DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — It's just after 5 p.m. on a Monday and most city employees are winding down their workday, but Dayton City Manager Rashad Young is revved up and ready to put his team through a workout.

You'll find him in the basement of City Hall teaching a step aerobics class.

During Young's first year as city manager, he handpicked a team of administrators and began imprinting on Dayton government his unique leadership style — one that includes teaching exercise classes to help staff de-stress and stay fit.

He also started his own version of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club for administrators. Their first assignment, a business book, Good to Great by Jim Collins.

"I think of Dayton government as a business," Young said. "The book really emphasizes excellence in organizations. It's about facing the reality of your situation."

And the reality of running a Rust Belt city such as Dayton can be daunting.

The city is struggling to gain footholds in emerging niche fields and to find seeds of high-tech development that will uplift Dayton's deflated manufacturing tax base. City leaders want Dayton to become a center for the radio frequency identification industry, a new technology used to track people, animals and objects.

In September, the city struck a $1.4 million deal with CityWide Development to create the Dayton RFID Incubator Corp. The job growth during 10 years is expected to generate $1.8 million in city income tax revenue.

"Our biggest source of revenue is income tax, so we have to think about jobs," Young said. "We're not going to be able to enhance services and give residents what they want if we don't have the revenue."

Young said he gets involved in many of the city's economic development deals. And there are a number brewing, including Ballpark Village, a proposed $230 million waterfront development, on the drawing board for a year.

"Did we underestimate the time frame to pull this thing together? Yes, we did," Young said. "I don't want to rush through a deal, just so we can celebrate."

Young said he is "cautiously optimistic" the city will have a development plan for Ballpark Village in a month.

While economic development is a top priority, Young has other challenges to juggle. Work on economic development growth must be balanced with projects in neighborhoods, such as the demolition of nuisance structures and public safety.

"There are times I come in and say, 'We're not doing enough. We're not making enough progress,' " Young said. Young called his first year as the city's CEO a building year. Now he has a team assembled he believes has the talent to "move the ball and deliver."

"I don't have all the answers. I do have a strong team who challenges me," Young said. "When the debate is over, I make the decisions. At the end of the day, I tell them, 'I'm the city manager. I sit in the hot seat.' "

During planning sessions that Young calls "making sausage," he encourages staff to debate policy. It was during one such session that the team found a way to streamline the city's nuisance structure demolition process by 111 days, eliminating requirements to publish notices in newspapers.

Young, 31, grew up in Dayton and attended public schools here. He earned a bachelor's degree in business management and a master's in business administration from the University of Dayton.

Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin said she has confidence in the youthful city manager.

"We're seeing new life downtown. Our crime numbers are down," McLin said. "He's pushing our departments to do more with less."

Young shaved $2 million from the city's growing employee health care benefits expense by negotiating a switch with unions to high-deductible, health care spending accounts.

"We settled four union contracts and we did them in a way that showed employees we care about them and what they do," Young said. "Not all have been easy"

Dayton FOP President Randy Beane said the police union has found Young willing to sit down and work though issues — like the union contract and a proposed regional 911 dispatch center.

"Whenever I need to discuss something with him, he has an open door," Beane said. "We don't always agree, but that's the nature of the beast."

David Greer, president of the Northwest Priority Board, said Young has faced tough issues that he handled "admirably," but that the city manager's first year wasn't flawless. Greer pointed to Young's quick defense of Dayton when Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor in July accused the city of poor oversight of federal funds in a 2005 financial audit. The problem had been technical and it had been corrected before the audit was released.

But, when it came to moving priority board staff from site offices to downtown, Greer felt the city's budget got a higher priority than citizens.

"I would like to have seen the city manager take a more proactive stance," Greer said. "A lot more could have been done with citizens."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2362 or josmith@DaytonDailyNews.com.