'The Hub' with Michael Allen sponsored by Manpower Richmond
Welcome to "The Hub with Michael Allen," the podcast that dives deep into the stories of community leaders and business owners who are making a difference. Join your host, Michael Allen, as he uncovers the untold narratives, challenges, and triumphs of those shaping their communities.
In each episode, Michael sits down with remarkable individuals who have dedicated their lives to improving their neighborhoods, towns, and cities. These community leaders are passionate, driven, and committed to creating positive change. Whether they are activists, educators, philanthropists, or civic officials, they all share a common goal: to build stronger, more vibrant communities.
"The Hub" also showcases the journeys of business owners who have turned their dreams into reality. From small-scale startups to well-established enterprises, these entrepreneurs share their insights, experiences, and lessons learned along the way. Michael delves into the unique challenges they face, the strategies they employ, and the impact their businesses have on the local economy and society at large.
With engaging conversations and thought-provoking discussions, "The Hub with Michael Allen" provides listeners with valuable takeaways, inspiration, and actionable ideas. Each episode offers a glimpse into the minds and hearts of those who are actively shaping the fabric of their communities, providing a roadmap for listeners who want to make a difference in their own lives and surroundings.
Tune in to "The Hub with Michael Allen" and join the conversation as we explore the stories of community leaders and business owners who are leaving an indelible mark on the world around them. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and empowered to take action. Together, we can create a better tomorrow for everyone.
Sponsored by Manpower Richmond.
'The Hub' with Michael Allen sponsored by Manpower Richmond
Ep. 8 | Mayor Ron Oler on Sowing Seeds of Change for a Resilient Richmond
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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Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to the Hub powered 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 mission here is to share unique and untold stories of companies, organizations and people who are making a difference in our community. So today's guest on the Hub is newly elected Mayor of Richmond, Ron Oler. Welcome to the Hub. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really love it that you were willing to come sit with us this morning. I mean, you're just about 17 days into your job and I know you probably have a lot going on and it means a lot that you'd be willing to spend some time with us just kind of talking about your plans for the city and just some personal information about you.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here.
Speaker 1:You know, like myself, you're a lifelong Richmond and Wayne County resident. Yes, so just kind of share a little bit with our followers about you know, growing up in Richmond, your family going to school that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Glad to Well. First let me say to the viewers if you don't know what day it is, we're in the middle of Cold Snap, the Arctic Cold Snap. So we're on the third floor of this old building with drafty windows. So I'm really happy to be here this morning. No, it's okay, we have a little bit of heat here. So just one of the, just for context. You got to know that it's really cold out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very so starting my third week as mayor. Mayor City of Richmond has been pretty awesome and pretty busy. As you said, I was born in Richmond, on the south side of town. The little house I was born in still there, although we moved out of that when I was four years old. I do believe so, like a lot of people. I was born at the old re hospital site, which is now a grassy hill, and someday hopefully during my first term we'll make it into something that would be great, yeah, great, get some plans, get some things going. You know, richmond has a super interesting history, and I don't need to remind the viewers of all that, but I'm really hoping that together we'll have such a brighter future. So when I was four years old, though, we moved out to the county, to one of the family farms, and that's where I spent most of my early years and childhood years, with livestock and grain, and started driving at age nine and bought my first motorcycle at age 12, first car at age 15. And then, as a teenager, move back to the city. Just, I went to college.
Speaker 2:After high school, I had the opportunity to go into military. I had family been in military. My brother went in the army. We were working for dad's fence company through high school and my brother decided to go the army. I was supposed to go to the Air Force and I changed my mind and went to Ivy Tech and got a degree in electronics Because I found this company called Ally broadcast equipment on the south side of town and said I want to work for them. And that was my did that for a dozen years, became a certified broadcast engineer. I traveled the world and built radio stations for 12 years. I got to work in wonderful places. You know, instead of the military sending me around the country, I had a corporation send me around the country. So I worked in Africa, taiwan, russia, moscow, st Petersburg, mexico, all over the US.
Speaker 1:So I guess kind of stop you there for a minute. So when you went on these trips abroad, how long would you be at these different?
Speaker 2:locations. Most of them were just a week, but the Africa was a month. We built a force of America relay station, west Africa and I got to go there for a month to train engineers on how to operate the equipment, maintain the equipment. Somebody else had installed it. That was one of the ones, one of the ones that took like two years to build. That was an interesting one because I was supposed to go one year and I was ready to go and do all this training. I was only had 10 days of training for these Africans to operate and maintain his equipment. So the year I was supposed to go the army decided to kidnap the president of this country because they hadn't been paid in a couple months. So the State Department said no travel. So a year later, when I finally went, I got there and the first day there was a holiday. And then there's only one plane a week out of this area, one commercial plane on Wednesday nights. So my 10 days of working and up taking three weeks. And this is before cell phones. This is back in the early 90s and it cost $10 a minute to call home. So once a week I call home to my wife and say, hey, I got to stand out of the week because we're not finished. Hey, I got to stand out of the week because we're not finished and she was getting panicky here.
