January 22, 2024 • 43 mins
When the warm nostalgia of hay baling at age nine evolves into a tale of financial independence and determination, you know you've hit upon a story that resonates. Joining me is Ron Oler, Richmond's newly elected Mayor, who brings this very narrative to life. From his roots on the family farm to his travels as a broadcast engineer, Mayor Oler's tapestry of experiences shapes his vision for our city's future. He shares candidly the transformative plans he has in store for Richmond, emphasizing the importance of a community deeply connected to its growth and prosperity.
Navigating the maze of local politics with a pragmatic and innovative lens, we traverse the landscape of public safety and the revitalization of our downtown with Mayor Oler. His stories detail the unexpected twists of mayoral duties and the strategic decisions made in the pursuit of a safer, more vibrant Richmond. We also spotlight the collaborative magic happening between local partners, like Michael Allen from Manpower, whose contributions are vital to our city's development. It's about building from the ground up, harnessing the power of community and fresh housing developments that offer more than just a place to rest your head.
As the conversation meanders through the complexities of governance, we touch on the balance between enforcement and empowerment, and the city's efforts to nurture a local government that champions small business success. Mayor Oler is poised to steer our community through a journey of transformation – one where historic preservation meets modern living, and where the creation of market-rate apartments is more than an investment; it's a statement of belief in Richmond's potential. Tune in and discover how a lifetime of eclectic experiences has prepared Mayor Oler to sculpt the future of our city with care, innovation, and a solid grasp of the hometown values that unite us all.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Michael Allen from Manpower.
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(00:24):
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Hello and welcome to the Hubpowered by Manpower Richmond.
I am your host, Michael Allen,and here on the Hub we interview
local business leaders,community partners and various
special guests, and our missionhere is to share unique and
(00:46):
untold stories of companies,organizations and people who are
making a difference in ourcommunity.
So today's guest on the Hub isnewly elected Mayor of Richmond,
Ron Oler.
Welcome to the Hub.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
I really love it that you werewilling to come sit with us this
(01:08):
morning.
I mean, you're just about 17days into your job and I know
you probably have a lot going onand it means a lot that you'd
be willing to spend some timewith us just kind of talking
about your plans for the cityand just some personal
information about you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You know, like myself , you're a lifelong Richmond and
Wayne County resident.
Yes, so just kind of share alittle bit with our followers
about you know, growing up inRichmond, your family going to
school that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Glad to Well.
First let me say to the viewersif you don't know what day it
is, we're in the middle of ColdSnap, the Arctic Cold Snap.
So we're on the third floor ofthis old building with drafty
windows.
So I'm really happy to be herethis morning.
No, it's okay, we have a littlebit of heat here.
So just one of the, just forcontext.
You got to know that it'sreally cold out there.
Yeah, very so starting my thirdweek as mayor.
(02:04):
Mayor City of Richmond has beenpretty awesome and pretty busy.
As you said, I was born inRichmond, on the south side of
town.
The little house I was born instill there, although we moved
out of that when I was fouryears old.
I do believe so, like a lot ofpeople.
I was born at the old rehospital site, which is now a
grassy hill, and somedayhopefully during my first term
(02:25):
we'll make it into somethingthat would be great, yeah, great
, get some plans, get somethings going.
You know, richmond has a superinteresting history, and I don't
need to remind the viewers ofall that, but I'm really hoping
that together we'll have such abrighter future.
So when I was four years old,though, we moved out to the
county, to one of the familyfarms, and that's where I spent
most of my early years andchildhood years, with livestock
(02:48):
and grain, and started drivingat age nine and bought my first
motorcycle at age 12, first carat age 15.
And then, as a teenager, moveback to the city.
Just, I went to college.
After high school, I had theopportunity to go into military.
I had family been in military.
My brother went in the army.
We were working for dad's fencecompany through high school and
(03:08):
my brother decided to go thearmy.
I was supposed to go to the AirForce and I changed my mind and
went to Ivy Tech and got adegree in electronics Because I
found this company called Allybroadcast equipment on the south
side of town and said I want towork for them.
And that was my did that for adozen years, became a certified
broadcast engineer.
I traveled the world and builtradio stations for 12 years.
I got to work in wonderfulplaces.
(03:29):
You know, instead of themilitary sending me around the
country, I had a corporationsend me around the country.
So I worked in Africa, taiwan,russia, moscow, st Petersburg,
mexico, all over the US.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So I guess kind of stop you there for a minute.
So when you went on these tripsabroad, how long would you be
at these different?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
locations.
Most of them were just a week,but the Africa was a month.
We built a force of Americarelay station, west Africa and I
got to go there for a month totrain engineers on how to
operate the equipment, maintainthe equipment.
Somebody else had installed it.
That was one of the ones, oneof the ones that took like two
years to build.
That was an interesting onebecause I was supposed to go one
(04:07):
year and I was ready to go anddo all this training.
I was only had 10 days oftraining for these Africans to
operate and maintain hisequipment.
So the year I was supposed togo the army decided to kidnap
the president of this countrybecause they hadn't been paid in
a couple months.
So the State Department said notravel.
So a year later, when I finallywent, I got there and the first
(04:28):
day there was a holiday.
And then there's only one planea week out of this area, one
commercial plane on Wednesdaynights.
So my 10 days of working and uptaking three weeks.
And this is before cell phones.
This is back in the early 90sand it cost $10 a minute to call
home.
So once a week I call home tomy wife and say, hey, I got to
stand out of the week becausewe're not finished.
Hey, I got to stand out of theweek because we're not finished
(04:49):
and she was getting panicky here.
I was in the far reaches ofWestern Africa, but it was a
wonderful experience.
It was a good, good, goodexperience.
I left in 99 when Harris Courtmoved to Mason Ohio.
I took a full-time facultyposition at Ivy Tech, but before
that I went and got abachelor's in business
administration in Ivy Tech.
I was there 21 years.
(05:11):
I chaired a bunch of programs,professor, department chair,
dean director of two campuses,got a master's and a PhD and
thought I would stay in highereducation for the rest of my
career.
I came on to council 12 yearsago, so it was on council for
three terms.
I thought I'd stay at Ivy Techuntil full retirement, but then
COVID hit and everything changedand I was ready for something
(05:33):
different.
So I actually go ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
There's a lot of stories that after COVID, after
COVID, I mean it really changeda lot of people's lives.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Covid changed so many things.
I love teaching and up untilthis campaign I still taught for
IUEs as part-time.
I've taught for Purdue, Indiana, Westlin, and taught for IUEs
for seven or eight years.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You know, when I think about you know different
mayors we've had I would I'dhave to you know compliment you
Think of you have one of themost diverse resumes that I've
seen of different people whohave held your office and
hopefully I mean, how do youthink you know you have done a
lot of different things?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, probably since the last three years in project
management for a largeconstruction company.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So how do you think that's going to serve you well
in your role as?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
mayor Supervising people.
So I was ready day one andduring my time as a department
chair and a dean and a directorto campuses, I would always
supervise 10 to 12 people at atime and there was a time during
a great recession whenenrollment was through the roof
and there was a season a yearwhere I supervised 42 people
directly and another 100indirectly.
So I came into this job with alot of supervisor experience.
(06:47):
So I knew right on the firstday what I had to change, and
one of the first things Ichanged is I brought in an
attorney to be the HR directorin Kenyatta Cox.
So we hired her.
She has labor law experience.
So one of the things we'rechanging is the way we supervise
people, the way we lead people,manage people.
A lot of the city's policies.
We're looking through all thepolicies and practices and
making sure we're doing the bestthing for the city employees,
(07:10):
that we're serving the best waypossible and they're getting the
best supervision possible.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
You know, when you have I'm sure there's a lot of
people that work for the city,that have been there for a long
time, and so then you knowthey're there different
administrations, you come in,make a lot of changes.
How do you come in and gently,you know, make these changes
Because you have a convictionthat these are the right things
(07:35):
to do.
And but sometimes people don'tlike change and it's not.
Maybe they don't necessarilydon't like you, but they just
don't like somebody kind ofchanging their routine or you
know their process or whatever.
I mean I've been in businessmyself for over 30 years and and
when I've changed stuff I'veseen how people reacted.
(07:56):
But you know how do you come ininto this?
To try to, you know, encouragepeople, to, you know, be patient
and kind of trust the thingsthat you're trying to do Trust
the process.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, so back on the personnel side and the policies
and practices over the lastcouple of decades a lot of
practices haven't aligned upwith policies and a lot of
policies haven't aligned up withpractices.
So we're working throughgetting those things to align.
So we're going to choose thebest practice that makes sense
and it helps the city grow andit helps employees to have a
(08:30):
better work environment.
Those practices will becomepolicy.
And now we have some policiesthat haven't been in a practice
but legally we need to change.
So we got to do.
We're working from both angles.
So some of the best practicesbecome policies.
Some of the worst policies willdisappear.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I saw this.
Uh, I've it's been severalyears ago.
It was about employeeengagement and it said that
there's, you know, like yourorganization is like a canoe and
there's like six people andthey're in a canoe, they're
rolling, you're trying to makeit happen, and there's two
people.
They're just kind of long forthe ride, but then there's
sometimes there's two otherpeople, they're trying to
(09:07):
actually sink it.
Yes, you know so I mean, I'msure there's different analogies
like that, but yeah, I guess,ultimately, if, if there have
been some personnel changes.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
yes, yeah.
That's a nice way of saying itIn my, in my mind, let me share
this with you my philosophy onemployment.
After being teaching businessand running business programs
for couple of decades andworking in an instruction agency
for a long period of time, Icall it a fit issue.
