Meet Jaime Arroyo, Lancaster’s first Latino mayor [Q&A] | Local News

Jaime Arroyo, Lancaster’s newly elected mayor, is already thinking about Day 1 on the job.

His first priority? Hiring a new police chief after Chief Richard Mendez retires in December.

Arroyo, who’s served on City Council for five years and is currently the CEO of nonprofit business incubator ASSETS, will take office in January after winning 84% of the vote on Election Day, beating out challengers Tony Dastra and Woody Chandler. He will be the first Latino mayor in the city’s history.

Along with tapping a new leader for the city’s largest department, Arroyo said he wants to buckle down on streamlining the permitting process residents and businesses must go through to build or add on to city properties.

Arroyo sat down with LNP | LancasterOnline to talk about his plans and the issues he hopes to tackle as mayor. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are you looking for in a police chief?

Trust is very important to me, and I think for the rest of the community, especially in a role like that. People want to see an authentic police chief. There’s no hidden agenda, there’s someone that’s showing up as who they are. They’re empathetic to the community or the person that they’re interacting with, internally in the Bureau and externally in the community. Also (someone who) exercises good judgment. The community is expecting someone that’s going to care for them and protect them. I also want community presence, someone that is going to be out walking the streets, engaging with neighbors, engaging with businesses.

What can voters expect to see from you during this first year in terms of affordable housing and homelessness concerns?

We have a lot of projects in the pipeline right now here in the City of Lancaster. One of the ways to address the lack of supply for housing is to build more, so we’ve got to get these projects off the ground. Making sure that our permitting process, our land development process, isn’t the bottleneck for new units coming online has to be the immediate thing that we do in the short term.

The second thing is updating our zoning. … When we update our zoning, we’re able to think about housing in a different way, whether that’s more mixed use, thinking creatively, such as more accessory dwelling units (like backyard cottages and garage apartments).

Some people are hoping for some sort of exemption for low-income earners when it comes to the earned income tax. Have you considered that for the 2027 budget?

The current exemption that was proposed unfortunately doesn’t have 100% of those funds going back to the person that’s paying the tax. Rather than add more bureaucracy within City Hall and not getting the biggest bang for our buck for the resident, how about we allocate those dollars for a fund that’s going to directly impact low-income residents? Something that’s top of mind for me is a form of rental assistance.

There’s a growing number of vacant commercial spaces downtown. Do you have plans to address those vacant spaces, and how do you ensure businesses can afford to operate in the city?

When it comes to the vacancy rates, it definitely is something that’s concerning. One thing that I would like to see happen is thinking about what type of analysis, if it hasn’t been done, can we do to see what types of businesses that we need to be in those spaces, based on foot traffic, that would be successful.

I want folks to think beyond the downtown area for their business, but how do we make sure that downtown continues to be a thriving place? I also want to think about how we reimagine what downtown looks like as well.

You’ve stated your intention to hold community meetings in different parts of the city. What can residents expect from your first year of town halls?

They can expect the listening tour from Jaime. I want to at least do a quarterly town hall and move throughout the quadrants of Lancaster city. One of my hopes in my first 100 days is to actually hit each quadrant, and part of that is just listening.

Some residents in the southeast area have said they feel like they aren’t heard or represented by city government. How do you plan to bridge that gap?

Representation of any part of any city doesn’t only have to be on City Council. I think of the boards, authorities and commissions as great opportunities to get folks from all types of neighborhoods here in the city involved and engaged in the process. My hope is to utilize the (Department of) Neighborhood Engagement in a way that really gets folks from different neighborhoods engaged. … And potentially the next step for them could be to run for council.

The Department of Neighborhood Engagement was a major initiative for Mayor Sorace. Are there any departments or programs you’d like to build on or create?

No more new departments, but definitely leaning more into economic development. One position that was proposed this year — I’m not sure if we’ll move forward with it based on budget negotiations we’re having now — is an economic development manager. I do want to figure out how the city plays a stronger role in economic development in collaboration with the Lancaster City Alliance, the Lancaster Chamber, ASSETS, to make sure that we’re filling any gaps or strengthening some tools that we have out in the community.

You’ve talked about wanting to work closer with neighboring municipalities. Will you also work more with the county commissioners?

I think you really can’t get anything done by yourself. You have to collaborate. I’m looking forward to collaborating with all municipalities across the county. There needs to be a sense of shared responsibility to make sure Lancaster County moves forward … and that starts with the county commissioners. I am very much open to having regular meetings with them or collaborating on specific areas. One that’s coming up is the prison site.

How are we working together when it comes to some of the plans that we have seen be successful? One that stands out to me is Vision Zero (the city’s street safety plan that aims to eliminate fatal and serious injury crashes by 2030). I don’t think someone should have a different experience when they cross Manheim Township’s line into the city or if they’re stepping out one block from the city to Lancaster Township. How do we collaborate to make sure that Vision Zero could be adopted in those areas potentially?

There isn’t a chief of staff in the mayor’s office now. Do you plan to hire a chief of staff and have you thought about who that would be?

My hope is to hire for that position. I think having a strong team at City Hall is extremely important. I’m really focused on the chief of police position right now, so once that’s locked in, then we’ll start looking at the chief of staff as another critical position for the leadership team.

Is there anything from your time on City Council that you weren’t able to finish that you want to tackle now that you’re mayor?

The climate action plan for the city. I really want to see a plan that takes the whole community into account and really be a leader in climate solutions, building a resilient city, understanding that we are going to start to see some of the effects of climate change here, and we already have. I just want to be an innovative city in that space.