Speaker 2:I was in the far reaches of Western Africa, but it was a wonderful experience. It was a good, good, good experience. I left in 99 when Harris Court moved to Mason Ohio. I took a full-time faculty position at Ivy Tech, but before that I went and got a bachelor's in business administration in Ivy Tech. I was there 21 years. 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 higher education for the rest of my career. I came on to council 12 years ago, so it was on council for three terms. I thought I'd stay at Ivy Tech until full retirement, but then COVID hit and everything changed and I was ready for something different. So I actually go ahead.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of stories that after COVID, after COVID, I mean it really changed a lot of people's lives.
Speaker 2:Covid changed so many things. I love teaching and up until this 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:You know, when I think about you know different mayors we've had I would I'd have to you know compliment you Think of you have one of the most diverse resumes that I've seen of different people who have held your office and hopefully I mean, how do you think you know you have done a lot of different things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably since the last three years in project management for a large construction company.
Speaker 1:So how do you think that's going to serve you well in your role as?
Speaker 2:mayor Supervising people. So I was ready day one and during my time as a department chair and a dean and a director to campuses, I would always supervise 10 to 12 people at a time and there was a time during a great recession when enrollment was through the roof and there was a season a year where I supervised 42 people directly and another 100 indirectly. So I came into this job with a lot of supervisor experience. So I knew right on the first day what I had to change, and one of the first things I changed is I brought in an attorney to be the HR director in Kenyatta Cox. So we hired her. She has labor law experience. So one of the things we're changing 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 the policies and practices and making sure we're doing the best thing for the city employees, that we're serving the best way possible and they're getting the best supervision possible.
Speaker 1: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 know they'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 conviction that these are the right things to do. And but sometimes people don't like change and it's not. Maybe they don't necessarily don't like you, but they just don't like somebody kind of changing their routine or you know their process or whatever. I mean I've been in business myself for over 30 years and and when I've changed stuff I've seen how people reacted. But you know how do you come in into this? To try to, you know, encourage people, to, you know, be patient and kind of trust the things that you're trying to do Trust the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back on the personnel side and the policies and practices over the last couple of decades a lot of practices haven't aligned up with policies and a lot of policies haven't aligned up with practices. So we're working through getting those things to align. So we're going to choose the best practice that makes sense and it helps the city grow and it helps employees to have a better work environment. Those practices will become policy. And now we have some policies that 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 practices become policies. Some of the worst policies will disappear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw this. Uh, I've it's been several years ago. It was about employee engagement and it said that there's, you know, like your organization is like a canoe and there's like six people and they're in a canoe, they're rolling, you're trying to make it happen, and there's two people. They're just kind of long for the ride, but then there's sometimes there's two other people, they're trying to actually sink it. Yes, you know so I mean, I'm sure there's different analogies like that, but yeah, I guess, ultimately, if, if there have been some personnel changes.
Speaker 2:yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a nice way of saying it In my, in my mind, let me share this with you my philosophy on employment. After being teaching business and running business programs for couple of decades and working in an instruction agency for a long period of time, I call it a fit issue. If there's someone in the job who's not happy in the job because that's really not their skill set, I think it's more cruel to leave them in that job and give them hope of a better future when they know and you know, it's not a good fit.
Speaker 1:It's a fit issue.
Speaker 2:So there comes a time in all my careers there comes a time when we need to set them free to do something different in the city. A lot of times, though, there's so many departments it's basically most of the time it's just moving from department to department. So, looking at this person's doing 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 in the city, but I I think it's meaner and cruel or to keep someone in a dead end job where they're not going to get promoted, where they're not going to get the pay increase they want because their skills aren't there and their heart's not there, to just keep dragging them out just because they like one of the benefits, right, and to set them free to find something better.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot. You've had entrepreneurs on here and a lot of entrepreneurs are that way. A lot of entrepreneurs will come from a frustrated work environment in the corporate world and decide to do something different. I mean, you know how old was Colonel Sanders when he founded KFC? How old was Dave Thomas when he founded Wendy's? Not young people, right?
Speaker 1:The uh, I want to back up a little bit um on on this podcast. On the hub, one question, try to make sure I ask everybody uh, just because my association with employment. What was your first job Like your very first job that you had, where you got a paycheck, you pay taxes, so security you pay taxes.
Speaker 2:I had to back up before that, when I was nine years old, a farmer that we knew. His son was injured and dad farmed my brother and I out to help him bell hey, and at the end dad said you're going to get paid for this, you're going to work for this farmer for a week. Mom or dad drove us there every day. You're going to help him bell hey and put up the hay, and then the weekend we get paid. And I was nine years old and I go that's cool, cause I wanted this. I wanted that.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a household where my, our parents would buy us the minimum stuff for school. We would get the Kmart shoes and the Kmart pants. If we wanted to leave I shoes in the con, or Levi's pants and Converge shoes, we had to pay the difference, right. So at nine years old, I was excited. I was going to get money and before school started I was going to have Chuck Taylor 10 issues Awesome Right Playing basketball. Friday the farmer comes and gives me a piece of paper and it's a check and I, like I thought I was getting paid and mom my mom says this is money. I said no, it isn't, this is a piece of paper with his name on it. So she took me to people state bank. She opened a savings account, put it in. I got money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I liked this. It's a introduction, to find it Introduction personal finance and savings.