If there's someone in the jobwho's not happy in the job
(09:39):
because that's really not theirskill set, I think it's more
cruel to leave them in that joband give them hope of a better
future when they know and youknow, it's not a good fit.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
It's a fit issue.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So there comes a time in all my careers there comes a
time when we need to set themfree to do something different
in the city.
A lot of times, though, there'sso many departments it's
basically most of the time it'sjust moving from department to
department.
So, looking at this person'sdoing his job, but that's not
your skill set.
This person's doing this job,not your skill set.
Why don't we swap jobs, right?
So that happens quite a bit inthe city, but I I think it's
(10:12):
meaner and cruel or to keepsomeone in a dead end job where
they're not going to getpromoted, where they're not
going to get the pay increasethey want because their skills
aren't there and their heart'snot there, to just keep dragging
them out just because they likeone of the benefits, right, and
to set them free to findsomething better.
And there's a lot.
You've had entrepreneurs onhere and a lot of entrepreneurs
are that way.
A lot of entrepreneurs willcome from a frustrated work
(10:34):
environment in the corporateworld and decide to do something
different.
I mean, you know how old wasColonel Sanders when he founded
KFC?
How old was Dave Thomas when hefounded Wendy's?
Not young people, right?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The uh, I want to back up a little bit um on on
this podcast.
On the hub, one question, tryto make sure I ask everybody uh,
just because my associationwith employment.
What was your first job Likeyour very first job that you had
, where you got a paycheck, youpay taxes, so security you pay
(11:09):
taxes.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I had to back up before that, when I was nine
years old, a farmer that we knew.
His son was injured and dadfarmed my brother and I out to
help him bell hey, and at theend dad said you're going to get
paid for this, you're going towork for this farmer for a week.
Mom or dad drove us there everyday.
You're going to help him bellhey and put up the hay, and then
the weekend we get paid.
And I was nine years old and Igo that's cool, cause I wanted
(11:30):
this.
I wanted that.
I grew up in a household wheremy, our parents would buy us the
minimum stuff for school.
We would get the Kmart shoesand the Kmart pants.
If we wanted to leave I shoesin the con, or Levi's pants and
Converge shoes, we had to paythe difference, right.
So at nine years old, I wasexcited.
I was going to get money andbefore school started I was
going to have Chuck Taylor 10issues Awesome Right Playing
(11:53):
basketball.
Friday the farmer comes andgives me a piece of paper and
it's a check and I, like Ithought I was getting paid and
mom my mom says this is money.
I said no, it isn't, this is apiece of paper with his name on
it.
So she took me to people statebank.
She opened a savings account,put it in.
I got money.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, I liked this.
It's a introduction, to find itIntroduction personal finance
and savings.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I started saving and saving and saving.
So when, when in high school ofcourse worked for the family
business a lot.
But then I think I was in 10thgrade I went to work for the big
blue store, which was you spend?
On the West side town.
It's like a tractor supply, ifyou don't know, a big blue store
.
Now it's bomb guards, so a farmstore.
And by the time I was a seniorin high school, at 18 years old.
(12:36):
I had a retirement plan, dentalinsurance, a new truck and I
was a shift leader and I went to.
When I went to high school, mysenior year only went to school.
I had more than enough creditsto graduate.
I wasn't academically special,I just took the right classes
and I had more than enoughcredits to graduate.
So I had to take like twoclasses, three classes, my
(12:57):
senior year.
So at one 12 o'clock I was outof class my senior year and
worked one to nine, mondaythrough Friday, as a shift
leader at big blue store, with aretirement plan, a new truck,
health insurance, dentalinsurance and never look back.
Wow, that's great, that'sawesome.
The value of work, I mean,that's what spending those 11
years of selling a farm taughtus the value of work and saving
(13:17):
money for the things you wantinstead of going in the debt.
So my first college degree, Isaved money.
I kept working.
I paid for my first collegedegree out of pocket.
I was that 19 year old, maybe21,.
I started because I took a gapyear.
So I meet with my advisor tosign up for class and
electronics.
I take that paper to theregistrar's office who put it in
the computer.
I take that paper to the birthstar's office.
(13:38):
I pull out my checkbook I'dwrite a check for the tuition.
Then I take my checkbook to thebookstore and write a check and
buy books.
And I did that for severalyears.
I got my first college degree.
Yeah, that's awesome and comefrom nothing.
I mean, we were so poor when Iwas born.
We didn't.
They told me I didn't have ababy crib for me.
My baby crib was an opendresser drawer in the mom's, my
(13:58):
mom's side of the bed, thebottom dresser drawer.
That was my crib.
That's how poor we were.
But we weren't broke or weweren't.
Well, that's how broke we were.
We weren't poor.
Let's say that Right, becausewe knew the value of hard work
and getting yourself, pullingyourself up.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Well, you know, we take from those experiences and
they make us who we are today.
And it sounds like thoseexperiences have served you well
throughout your career.
Shifting back into politics alittle bit, you served on common
counsel for 12 years and whatkind of motivates you to run for
(14:33):
counsel the first time around?
Then you know, you know havethree terms, but I mean, what
was the what?
Why did you choose to do thatinitially?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well, it really started that senior year of high
school way back when, becausewe started to take a civics
class to graduate high schooland there was this actor out of
California who wanted to bepresident named Ronald Reagan
yes, and there was a paper onhand.
And there was this guy fromIndianapolis named Richard Dick
Lugar who wanted to run forSenate.
So I wrote a paper on them andI was 18 years old, so I got the
vote as a senior in high schooland I've been active in the
(15:05):
party ever since, but I neverreally ran for anything.
I was always there helping theparty, helping with parades and
floats and doing events, andalways in the background.
But when I was asked 16 yearsago, before I actually ran the
first time, the party asked meto run for counsel to replace
someone who wanted to changepositions on government.
I was finishing my doctorate atIndiana State University and I
(15:26):
said no, I couldn't, I can't.
I got to finish the PhD becauseI know me, if I finished, if I
run for counsel and I get busyand counsel, I'll never finish
the dissertation Right.
So four years later I ran outof excuses to the party.
So I ran and I loved it.
I immediately got on the financecommittee.
Last year I chaired the publicsafety committee so we created a
door ordinance that I think isreally solid.
I got to meet with state excisepolice yesterday and I told him
(15:50):
what we did on our doorordinance.
He was kind of excited some ofthe controls we put in place
that other cities haven't done.
So if you don't know what adoor is, a designated outdoor
refreshment area we createdaround the depot just free.
That's our first one.
I assume before long we'll haveone in the downtown area too.
Once we get some morerestaurants and housing and
other establishments downtownthey'll probably want one too.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So that area of the depot that's in effect right now
, yes, so that's very limited.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
They can only run four to four PM to 11 PM
Thursday, friday, saturday, andthey're only gonna activate it
when they have special events.
So it's not every Thursday,friday, saturday.
And all the establishments thatparticipate in the door have to
have the door cups, but theyalso have to put their name on
them.
So that's one of the things wedid that other cities didn't
(16:42):
think of.
If we start finding cups fromthis establishment in the street
or outside the door, then thatestablishment's got a problem.
That's our control system.
So instead of having policepatrol it all the time, we'll
just go out afterwards and lookfor cups and see if anybody's
breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, good idea, good idea.
So I would think that serving12 years on council provides you
with an opportunity to reallyhit the ground running as mayor.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I think there shouldn't be too many surprises.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
But so I'm saying I'm making an assumption there
weren't too many surprises.
So is there any part of that?
What part of that statement istrue?
But what part of that have youfound so far to maybe not be
quite?
Speaker 2 (17:25):
accurate.
I knew what I wanted to changeright off the bat, so I brought
in a new police chief, a coupleof majors, a new fire chief, a
new assistant fire chief, hrdirector and everybody else is
pretty much the same.
I knew about that.
But one of the things tosurprise was all the boards and
commissions the mayor has topoint people to.
So, on council, council,typically we have an appointee
to this board or this commissionand you get a couple a year and
(17:48):
a first day in mayor's office.
So here's your spreadsheet ofall the boards and commissions
and people you have to point to.
And, by the way, a lot of themjust expired December 31st 2023,
and you need to find somebodyto fill that seat and you've got
about two weeks to do it causethey're meeting like yay, I know
a lot of people.
So it was basically goingthrough and you know.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Do they expire typically at the end of a term
or it's just happened the waythe most of them expired at the
end of the year.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Some are one term, one year, three years and four
years.
The other surprising part washow many I had to swear in cause
.
On council, you know we do anoath of office every term.
Merit is an oath of office, butsome of these boards, because
they handle finances, they haveto take an oath of office.
So I had to get with the cityclerk, get the oath of office
printed and actually swear themin, just like I was sworn in.
Board of Works is a goodexample.
(18:36):
There's just every day it seemslike something new pops up and
I get reminded by departmenthead oh, this committee is
meeting last week, thiscommission's meeting next week
and you need to come and swearthem in.
I had other plans, but no, I'mdoing the job, I'll be there.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I was gonna get to just a couple of things you
talked about during the campaign.
You said that during thecampaign you stated that
restoring public safety would bea top priority, and that's
where some of the personnelchanges you've made and the
chief, the new police chief, themajors, the new fire chief,
assistant chief.
(19:13):
So what did that process looklike and how did it go when
these appointees were announced?
I mean, how did that go?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
As expected, some people were happy and some
people weren't, so that's justthe way it is.
On the police side, one of thethings I wanna bring back to
city tried community policingmaybe two decades ago and there
was an officer who was the chiefat the time and really tried it
but the establishment justfought him all the way.
So one of the things we'rebringing back is community
(19:42):
policing.
So the majors I brought overwith experience in the Sheriff's
Department, they havebackground in that and we're
gonna reenact community policing, reengage people, reengage the
neighborhood associations andreengage as citizens.
So it's not just hiring up theofficers which we're doing.
