mayor Moyer has done just that. He has started a new, moneymaking transit system with five buses complete with carpeting and ste reo. He has arranged for welfare recipients to clean streets and plant shrubs, ivy and trees. He has encouraged the Neighborhood Youth Corps to patch up the old train station, thereby enabling Amtrak to reopen it for passenger ser vice a year ahead of schedule.
Essentially, Moyer's strategy is to merge public funds with private effort. He uses government-paid welfare people to cut up railroads ties donated by the Norfolk and Western Railway Co.
The ties, in turn, are used by Ohio National Guardsmen to halt erosion in a city park. The parks department, as a result, will be able to stretch its budget so it can build rest rooms in a new park.
Moyer has even bigger plans — a downtown renovation program that will include new federal and state buildings and a senior citizens' center as well. "People have hope here now," says the mayor, a hope all the healthier for be ing made of home-grown ingenuity.