Lancaster Mayor Sorace delivers fifth State of the City speech

LANCASTER, Pa. (WHTM) — Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace delivered her annual “State of City Address” among fellow city leaders at Millersville University on Thursday, Jan. 26.

Sorace was surrounded by residents and local officials for her fifth stateside speech in the city, in which she looked back at some of Lancaster’s work in 2022.

“It’s the story of ‘and’. We’re doing great and We still have some pretty big challenges ahead of us,” said Sorace.

Sorace highlighted some of the city’s achievements, such as falling poverty rates, rising household incomes, affordable housing efforts and the city’s budget. Most of these achievements were made possible with federal bailout funds.

“Dealing with inflation and some of the economic issues that are going on in our country right now, but overall we’ve scaled up and we’ve moved on,” Sorace said. “I came back from a week with the US Mayors’ Conference and affordable housing is the number one issue affecting everyone across the country, as is police recruitment.”

Gun violence was another topic of the address after Lancaster witnessed multiple shootings in December 2022.

“I’m going to spend quite a bit of time talking about our structural deficit and a way I’m introducing to voters, the residents of the City of Lancaster, to think about something called Home Rule.”

The city even rolled out a new online reporting system called Fit It Lancaster, which Sorace says will allow residents to report problems and help the city make data-backed decisions.

“Fix It’s gong to literally replace a two-sided piece of paper with phone numbers for abandoned vehicles, housing complaints, potholes. I mean, there was literally a different number for every service you might need around town,” concluded Sorace.