It was kind of funny the day Iswore in January 2nd, the day I
(20:02):
swore in the department headsand the chiefs, they turned
around and swore in one newpolice officer and five new
firefighters, and one of thosefirefighters is a fifth
generation family member.
So Rotunda, the city ofIllinois, was full of all the
family and friends watchingthese new officers being sworn
and it was a good day.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, it felt really good.
Yeah, you mentioned I mean, anydecision evokes certain
responses, positive and negative, no matter what.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
And that's a tough.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
that's a challenge in leadership.
You have to do what you feel isfollow your convictions and do
that, and that's just part ofthe comes with the territory,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
So we've had a problem with crime.
We've had a problem with opioidcrisis.
The biggest problem with crimeis a youth crime.
So we have three officers nowin charge of traffic and
juveniles.
So I think that's a big plushaving three out there on the
street watching for thejuveniles working with the
juveniles.
It's just like the opioidepidemic.
(21:00):
You really can't arrest yourway out of juvenile crime
problems.
You have to educate.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It seems like law enforcement agencies are short
and personnel all over.
Where does the Richmond PoliceDepartment stand right now?
As far as personnel, how manymore officers are we looking for
currently?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Last summer they were down 12, now I think they're
down five, five or six, and Isay that because there's always
some in the retirement drop tooRight, that'll just pop up and
there's probably some coming, Ithink, in the spring.
So I think we're down five, butwe could be down eight.
But we'll hire up more.
One of the things that help isbringing in a chief of police
(21:45):
from the Sheriff's Departmentwith 22 years of experience, has
a relationship with otheragencies that RPD didn't have.
So there's our agencies,interesting and lateral
transfers.
So that's something we'reworking on too.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Right, so maybe five to 10 additional officers would
be nice.
Yes, sounds like yes working onit.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
One of the things that we're truly trying to do is
restore pride and respect tolaw enforcement.
I think and this is my opinionand you may agree with me since
9-11, our firefighters are theheroes and they've been the
heroes for a long time.
And it's not hard to findfirefighters.
Sometimes it's hard to findEMTs and paramedics because we
have the ambulance service, butthere's a lot of honor and
(22:26):
respect and dignity going tofirefighters.
But since stuff that thenational media has portrayed in
the last three years, it'smaking it less desirable to be a
law enforcement officer.
So we need to change thatnationwide, change that image
nationwide.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I mean we live in a smaller community, but I think
we're just because of things howit's portrayed, like you said,
in the medium, whatever, it'sstill probably a challenge.
I mean it's.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
The best thing you can do is just turn off the
national news.
Pay attention to what'shappened locally and you'll see
that we're not that bad.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I've had different.
I've had several interactionswith the Russian Police
Department, not on a negativeside, but you know just you know
my office is right across thestreet from the police
department and you know you havea lot of different reasons why
(23:21):
I would have had interaction,but I've always had outstanding
response from the Russian PoliceDepartment.
You know it's obvious thatthey're here to protect, but I
always like to think they'realso here to serve, and I think
when they demonstrate servicequalities, that's when they
(23:46):
really catch my hand.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And restoring this community policing, getting
officers back out in theneighborhoods and establishing
relationships.
I think it's very importantRestoring public safety.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
What does that look like?
I mean, how are you going tomeasure that?
Is it like less reported crimes, solving crimes, more arrests,
convictions?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yes, all of those things, all those things, all
those things More officers, morepatrols, more people on the
street, so you've had a lot ofpersonnel considerations you've
had to make.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You mentioned.
The thing that surprised youwas all these boards you had to
put people on.
Part of what you're wanting todo was the city advisory
committee.
Have you even had time to thinkabout that yet?
I mean, where do you stand withthat?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I have a couple of people who helped in my campaign
are putting that togethercommunity advisory committee.
So a few community leaders havebeen asked and are working on
getting that started.
Probably I don't know if it'snext week or the first of
February when we'll startmeeting how.
Now I have gone, so I'm on thechamber board now.
So I'm a lot of boards.
I'm out there myself.
My goal was I will be out theremyself, but there comes a time
(24:55):
when I wanna bring people to themayor's office and just have a
conversation.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
But when you mentioned city advisor committee
, that is your own committee,your creative of people that
you're asking to help serve thecommunity in that unique way.
So how many are?
Do you have a kind of an ideaof how many people you're gonna
have on that committee?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
I think it'll start in the 10 to 12 range is what
we're looking at.
All right, and it's leadersfrom all aspects, not just
business leaders, not justmedical leaders, but
non-government agencies,churches, church leaders.
I have a group of people from achurch who come in and pray
over me once a week and prayover the city.
I think that's helping too.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Absolutely, I believe that one challenge asking
people's opinions.
Sometimes people getdisappointed or even upset when
you don't follow their advice orinput.
How do you deal with that, orhow do you think you're gonna
deal with that?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
When I ask people's opinion, answer or advice, just
like in business.
Say, you're doing a marketstudy, you're gonna get five
different ideas and you're gonnachoose the three that are best.
You can't always choose allfive and I think most people
will realize that we can't doall five things we could do well
.
Let me take it back.
We could do five things poorly,but I'd rather do three things
very well.
I'd rather do one thing greatat a time, two things great at a
(26:14):
time, three things good.
There's a lot of research ongood to great and I want the
city to be great, not just good.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Right, Well, that's you know.
Hopefully, when you meettogether and you convey, you
know, your goals together,people can understand that
there's, like you said, there'sonly so many things that you can
grasp onto.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Well, there's only so many things the mayor can do.
We need the community leadersto step up.
Yes, and people like you.
You're taking care of this showand your business.
You have one of the bestmaintained manicured lawns in
the city out there in front ofyour business.
You do a great job withlandscaping and keeping it nice
and we need every business ownerto take that respect or take
that responsibility.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I definitely would love to see more of pride
in our downtown.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
And I want to ask you .
I actually do have a questionfor you about downtown, but I
want to ask.
And one other part about youstated you want to be small
business centered.
So a quote from some of yourpaperwork says government
shouldn't work against our smallbusinesses.
Let me start over Business agovernment shouldn't work
(27:21):
against our small businesssuccess.
They should be working fortheir success.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yes, government for the people.
So that's going throughpolicies and practices, going
through code enforcement.
I'm taking a really close.
I'm basically taking control ofthe code enforcement department
and the mayor's office is andmaking sure that we're doing
things that help the community,not hurt the community.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
So that's an example of government working for the
business success.
What do you believe are?
I don't want to go too negative, but what?
The comment must have come fromsomewhere.
Government shouldn't be workingagainst.
So I mean, what's this workingagainst?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Government has a lot of rules and a lot of codes and
a lot of regulations and youneed to enforce all those, but
you also need to be reasonable.
So government needs to bereasonable.
If a someone's struggling withmowing their grass, you know,
don't just give them a fine.
Give them a solution, help themout.
Talk to the neighbors I live by.
We used to have three widowswho live next door to us and now
(28:23):
there's two, and we make suretheir lawns mowed, we make sure
their trash is picked up.
Being a good neighbor isimportant.
So my view of code enforcementyes, they need to crack down on
the bad actors, but if they'reout there and they see something
and they can help someone, theyneed to help someone as much as
enforcing the code, or evenmore so, but also just talking
(28:45):
to the neighbors.
There's people on social mediawho are complaining about
somebody's dog is outside duringhis cold snap, and it's their
neighbor's dog.
And I ask them have you goneover to an offer to help?
And some of them say yes, but alot of them say no.
I want the government to help.
It's not the government's jobto go into someone's yard and
take care of a dog, unless, ofcourse, it's truly being
(29:06):
neglected and we need to enforcesome laws.
It's if the person's havingtrouble, they don't have money
for food or shelter for theirdog.
Just go help them out.
Go help out your neighbor.
Be a good neighbor.
That's what we need.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, you mentioned.
I mean we had Joyce Lucketthere from Animal Care Alliance
and just on the animal side ofthings, it's a huge issue within
our community.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
But there's a lot of people really trying to work
hard to help that topic.
Yes, the government needs tohelp them.
The government needs to helpthe people who are trying to
help, and that's what I'm tryingto do.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
We could go through a whole huge list of things and I
won't do that to you, but I dohave to ask you a little bit
about downtown Richmond.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yes, I think this issue has so many moving parts.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
You mentioned, my business is located in part of
downtown.
The city building is at one endof the downtown area, but I
think this opinion, I mean thisissue's been around for decades
and I don't really feel likewe're making an attraction.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, we haven't had major investment downtown since
explosion in 68, but now withbetween the market rate
apartments coming to the oldDelta Rooftop Project, which is
roughly a $40 million investmentsome of it public, most of it
private and the $25 millionrevitalized Richmond Lilly Grant
, the Earlham Health Facilityand the matching dollars for
(30:36):
that $25 million Lilly Grantwere over $110, $120 million
investment downtown coming inthe next three years.
So these properties are goingto take two or three years.
It's not going to happenovernight people.
So give us two or three years.
They're going to tear down somebuildings.
They're going to modernize somebuildings.
Once we get more people livingdowntown we'll get more people
shopping downtown.
(30:56):
We already have three bakeriesdowntown.
We have Susie's Pizza moved in,moved out of the basement of
the old Y and they're up herenow.
And we had Kathy Hewreid on hernot long ago now her downtown
deli's hopping.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
We have three restaurants in Sweet Bestlings
have breakfast and lunch.
We have three restaurants againdowntown.
We have three bakeries.
So we need some boutique shopsto come downtown.
But honestly, we're not goingto get major retail after COVID
downtown anymore.
We can't even keep them allbecause everybody is ordering on
Amazon.
So that's never going to happen.
(31:30):
But what will happen is theboutique shops.
