First elected female mayor of Goshen swears in

 

GOSHEN, Ind. -- The 33rd mayor of Goshen was officially sworn in Wednesday evening, and it was the first ever swearing in ceremony for a woman mayor!

In all of Goshen's 192-year history, Gina Leichty is the first woman to ever hold the title of mayor.

The democrat officially won the race for mayor this past November against republican Benjamin Rogers, after serving as interim mayor for several months when the former mayor, Jeremy Stutsman, decided to step down earlier this year.

The longtime Goshen resident and public servant has said she’s ready to continue the momentum of the work she’s already started.

“One of the most fortunate things about being caucused in ahead of the election is that I was able to find out that I really do love the job,” says Mayor Gina Leichty.

The big role is something the entrepreneur and businesswoman wouldn’t have expected even just a year ago.

“I really didn’t have a political ambition in mind,” Leichty admits. “What I wanted to be able to do was just find ways to find some meaning and give back to the community in the way that I had been supported.”

Leichty’s decades of public service in Goshen took full force when she stepped in as interim mayor in the summer, that's when she began to identify the issues most important to Goshen residents and devising plans to address them, for example, the issue of housing affordability.

“We’re looking at opportunities with not-for-profit partnerships, working with local developers, and then just making sure we’re paying attention to those quality of place amenities, which are really the things people are choosing when they think about where they want to choose as a place to call home,” explains Leichty.

She says the framework of Goshen starts in its neighborhoods. That’s where she will be focusing a lot of attention in her fresh term as mayor.

“At the end of the day, it’s whether or not your sidewalks are in good shape, and your roads are paved, and you feel like your neighborhood is safe that’s really going to determine a lot about how you feel about the city,” Leichty says.

Her next steps are to attend lots of city meetings she says, but she’s also looking forward to the impromptu opportunities that she will have as mayor.