You take other small towns likeRichmond, cities like Richmond
and their downtowns revitalizewith boutique shops and you get
boutique shops because you getpeople living near downtown who
want to patronize those boutiquestores and then a steakhouse
and other things.
They'll just keep onsnowballing in professional
offices.
(31:50):
You talked about the citybuilding and the county building
.
There's 800 people workingright down here doing the city
and accounting and sheriff'sdepartment and the social
security and federal offices.
We've got a lot of people who,when the weather's nice, you'll
see them walking downtown.
I did this in the fall.
I did this in the fall when Iwas walking downtown to go to a
(32:11):
restaurant.
I can believe how many peoplewere coming out and going to
these restaurants and shopsagain.
So the shops will come.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Right, you mentioned the apartments and I think
that's.
Those are gonna go where theformer elder bearman building is
.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, let me tell you something about those.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I'm a little skeptical about this the
departments, if it's reallygonna happen.
I hear lots of talk about itand whatever, but I guess I
won't understand until Iactually see something happen.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Let me paint a little picture for you.
So this developer out ofIndianapolis has done this all
over the state for years.
They have 40 something of these.
They've done this in Kokomo andLawrenceburg.
They've been up places wherepeople said you can't do it.
And it's working.
And you know the doughnutcities of Indianapolis where
they started, of course makessense, but now they're out
cities like Richmond.
And why will it make sense forRichmond?
We have somewhere.
A largest employers here talkall the time that our biggest
(33:04):
problem is the housing problem.
They can't attract and retaintalented employees because we
don't have housing and most ofthem want either a zero lot line
house, like their building onGarwood Road, because they don't
want any yard to take care of,to speak of, or they want a
market rate or resort styleapartment building.
So right now in Greenwood threeof these apartment buildings
(33:25):
like this are being built at acost that's almost twice what
these are and the rent will be50 to 40% more.
And in Greenwood it's the southof Indianapolis which isn't the
best doughnut city ofIndianapolis.
Sorry, greenwood, I'm at theGreenwood mayor.
I mean, greenwood has problems,richmond has problems.
So they're building these inthis area and they're putting in
retention ponds and I'm like wegot a gorge.
(33:46):
We can walk about an eighth ofa mile to natural water resource
that we're activating.
We'll soon have canoeing,kayaking, zip-lies.
So Denise Ress is doing a greatjob with the parks department.
The veterans are doing a greatjob with their parks Stardust
Nets there, the farmers marketsdown there this is the only
market rate apartments like this.
We'll be able to walk down to ariver gorge, historic gorge,
(34:08):
and do all these wateractivities or just go down and
do yoga or just go and meditateor just stop at the farmers
market.
In Bloomington they've got thefarmers market along an old
railroad track.
Yay, but other places, if youcompare what we're gonna have,
nobody's gonna have it quitelike this.
None of these apartments likethis are built close to a lake.
Now, lawrenceburg is right onthe Ohio River, but that's a
(34:30):
pretty well rushing river.
That's not a place you couldjust go hang out.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
So these apartments that were elder bearman's
building is who are thedifferent partners involved with
making this happen, and haseverything been signed?
Is it a done deal or are westill just waiting on certain
things to happen?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
There's the city has committed money, the county has
committed money, theredevelopment commission has
committed.
In theory, they have to go backto redevelopment commission for
one more vote.
On the actual finance side ofthat, we have banks who are
waiting to I'm talking at thebit, so to speak to fund this
thing, cause they believe in itand they believe in this group.
Now that this group is buildingthis, this is unlike most
(35:17):
others, this flirting Collinsgroup out of Indianapolis.
When they build these, theymaintain ownership and they
manage them and lease themthemselves.
So for 25 years there's acontractor written into the deed
.
If for 25 years, these will bemarket rate apartments, they're
gonna have a dog spa, they'regonna have a gym.
So these apartments, yes, it maybe more than a rental house
over here in this other district, but it comes with your gym
(35:37):
memberships, it comes with acommon space, it comes with a
swimming pool, it comes with adog spa, it comes with a bicycle
repair shop, cause it's on themultimodal trail, so they'll
have a free bicycle repair shopto place the store, your bike
and work on your bike If youwalk down to the river or you go
to the swimming pool or you goto the gym.
It's all included.
That's pretty cool.
(35:57):
Indianapolis doesn't have that.
These apartments like thisalong the canal canal is cool
and you can rent a paddle boatand go on the canal, but you
can't fish it, you can't just gohang out.
As a place to just hang out orin the day when the weather's
nice.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay, Well, I'm just interested to see when it could
all come together.
I mean, any cause thatbuilding's gonna have to come
down?
Yes, so if you're, I'm gonna.
I don't think we're gonna holdit on you because there's so
many moving parts, but do youhave any?
You know, I did in your mindwhen the wrecking ball would
(36:37):
show up and we start knockingthis, leveling the current
building to the ground, so wecould build.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
We thought it would be the city before.
You know, I just started asmayor.
They thought it would be thisJanuary would be costing us some
delays last year and somepersonnel changes and some other
issues.
It should be sometime thisspring or early summer.
Okay, so the one more vote forthe last piece of funding for
the redevelopment commissionwill come up soon and then it's
(37:03):
a matter of we start tearingdown a building and then they go
back to the banks and theyclose on the properties and I
think it's gonna be pretty cool.
Now I hate that the elder roombuilding's coming down.
I wish we had two developerslook at it originally while I
was on council and the firstcouncil first one was put
apartments overhead and thesecond floor and put retail on
the bottom floor.
I thought that was perfectbecause that building is poured
(37:23):
concrete walls in and roof.
That made explosion proof for areason.
That's how they got elder roomto come downtown.
So there's a lot of concreteand steel.
But that didn't pan out for alot of reasons.
And the next one had an idea.
The next one, the idea they hadto make apartments in that
whole space.
When they looked at the facadethey had this nice drawing and I
could show you the drawing ofthe facade.
(37:45):
But it was $7 million just tochange the facade, to get
windows in these apartments.
So they said, well, this justdoesn't make sense.
What makes sense now is if wedemolish it, raise it and we
grind the concrete and steel andrecycle it, just like we did at
the old Reed hospital, not putit in a landfill.
Grind and recycle the materialsare now will get reused and
(38:06):
then we can create a brand newspace.
They want 140, roughly,apartments in there.
140 apartments have 140kitchens and some of them have
two bathrooms.
This property has fourrestrooms.
The water's not there, thesewer's not there.
The problem is under thebuilding as much as the building
itself.
The most of the problems areunder the building and around
the building.
We've got to put theinfrastructure in place to
(38:28):
support something like this andthis doesn't exist.
So we'd have to tear up thefloor anyways just to get that
many kitchens and restrooms inthere.
So it just wasn't financiallypossible and just didn't make
sense.
Well, but also the plan is if Ican show you the drawings it
goes from.
It mostly faces west, so it'llgo from Main Street all the way
down to South A, so that littleside street is gone.
(38:50):
So the whole thing faces thewest.
There'll be some facing theeast, of course, and they're
leasing places from the parkinggarage.
So on the backside, on the eastside, they'll have the parking
garage over there.
They'll have some parking downhere, they'll have their
swimming pool area.
So the thing will be long andnarrow and on the sixth street
side it'll look more like aChicago brownstone walkup.
(39:12):
So the first four residentswill be able to park on all of
sixth street.
They'll be parking.
They can just walk right up oryou can park on the backside and
come in and that's going prettycool.
Yeah, and there's smallapartments.
There's big apartments.
It's mostly, I think, mostlyone bedroom and mostly smaller,
the medium apartments.
There'll be a couple of deluxelike eight deluxe apartments
(39:34):
with like three bedrooms, twobaths, and there'll be some
studio apartments.
But one of the things they said, because they maintain
ownership, they only dolong-term lease, so they won't
lease to people moving in andout, but they will lease to
corporations.
So a lot of the businessesheard that and they're looking.
Well, how many do I need torent?
So a lot of the businesses willcome in and will lease four or
five or even 10 spaces as theybring staff in and out, either
(39:58):
temporary or long-term or givethem a place to live while they
get settled in their new careerand then build their own house.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Well, I think that this project is a big part of
momentum happening.
Yes, so I do hope it happens,and I hope it happens as sooner
than later, and but I do agreeI'd have to agree that I think
that would be a huge boost forour city in general.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
There's a lot of people living just in Ohio.
There's a lot of.
I know some staff people ofdifferent businesses and
organizations who live outsideCincinnati or outside of
Annapolis and drive here becausewe don't have the housing they
want, the lifestyle they want.
But I also found back to theseapartments when they first
started building these asinfills.
That's their specialty theytake a property and do an infill
(40:47):
.
They had mostly young familiesor young professionals but it
said in recent years it'sflipped to 60, 40.
40% of their residents now areempty nesters who realize that
I'm tardimonial on.
I've got you know I may have aweekend home by the lake, but if
I could live here cause my workis here four or five days a
week plus they can walk down tothe river, that's gonna have all
(41:11):
kinds of amenities.
They can walk to restaurants,it's gonna be pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah Well, I'm excited for the possibility of
that, and we'll just pray thatit happens.
I guess we'll wrap this up, butbefore we do, is there anything
else that note worthy you'dwanna share about what's going
on with?
Speaker 2 (41:31):
the city.
I'm just very excited, veryenergized for the economic
growth.
Last week I did a interviewwith Earl McCollege for their
immediate department, for theLilly Grant, and we were on the
third floor of the BSN Kessler'sbuilding looking out over the
glass.
And I bring that up because Imade an appointment with them to
do that again in three and ahalf years from that same spot
(41:52):
and that same window and see howdifferent downtown looks in
three and a half years as itdoes today.
That's what I'm excited about.
I'm excited about the nextthree to four years.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Well, I wish you the best of luck moving forward If
you and your administration aresuccessful.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
everybody wins, everybody does.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
And so thank you for coming on the hub Glad to be
here and I really appreciateyour time doing that, glad to be
here.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Next time we'll do it when the weather is a little
warmer, because for our viewers,this is a cold space.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Maybe we'll do a follow up out in front of the
new apartments.
We'll go remote Be awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you Glad to be here.
Appreciate it.
Michael Allen from Manpower.
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(42:45):
Our entire focus is talentacquisition.
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customized support.
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uniquely positioned to helpeliminate the hassles and save
you time and money.
Let us help.
Contact Manpower today.
Michael Allen from Manpower.
We are a national brand, yetlocally owned franchise.
We are familiar with thechallenges businesses face.
It's tough recruiting andretaining qualified employees.
That's why working withManpower is a smart,
cost-effective solution.
Our entire focus is talentacquisition.
We'll manage your hiring andtraining and provide ongoing,
customized support.
Since 1966, we have been yourcommunity-invested partner,
(00:24):
uniquely positioned to helpeliminate the hassles and save
you time and money.
Let us help contact Manpowertoday.
Hello and welcome to the Hubpowered by Manpower Richmond.
I am your host, Michael Allen,and here on the Hub we interview
local business leaders,community partners and various
special guests, and our missionhere is to share unique and
(00:46):
untold stories of companies,organizations and people who are
making a difference in ourcommunity.
So today's guest on the Hub isnewly elected Mayor of Richmond,
Ron Oler.
Welcome to the Hub.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
I really love it that you werewilling to come sit with us this
(01:08):
morning.
I mean, you're just about 17days into your job and I know
you probably have a lot going onand it means a lot that you'd
be willing to spend some timewith us just kind of talking
about your plans for the cityand just some personal
information about you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You know, like myself , you're a lifelong Richmond and
Wayne County resident.
Yes, so just kind of share alittle bit with our followers
about you know, growing up inRichmond, your family going to
school that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Glad to Well.
First let me say to the viewersif you don't know what day it
is, we're in the middle of ColdSnap, the Arctic Cold Snap.
So we're on the third floor ofthis old building with drafty
windows.
So I'm really happy to be herethis morning.
No, it's okay, we have a littlebit of heat here.
So just one of the, just forcontext.
You got to know that it'sreally cold out there.
Yeah, very so starting my thirdweek as mayor.
(02:04):
Mayor City of Richmond has beenpretty awesome and pretty busy.
As you said, I was born inRichmond, on the south side of
town.
The little house I was born instill there, although we moved
out of that when I was fouryears old.
I do believe so, like a lot ofpeople.
I was born at the old rehospital site, which is now a
grassy hill, and somedayhopefully during my first term
(02:25):
we'll make it into somethingthat would be great, yeah, great
, get some plans, get somethings going.
You know, richmond has a superinteresting history, and I don't
need to remind the viewers ofall that, but I'm really hoping
that together we'll have such abrighter future.
So when I was four years old,though, we moved out to the
county, to one of the familyfarms, and that's where I spent
most of my early years andchildhood years, with livestock
(02:48):
and grain, and started drivingat age nine and bought my first
motorcycle at age 12, first carat age 15.
And then, as a teenager, moveback to the city.
Just, I went to college.
After high school, I had theopportunity to go into military.
I had family been in military.
My brother went in the army.
We were working for dad's fencecompany through high school and
(03:08):
my brother decided to go thearmy.
I was supposed to go to the AirForce and I changed my mind and
went to Ivy Tech and got adegree in electronics Because I
found this company called Allybroadcast equipment on the south
side of town and said I want towork for them.
And that was my did that for adozen years, became a certified
broadcast engineer.
I traveled the world and builtradio stations for 12 years.
I got to work in wonderfulplaces.
(03:29):
You know, instead of themilitary sending me around the
country, I had a corporationsend me around the country.
So I worked in Africa, taiwan,russia, moscow, st Petersburg,
mexico, all over the US.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So I guess kind of stop you there for a minute.
So when you went on these tripsabroad, how long would you be
at these different?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
locations.
Most of them were just a week,but the Africa was a month.
We built a force of Americarelay station, west Africa and I
got to go there for a month totrain engineers on how to
operate the equipment, maintainthe equipment.
Somebody else had installed it.
That was one of the ones, oneof the ones that took like two
years to build.
That was an interesting onebecause I was supposed to go one
(04:07):
year and I was ready to go anddo all this training.
I was only had 10 days oftraining for these Africans to
operate and maintain hisequipment.
So the year I was supposed togo the army decided to kidnap
the president of this countrybecause they hadn't been paid in
a couple months.
So the State Department said notravel.
So a year later, when I finallywent, I got there and the first
(04:28):
day there was a holiday.
And then there's only one planea week out of this area, one
commercial plane on Wednesdaynights.
So my 10 days of working and uptaking three weeks.
And this is before cell phones.
This is back in the early 90sand it cost $10 a minute to call
home.
So once a week I call home tomy wife and say, hey, I got to
stand out of the week becausewe're not finished.
Hey, I got to stand out of theweek because we're not finished
(04:49):
and she was getting panicky here.
I was in the far reaches ofWestern Africa, but it was a
wonderful experience.
It was a good, good, goodexperience.
I left in 99 when Harris Courtmoved to Mason Ohio.
I took a full-time facultyposition at Ivy Tech, but before
that I went and got abachelor's in business
administration in Ivy Tech.
I was there 21 years.
(05:11):
I chaired a bunch of programs,professor, department chair,
dean director of two campuses,got a master's and a PhD and
thought I would stay in highereducation for the rest of my
career.
I came on to council 12 yearsago, so it was on council for
three terms.
I thought I'd stay at Ivy Techuntil full retirement, but then
COVID hit and everything changedand I was ready for something
(05:33):
different.
So I actually go ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
There's a lot of stories that after COVID, after
COVID, I mean it really changeda lot of people's lives.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Covid changed so many things.
I love teaching and up untilthis campaign I still taught for
IUEs as part-time.
I've taught for Purdue, Indiana, Westlin, and taught for IUEs
for seven or eight years.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You know, when I think about you know different
mayors we've had I would I'dhave to you know compliment you
Think of you have one of themost diverse resumes that I've
seen of different people whohave held your office and
hopefully I mean, how do youthink you know you have done a
lot of different things?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, probably since the last three years in project
management for a largeconstruction company.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So how do you think that's going to serve you well
in your role as?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
mayor Supervising people.
So I was ready day one andduring my time as a department
chair and a dean and a directorto campuses, I would always
supervise 10 to 12 people at atime and there was a time during
a great recession whenenrollment was through the roof
and there was a season a yearwhere I supervised 42 people
directly and another 100indirectly.
So I came into this job with alot of supervisor experience.
(06:47):
So I knew right on the firstday what I had to change, and
one of the first things Ichanged is I brought in an
attorney to be the HR directorin Kenyatta Cox.
So we hired her.
She has labor law experience.
So one of the things we'rechanging is the way we supervise
people, the way we lead people,manage people.
A lot of the city's policies.
We're looking through all thepolicies and practices and
making sure we're doing the bestthing for the city employees,
(07:10):
that we're serving the best waypossible and they're getting the
best supervision possible.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
You know, when you have I'm sure there's a lot of
people that work for the city,that have been there for a long
time, and so then you knowthey're there different
administrations, you come in,make a lot of changes.
How do you come in and gently,you know, make these changes
Because you have a convictionthat these are the right things
(07:35):
to do.
And but sometimes people don'tlike change and it's not.
Maybe they don't necessarilydon't like you, but they just
don't like somebody kind ofchanging their routine or you
know their process or whatever.
I mean I've been in businessmyself for over 30 years and and
when I've changed stuff I'veseen how people reacted.
(07:56):
But you know how do you come ininto this?
To try to, you know, encouragepeople, to, you know, be patient
and kind of trust the thingsthat you're trying to do Trust
the process.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, so back on the personnel side and the policies
and practices over the lastcouple of decades a lot of
practices haven't aligned upwith policies and a lot of
policies haven't aligned up withpractices.
So we're working throughgetting those things to align.
So we're going to choose thebest practice that makes sense
and it helps the city grow andit helps employees to have a
(08:30):
better work environment.
Those practices will becomepolicy.
And now we have some policiesthat haven't been in a practice
but legally we need to change.
So we got to do.
We're working from both angles.
So some of the best practicesbecome policies.
Some of the worst policies willdisappear.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I saw this.
Uh, I've it's been severalyears ago.
It was about employeeengagement and it said that
there's, you know, like yourorganization is like a canoe and
there's like six people andthey're in a canoe, they're
rolling, you're trying to makeit happen, and there's two
people.
They're just kind of long forthe ride, but then there's
sometimes there's two otherpeople, they're trying to
(09:07):
actually sink it.
Yes, you know so I mean, I'msure there's different analogies
like that, but yeah, I guess,ultimately, if, if there have
been some personnel changes.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
yes, yeah.
That's a nice way of saying itIn my, in my mind, let me share
this with you my philosophy onemployment.
After being teaching businessand running business programs
for couple of decades andworking in an instruction agency
for a long period of time, Icall it a fit issue.
If there's someone in the jobwho's not happy in the job
(09:39):
because that's really not theirskill set, I think it's more
cruel to leave them in that joband give them hope of a better
future when they know and youknow, it's not a good fit.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
It's a fit issue.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So there comes a time in all my careers there comes a
time when we need to set themfree to do something different
in the city.
A lot of times, though, there'sso many departments it's
basically most of the time it'sjust moving from department to
department.
So, looking at this person'sdoing his job, but that's not
your skill set.
This person's doing this job,not your skill set.
Why don't we swap jobs, right?
So that happens quite a bit inthe city, but I I think it's
(10:12):
meaner and cruel or to keepsomeone in a dead end job where
they're not going to getpromoted, where they're not
going to get the pay increasethey want because their skills
aren't there and their heart'snot there, to just keep dragging
them out just because they likeone of the benefits, right, and
to set them free to findsomething better.
And there's a lot.
You've had entrepreneurs onhere and a lot of entrepreneurs
are that way.
A lot of entrepreneurs willcome from a frustrated work
(10:34):
environment in the corporateworld and decide to do something
different.
I mean, you know how old wasColonel Sanders when he founded
KFC?
How old was Dave Thomas when hefounded Wendy's?
Not young people, right?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The uh, I want to back up a little bit um on on
this podcast.
On the hub, one question, tryto make sure I ask everybody uh,
just because my associationwith employment.
What was your first job Likeyour very first job that you had
, where you got a paycheck, youpay taxes, so security you pay
(11:09):
taxes.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I had to back up before that, when I was nine
years old, a farmer that we knew.
His son was injured and dadfarmed my brother and I out to
help him bell hey, and at theend dad said you're going to get
paid for this, you're going towork for this farmer for a week.
Mom or dad drove us there everyday.
You're going to help him bellhey and put up the hay, and then
the weekend we get paid.
And I was nine years old and Igo that's cool, cause I wanted
(11:30):
this.
I wanted that.
I grew up in a household wheremy, our parents would buy us the
minimum stuff for school.
We would get the Kmart shoesand the Kmart pants.
If we wanted to leave I shoesin the con, or Levi's pants and
Converge shoes, we had to paythe difference, right.
So at nine years old, I wasexcited.
I was going to get money andbefore school started I was
going to have Chuck Taylor 10issues Awesome Right Playing
(11:53):
basketball.
Friday the farmer comes andgives me a piece of paper and
it's a check and I, like Ithought I was getting paid and
mom my mom says this is money.
I said no, it isn't, this is apiece of paper with his name on
it.
So she took me to people statebank.
She opened a savings account,put it in.
I got money.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, I liked this.
It's a introduction, to find itIntroduction personal finance
and savings.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I started saving and saving and saving.
So when, when in high school ofcourse worked for the family
business a lot.
But then I think I was in 10thgrade I went to work for the big
blue store, which was you spend?
On the West side town.
It's like a tractor supply, ifyou don't know, a big blue store
.
Now it's bomb guards, so a farmstore.
And by the time I was a seniorin high school, at 18 years old.
(12:36):
I had a retirement plan, dentalinsurance, a new truck and I
was a shift leader and I went to.
When I went to high school, mysenior year only went to school.
I had more than enough creditsto graduate.
I wasn't academically special,I just took the right classes
and I had more than enoughcredits to graduate.
So I had to take like twoclasses, three classes, my
(12:57):
senior year.
So at one 12 o'clock I was outof class my senior year and
worked one to nine, mondaythrough Friday, as a shift
leader at big blue store, with aretirement plan, a new truck,
health insurance, dentalinsurance and never look back.
Wow, that's great, that'sawesome.
The value of work, I mean,that's what spending those 11
years of selling a farm taughtus the value of work and saving
(13:17):
money for the things you wantinstead of going in the debt.
So my first college degree, Isaved money.
I kept working.
I paid for my first collegedegree out of pocket.
I was that 19 year old, maybe21,.
I started because I took a gapyear.
So I meet with my advisor tosign up for class and
electronics.
I take that paper to theregistrar's office who put it in
the computer.
I take that paper to the birthstar's office.
(13:38):
I pull out my checkbook I'dwrite a check for the tuition.
Then I take my checkbook to thebookstore and write a check and
buy books.
And I did that for severalyears.
I got my first college degree.
Yeah, that's awesome and comefrom nothing.
I mean, we were so poor when Iwas born.
We didn't.
They told me I didn't have ababy crib for me.
My baby crib was an opendresser drawer in the mom's, my
(13:58):
mom's side of the bed, thebottom dresser drawer.
That was my crib.
That's how poor we were.
But we weren't broke or weweren't.
Well, that's how broke we were.
We weren't poor.
Let's say that Right, becausewe knew the value of hard work
and getting yourself, pullingyourself up.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Well, you know, we take from those experiences and
they make us who we are today.
And it sounds like thoseexperiences have served you well
throughout your career.
Shifting back into politics alittle bit, you served on common
counsel for 12 years and whatkind of motivates you to run for
(14:33):
counsel the first time around?
Then you know, you know havethree terms, but I mean, what
was the what?
Why did you choose to do thatinitially?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well, it really started that senior year of high
school way back when, becausewe started to take a civics
class to graduate high schooland there was this actor out of
California who wanted to bepresident named Ronald Reagan
yes, and there was a paper onhand.
And there was this guy fromIndianapolis named Richard Dick
Lugar who wanted to run forSenate.
So I wrote a paper on them andI was 18 years old, so I got the
vote as a senior in high schooland I've been active in the
(15:05):
party ever since, but I neverreally ran for anything.
I was always there helping theparty, helping with parades and
floats and doing events, andalways in the background.
But when I was asked 16 yearsago, before I actually ran the
first time, the party asked meto run for counsel to replace
someone who wanted to changepositions on government.
I was finishing my doctorate atIndiana State University and I
(15:26):
said no, I couldn't, I can't.
I got to finish the PhD becauseI know me, if I finished, if I
run for counsel and I get busyand counsel, I'll never finish
the dissertation Right.
So four years later I ran outof excuses to the party.
So I ran and I loved it.
I immediately got on the financecommittee.
Last year I chaired the publicsafety committee so we created a
door ordinance that I think isreally solid.
I got to meet with state excisepolice yesterday and I told him
(15:50):
what we did on our doorordinance.
He was kind of excited some ofthe controls we put in place
that other cities haven't done.
So if you don't know what adoor is, a designated outdoor
refreshment area we createdaround the depot just free.
That's our first one.
I assume before long we'll haveone in the downtown area too.
Once we get some morerestaurants and housing and
other establishments downtownthey'll probably want one too.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So that area of the depot that's in effect right now
, yes, so that's very limited.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
They can only run four to four PM to 11 PM
Thursday, friday, saturday, andthey're only gonna activate it
when they have special events.
So it's not every Thursday,friday, saturday.
And all the establishments thatparticipate in the door have to
have the door cups, but theyalso have to put their name on
them.
So that's one of the things wedid that other cities didn't
(16:42):
think of.
If we start finding cups fromthis establishment in the street
or outside the door, then thatestablishment's got a problem.
That's our control system.
So instead of having policepatrol it all the time, we'll
just go out afterwards and lookfor cups and see if anybody's
breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, good idea, good idea.
So I would think that serving12 years on council provides you
with an opportunity to reallyhit the ground running as mayor.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I think there shouldn't be too many surprises.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
But so I'm saying I'm making an assumption there
weren't too many surprises.
So is there any part of that?
What part of that statement istrue?
But what part of that have youfound so far to maybe not be
quite?
Speaker 2 (17:25):
accurate.
I knew what I wanted to changeright off the bat, so I brought
in a new police chief, a coupleof majors, a new fire chief, a
new assistant fire chief, hrdirector and everybody else is
pretty much the same.
I knew about that.
But one of the things tosurprise was all the boards and
commissions the mayor has topoint people to.
So, on council, council,typically we have an appointee
to this board or this commissionand you get a couple a year and
(17:48):
a first day in mayor's office.
So here's your spreadsheet ofall the boards and commissions
and people you have to point to.
And, by the way, a lot of themjust expired December 31st 2023,
and you need to find somebodyto fill that seat and you've got
about two weeks to do it causethey're meeting like yay, I know
a lot of people.
So it was basically goingthrough and you know.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Do they expire typically at the end of a term
or it's just happened the waythe most of them expired at the
end of the year.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Some are one term, one year, three years and four
years.
The other surprising part washow many I had to swear in cause
.
On council, you know we do anoath of office every term.
Merit is an oath of office, butsome of these boards, because
they handle finances, they haveto take an oath of office.
So I had to get with the cityclerk, get the oath of office
printed and actually swear themin, just like I was sworn in.
Board of Works is a goodexample.
(18:36):
There's just every day it seemslike something new pops up and
I get reminded by departmenthead oh, this committee is
meeting last week, thiscommission's meeting next week
and you need to come and swearthem in.
I had other plans, but no, I'mdoing the job, I'll be there.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I was gonna get to just a couple of things you
talked about during the campaign.
You said that during thecampaign you stated that
restoring public safety would bea top priority, and that's
where some of the personnelchanges you've made and the
chief, the new police chief, themajors, the new fire chief,
assistant chief.
(19:13):
So what did that process looklike and how did it go when
these appointees were announced?
I mean, how did that go?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
As expected, some people were happy and some
people weren't, so that's justthe way it is.
On the police side, one of thethings I wanna bring back to
city tried community policingmaybe two decades ago and there
was an officer who was the chiefat the time and really tried it
but the establishment justfought him all the way.
So one of the things we'rebringing back is community
(19:42):
policing.
So the majors I brought overwith experience in the Sheriff's
Department, they havebackground in that and we're
gonna reenact community policing, reengage people, reengage the
neighborhood associations andreengage as citizens.
So it's not just hiring up theofficers which we're doing.
It was kind of funny the day Iswore in January 2nd, the day I
(20:02):
swore in the department headsand the chiefs, they turned
around and swore in one newpolice officer and five new
firefighters, and one of thosefirefighters is a fifth
generation family member.
So Rotunda, the city ofIllinois, was full of all the
family and friends watchingthese new officers being sworn
and it was a good day.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, it felt really good.
Yeah, you mentioned I mean, anydecision evokes certain
responses, positive and negative, no matter what.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
And that's a tough.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
that's a challenge in leadership.
You have to do what you feel isfollow your convictions and do
that, and that's just part ofthe comes with the territory,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
So we've had a problem with crime.
We've had a problem with opioidcrisis.
The biggest problem with crimeis a youth crime.
So we have three officers nowin charge of traffic and
juveniles.
So I think that's a big plushaving three out there on the
street watching for thejuveniles working with the
juveniles.
It's just like the opioidepidemic.
(21:00):
You really can't arrest yourway out of juvenile crime
problems.
You have to educate.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It seems like law enforcement agencies are short
and personnel all over.
Where does the Richmond PoliceDepartment stand right now?
As far as personnel, how manymore officers are we looking for
currently?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Last summer they were down 12, now I think they're
down five, five or six, and Isay that because there's always
some in the retirement drop tooRight, that'll just pop up and
there's probably some coming, Ithink, in the spring.
So I think we're down five, butwe could be down eight.
But we'll hire up more.
One of the things that help isbringing in a chief of police
(21:45):
from the Sheriff's Departmentwith 22 years of experience, has
a relationship with otheragencies that RPD didn't have.
So there's our agencies,interesting and lateral
transfers.
So that's something we'reworking on too.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Right, so maybe five to 10 additional officers would
be nice.
Yes, sounds like yes working onit.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
One of the things that we're truly trying to do is
restore pride and respect tolaw enforcement.
I think and this is my opinionand you may agree with me since
9-11, our firefighters are theheroes and they've been the
heroes for a long time.
And it's not hard to findfirefighters.
Sometimes it's hard to findEMTs and paramedics because we
have the ambulance service, butthere's a lot of honor and
(22:26):
respect and dignity going tofirefighters.
But since stuff that thenational media has portrayed in
the last three years, it'smaking it less desirable to be a
law enforcement officer.
So we need to change thatnationwide, change that image
nationwide.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I mean we live in a smaller community, but I think
we're just because of things howit's portrayed, like you said,
in the medium, whatever, it'sstill probably a challenge.
I mean it's.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
The best thing you can do is just turn off the
national news.
Pay attention to what'shappened locally and you'll see
that we're not that bad.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I've had different.
I've had several interactionswith the Russian Police
Department, not on a negativeside, but you know just you know
my office is right across thestreet from the police
department and you know you havea lot of different reasons why
(23:21):
I would have had interaction,but I've always had outstanding
response from the Russian PoliceDepartment.
You know it's obvious thatthey're here to protect, but I
always like to think they'realso here to serve, and I think
when they demonstrate servicequalities, that's when they
(23:46):
really catch my hand.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And restoring this community policing, getting
officers back out in theneighborhoods and establishing
relationships.
I think it's very importantRestoring public safety.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
What does that look like?
I mean, how are you going tomeasure that?
Is it like less reported crimes, solving crimes, more arrests,
convictions?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yes, all of those things, all those things, all
those things More officers, morepatrols, more people on the
street, so you've had a lot ofpersonnel considerations you've
had to make.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You mentioned.
The thing that surprised youwas all these boards you had to
put people on.
Part of what you're wanting todo was the city advisory
committee.
Have you even had time to thinkabout that yet?
I mean, where do you stand withthat?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I have a couple of people who helped in my campaign
are putting that togethercommunity advisory committee.
So a few community leaders havebeen asked and are working on
getting that started.
Probably I don't know if it'snext week or the first of
February when we'll startmeeting how.
Now I have gone, so I'm on thechamber board now.
So I'm a lot of boards.
I'm out there myself.
My goal was I will be out theremyself, but there comes a time
(24:55):
when I wanna bring people to themayor's office and just have a
conversation.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
But when you mentioned city advisor committee
, that is your own committee,your creative of people that
you're asking to help serve thecommunity in that unique way.
So how many are?
Do you have a kind of an ideaof how many people you're gonna
have on that committee?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
I think it'll start in the 10 to 12 range is what
we're looking at.
All right, and it's leadersfrom all aspects, not just
business leaders, not justmedical leaders, but
non-government agencies,churches, church leaders.
I have a group of people from achurch who come in and pray
over me once a week and prayover the city.
I think that's helping too.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Absolutely, I believe that one challenge asking
people's opinions.
Sometimes people getdisappointed or even upset when
you don't follow their advice orinput.
How do you deal with that, orhow do you think you're gonna
deal with that?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
When I ask people's opinion, answer or advice, just
like in business.
Say, you're doing a marketstudy, you're gonna get five
different ideas and you're gonnachoose the three that are best.
You can't always choose allfive and I think most people
will realize that we can't doall five things we could do well
.
Let me take it back.
We could do five things poorly,but I'd rather do three things
very well.
I'd rather do one thing greatat a time, two things great at a
(26:14):
time, three things good.
There's a lot of research ongood to great and I want the
city to be great, not just good.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Right, Well, that's you know.
Hopefully, when you meettogether and you convey, you
know, your goals together,people can understand that
there's, like you said, there'sonly so many things that you can
grasp onto.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Well, there's only so many things the mayor can do.
We need the community leadersto step up.
Yes, and people like you.
You're taking care of this showand your business.
You have one of the bestmaintained manicured lawns in
the city out there in front ofyour business.
You do a great job withlandscaping and keeping it nice
and we need every business ownerto take that respect or take
that responsibility.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I definitely would love to see more of pride
in our downtown.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
And I want to ask you .
I actually do have a questionfor you about downtown, but I
want to ask.
And one other part about youstated you want to be small
business centered.
So a quote from some of yourpaperwork says government
shouldn't work against our smallbusinesses.
Let me start over Business agovernment shouldn't work
(27:21):
against our small businesssuccess.
They should be working fortheir success.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yes, government for the people.
So that's going throughpolicies and practices, going
through code enforcement.
I'm taking a really close.
I'm basically taking control ofthe code enforcement department
and the mayor's office is andmaking sure that we're doing
things that help the community,not hurt the community.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
So that's an example of government working for the
business success.
What do you believe are?
I don't want to go too negative, but what?
The comment must have come fromsomewhere.
Government shouldn't be workingagainst.
So I mean, what's this workingagainst?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Government has a lot of rules and a lot of codes and
a lot of regulations and youneed to enforce all those, but
you also need to be reasonable.
So government needs to bereasonable.
If a someone's struggling withmowing their grass, you know,
don't just give them a fine.
Give them a solution, help themout.
Talk to the neighbors I live by.
We used to have three widowswho live next door to us and now
(28:23):
there's two, and we make suretheir lawns mowed, we make sure
their trash is picked up.
Being a good neighbor isimportant.
So my view of code enforcementyes, they need to crack down on
the bad actors, but if they'reout there and they see something
and they can help someone, theyneed to help someone as much as
enforcing the code, or evenmore so, but also just talking
(28:45):
to the neighbors.
There's people on social mediawho are complaining about
somebody's dog is outside duringhis cold snap, and it's their
neighbor's dog.
And I ask them have you goneover to an offer to help?
And some of them say yes, but alot of them say no.
I want the government to help.
It's not the government's jobto go into someone's yard and
take care of a dog, unless, ofcourse, it's truly being
(29:06):
neglected and we need to enforcesome laws.
It's if the person's havingtrouble, they don't have money
for food or shelter for theirdog.
Just go help them out.
Go help out your neighbor.
Be a good neighbor.
That's what we need.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, you mentioned.
I mean we had Joyce Lucketthere from Animal Care Alliance
and just on the animal side ofthings, it's a huge issue within
our community.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
But there's a lot of people really trying to work
hard to help that topic.
Yes, the government needs tohelp them.
The government needs to helpthe people who are trying to
help, and that's what I'm tryingto do.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
We could go through a whole huge list of things and I
won't do that to you, but I dohave to ask you a little bit
about downtown Richmond.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yes, I think this issue has so many moving parts.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
You mentioned, my business is located in part of
downtown.
The city building is at one endof the downtown area, but I
think this opinion, I mean thisissue's been around for decades
and I don't really feel likewe're making an attraction.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, we haven't had major investment downtown since
explosion in 68, but now withbetween the market rate
apartments coming to the oldDelta Rooftop Project, which is
roughly a $40 million investmentsome of it public, most of it
private and the $25 millionrevitalized Richmond Lilly Grant
, the Earlham Health Facilityand the matching dollars for
(30:36):
that $25 million Lilly Grantwere over $110, $120 million
investment downtown coming inthe next three years.
So these properties are goingto take two or three years.
It's not going to happenovernight people.
So give us two or three years.
They're going to tear down somebuildings.
They're going to modernize somebuildings.
Once we get more people livingdowntown we'll get more people
shopping downtown.
(30:56):
We already have three bakeriesdowntown.
We have Susie's Pizza moved in,moved out of the basement of
the old Y and they're up herenow.
And we had Kathy Hewreid on hernot long ago now her downtown
deli's hopping.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
We have three restaurants in Sweet Bestlings
have breakfast and lunch.
We have three restaurants againdowntown.
We have three bakeries.
So we need some boutique shopsto come downtown.
But honestly, we're not goingto get major retail after COVID
downtown anymore.
We can't even keep them allbecause everybody is ordering on
Amazon.
So that's never going to happen.
(31:30):
But what will happen is theboutique shops.
You take other small towns likeRichmond, cities like Richmond
and their downtowns revitalizewith boutique shops and you get
boutique shops because you getpeople living near downtown who
want to patronize those boutiquestores and then a steakhouse
and other things.
They'll just keep onsnowballing in professional
offices.
(31:50):
You talked about the citybuilding and the county building
.
There's 800 people workingright down here doing the city
and accounting and sheriff'sdepartment and the social
security and federal offices.
We've got a lot of people who,when the weather's nice, you'll
see them walking downtown.
I did this in the fall.
I did this in the fall when Iwas walking downtown to go to a
(32:11):
restaurant.
I can believe how many peoplewere coming out and going to
these restaurants and shopsagain.
So the shops will come.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Right, you mentioned the apartments and I think
that's.
Those are gonna go where theformer elder bearman building is
.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, let me tell you something about those.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I'm a little skeptical about this the
departments, if it's reallygonna happen.
I hear lots of talk about itand whatever, but I guess I
won't understand until Iactually see something happen.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Let me paint a little picture for you.
So this developer out ofIndianapolis has done this all
over the state for years.
They have 40 something of these.
They've done this in Kokomo andLawrenceburg.
They've been up places wherepeople said you can't do it.
And it's working.
And you know the doughnutcities of Indianapolis where
they started, of course makessense, but now they're out
cities like Richmond.
And why will it make sense forRichmond?
We have somewhere.
A largest employers here talkall the time that our biggest
(33:04):
problem is the housing problem.
They can't attract and retaintalented employees because we
don't have housing and most ofthem want either a zero lot line
house, like their building onGarwood Road, because they don't
want any yard to take care of,to speak of, or they want a
market rate or resort styleapartment building.
So right now in Greenwood threeof these apartment buildings
(33:25):
like this are being built at acost that's almost twice what
these are and the rent will be50 to 40% more.
And in Greenwood it's the southof Indianapolis which isn't the
best doughnut city ofIndianapolis.
Sorry, greenwood, I'm at theGreenwood mayor.
I mean, greenwood has problems,richmond has problems.
So they're building these inthis area and they're putting in
retention ponds and I'm like wegot a gorge.
(33:46):
We can walk about an eighth ofa mile to natural water resource
that we're activating.
We'll soon have canoeing,kayaking, zip-lies.
So Denise Ress is doing a greatjob with the parks department.
The veterans are doing a greatjob with their parks Stardust
Nets there, the farmers marketsdown there this is the only
market rate apartments like this.
We'll be able to walk down to ariver gorge, historic gorge,
(34:08):
and do all these wateractivities or just go down and
do yoga or just go and meditateor just stop at the farmers
market.
In Bloomington they've got thefarmers market along an old
railroad track.
Yay, but other places, if youcompare what we're gonna have,
nobody's gonna have it quitelike this.
None of these apartments likethis are built close to a lake.
Now, lawrenceburg is right onthe Ohio River, but that's a
(34:30):
pretty well rushing river.
That's not a place you couldjust go hang out.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
So these apartments that were elder bearman's
building is who are thedifferent partners involved with
making this happen, and haseverything been signed?
Is it a done deal or are westill just waiting on certain
things to happen?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
There's the city has committed money, the county has
committed money, theredevelopment commission has
committed.
In theory, they have to go backto redevelopment commission for
one more vote.
On the actual finance side ofthat, we have banks who are
waiting to I'm talking at thebit, so to speak to fund this
thing, cause they believe in itand they believe in this group.
Now that this group is buildingthis, this is unlike most
(35:17):
others, this flirting Collinsgroup out of Indianapolis.
When they build these, theymaintain ownership and they
manage them and lease themthemselves.
So for 25 years there's acontractor written into the deed
.
If for 25 years, these will bemarket rate apartments, they're
gonna have a dog spa, they'regonna have a gym.
So these apartments, yes, it maybe more than a rental house
over here in this other district, but it comes with your gym
(35:37):
memberships, it comes with acommon space, it comes with a
swimming pool, it comes with adog spa, it comes with a bicycle
repair shop, cause it's on themultimodal trail, so they'll
have a free bicycle repair shopto place the store, your bike
and work on your bike If youwalk down to the river or you go
to the swimming pool or you goto the gym.
It's all included.
That's pretty cool.
(35:57):
Indianapolis doesn't have that.
These apartments like thisalong the canal canal is cool
and you can rent a paddle boatand go on the canal, but you
can't fish it, you can't just gohang out.
As a place to just hang out orin the day when the weather's
nice.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay, Well, I'm just interested to see when it could
all come together.
I mean, any cause thatbuilding's gonna have to come
down?
Yes, so if you're, I'm gonna.
I don't think we're gonna holdit on you because there's so
many moving parts, but do youhave any?
You know, I did in your mindwhen the wrecking ball would
(36:37):
show up and we start knockingthis, leveling the current
building to the ground, so wecould build.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
We thought it would be the city before.
You know, I just started asmayor.
They thought it would be thisJanuary would be costing us some
delays last year and somepersonnel changes and some other
issues.
It should be sometime thisspring or early summer.
Okay, so the one more vote forthe last piece of funding for
the redevelopment commissionwill come up soon and then it's
(37:03):
a matter of we start tearingdown a building and then they go
back to the banks and theyclose on the properties and I
think it's gonna be pretty cool.
Now I hate that the elder roombuilding's coming down.
I wish we had two developerslook at it originally while I
was on council and the firstcouncil first one was put
apartments overhead and thesecond floor and put retail on
the bottom floor.
I thought that was perfectbecause that building is poured
(37:23):
concrete walls in and roof.
That made explosion proof for areason.
That's how they got elder roomto come downtown.
So there's a lot of concreteand steel.
But that didn't pan out for alot of reasons.
And the next one had an idea.
The next one, the idea they hadto make apartments in that
whole space.
When they looked at the facadethey had this nice drawing and I
could show you the drawing ofthe facade.
(37:45):
But it was $7 million just tochange the facade, to get
windows in these apartments.
So they said, well, this justdoesn't make sense.
What makes sense now is if wedemolish it, raise it and we
grind the concrete and steel andrecycle it, just like we did at
the old Reed hospital, not putit in a landfill.
Grind and recycle the materialsare now will get reused and
(38:06):
then we can create a brand newspace.
They want 140, roughly,apartments in there.
140 apartments have 140kitchens and some of them have
two bathrooms.
This property has fourrestrooms.
The water's not there, thesewer's not there.
The problem is under thebuilding as much as the building
itself.
The most of the problems areunder the building and around
the building.
We've got to put theinfrastructure in place to
(38:28):
support something like this andthis doesn't exist.
So we'd have to tear up thefloor anyways just to get that
many kitchens and restrooms inthere.
So it just wasn't financiallypossible and just didn't make
sense.
Well, but also the plan is if Ican show you the drawings it
goes from.
It mostly faces west, so it'llgo from Main Street all the way
down to South A, so that littleside street is gone.
(38:50):
So the whole thing faces thewest.
There'll be some facing theeast, of course, and they're
leasing places from the parkinggarage.
So on the backside, on the eastside, they'll have the parking
garage over there.
They'll have some parking downhere, they'll have their
swimming pool area.
So the thing will be long andnarrow and on the sixth street
side it'll look more like aChicago brownstone walkup.
(39:12):
So the first four residentswill be able to park on all of
sixth street.
They'll be parking.
They can just walk right up oryou can park on the backside and
come in and that's going prettycool.
Yeah, and there's smallapartments.
There's big apartments.
It's mostly, I think, mostlyone bedroom and mostly smaller,
the medium apartments.
There'll be a couple of deluxelike eight deluxe apartments
(39:34):
with like three bedrooms, twobaths, and there'll be some
studio apartments.
But one of the things they said, because they maintain
ownership, they only dolong-term lease, so they won't
lease to people moving in andout, but they will lease to
corporations.
So a lot of the businessesheard that and they're looking.
Well, how many do I need torent?
So a lot of the businesses willcome in and will lease four or
five or even 10 spaces as theybring staff in and out, either
(39:58):
temporary or long-term or givethem a place to live while they
get settled in their new careerand then build their own house.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Well, I think that this project is a big part of
momentum happening.
Yes, so I do hope it happens,and I hope it happens as sooner
than later, and but I do agreeI'd have to agree that I think
that would be a huge boost forour city in general.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
There's a lot of people living just in Ohio.
There's a lot of.
I know some staff people ofdifferent businesses and
organizations who live outsideCincinnati or outside of
Annapolis and drive here becausewe don't have the housing they
want, the lifestyle they want.
But I also found back to theseapartments when they first
started building these asinfills.
That's their specialty theytake a property and do an infill
(40:47):
.
They had mostly young familiesor young professionals but it
said in recent years it'sflipped to 60, 40.
40% of their residents now areempty nesters who realize that
I'm tardimonial on.
I've got you know I may have aweekend home by the lake, but if
I could live here cause my workis here four or five days a
week plus they can walk down tothe river, that's gonna have all
(41:11):
kinds of amenities.
They can walk to restaurants,it's gonna be pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah Well, I'm excited for the possibility of
that, and we'll just pray thatit happens.
I guess we'll wrap this up, butbefore we do, is there anything
else that note worthy you'dwanna share about what's going
on with?
Speaker 2 (41:31):
the city.
I'm just very excited, veryenergized for the economic
growth.
Last week I did a interviewwith Earl McCollege for their
immediate department, for theLilly Grant, and we were on the
third floor of the BSN Kessler'sbuilding looking out over the
glass.
And I bring that up because Imade an appointment with them to
do that again in three and ahalf years from that same spot
(41:52):
and that same window and see howdifferent downtown looks in
three and a half years as itdoes today.
That's what I'm excited about.
I'm excited about the nextthree to four years.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Well, I wish you the best of luck moving forward If
you and your administration aresuccessful.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
everybody wins, everybody does.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
And so thank you for coming on the hub Glad to be
here and I really appreciateyour time doing that, glad to be
here.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Next time we'll do it when the weather is a little
warmer, because for our viewers,this is a cold space.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Maybe we'll do a follow up out in front of the
new apartments.
We'll go remote Be awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you Glad to be here.
Appreciate it.
Michael Allen from Manpower.
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cost-effective solution.
(42:45):
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