Speaker 2:So I started saving and saving and saving. So when, when in high school of course worked for the family business a lot. But then I think I was in 10th grade I went to work for the big blue store, which was you spend? On the West side town. It's like a tractor supply, if you don't know, a big blue store. Now it's bomb guards, so a farm store. And by the time I was a senior in high school, at 18 years old. I had a retirement plan, dental insurance, a new truck and I was a shift leader and I went to.
Speaker 2:When I went to high school, my senior year only went to school. I had more than enough credits to graduate. I wasn't academically special, I just took the right classes and I had more than enough credits to graduate. So I had to take like two classes, three classes, my senior year. So at one 12 o'clock I was out of class my senior year and worked one to nine, monday through Friday, as a shift leader at big blue store, with a retirement plan, a new truck, health insurance, dental insurance and never look back. Wow, that's great, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:The value of work, I mean, that's what spending those 11 years of selling a farm taught us the value of work and saving money for the things you want instead of going in the debt. So my first college degree, I saved money. I kept working. I paid for my first college degree out of pocket. I was that 19 year old, maybe 21,. I started because I took a gap year. So I meet with my advisor to sign up for class and electronics. I take that paper to the registrar's office who put it in the computer. I take that paper to the birth star's office. I pull out my checkbook I'd write a check for the tuition. Then I take my checkbook to the bookstore and write a check and buy books. And I did that for several years. I got my first college degree. Yeah, that's awesome and come from nothing.
Speaker 2:I mean, we were so poor when I was born. We didn't. They told me I didn't have a baby crib for me. My baby crib was an open dresser drawer in the mom's, my mom's side of the bed, the bottom dresser drawer. That was my crib. That's how poor we were. But we weren't broke or we weren't. Well, that's how broke we were. We weren't poor. Let's say that Right, because we knew the value of hard work and getting yourself, pulling yourself up.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, we take from those experiences and they make us who we are today. And it sounds like those experiences have served you well throughout your career. Shifting back into politics a little bit, you served on common counsel for 12 years and what kind of motivates you to run for counsel the first time around? Then you know, you know have three terms, but I mean, what was the what? Why did you choose to do that initially?
Speaker 2:Well, it really started that senior year of high school way back when, because we started to take a civics class to graduate high school and there was this actor out of California who wanted to be president named Ronald Reagan yes, and there was a paper on hand. And there was this guy from Indianapolis named Richard Dick Lugar who wanted to run for Senate. So I wrote a paper on them and I was 18 years old, so I got the vote as a senior in high school and I've been active in the party ever since, but I never really ran for anything. I was always there helping the party, helping with parades and floats and doing events, and always in the background. But when I was asked 16 years ago, before I actually ran the first time, the party asked me to run for counsel to replace someone who wanted to change positions on government. I was finishing my doctorate at Indiana State University and I said no, I couldn't, I can't. I got to finish the PhD because I know me, if I finished, if I run for counsel and I get busy and counsel, I'll never finish the dissertation Right. So four years later I ran out of excuses to the party. So I ran and I loved it.
Speaker 2:I immediately got on the finance committee. Last year I chaired the public safety committee so we created a door ordinance that I think is really solid. I got to meet with state excise police yesterday and I told him what we did on our door ordinance. He was kind of excited some of the controls we put in place that other cities haven't done. So if you don't know what a door is, a designated outdoor refreshment area we created around the depot just free. That's our first one. I assume before long we'll have one in the downtown area too. Once we get some more restaurants and housing and other establishments downtown they'll probably want one too.
Speaker 1:So that area of the depot that's in effect right now, yes, so that's very limited.
Speaker 2:They can only run four to four PM to 11 PM Thursday, friday, saturday, and they're only gonna activate it when they have special events. So it's not every Thursday, friday, saturday. And all the establishments that participate in the door have to have the door cups, but they also have to put their name on them. So that's one of the things we did that other cities didn't think of. If we start finding cups from this establishment in the street or outside the door, then that establishment's got a problem. That's our control system. So instead of having police patrol it all the time, we'll just go out afterwards and look for cups and see if anybody's breaking the law.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good idea, good idea. So I would think that serving 12 years on council provides you with an opportunity to really hit the ground running as mayor.
Speaker 2:I think there shouldn't be too many surprises.
Speaker 1: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 is true? But what part of that have you found so far to maybe not be quite?
Speaker 2:accurate. I knew what I wanted to change right off the bat, so I brought in a new police chief, a couple of majors, a new fire chief, a new assistant fire chief, hr director and everybody else is pretty much the same. I knew about that. But one of the things to surprise was all the boards and commissions the mayor has to point people to. So, on council, council, typically we have an appointee to this board or this commission and you get a couple a year and a first day in mayor's office. So here's your spreadsheet of all the boards and commissions and people you have to point to. And, by the way, a lot of them just expired December 31st 2023, and you need to find somebody to fill that seat and you've got about two weeks to do it cause they're meeting like yay, I know a lot of people. So it was basically going through and you know.
Speaker 1:Do they expire typically at the end of a term or it's just happened the way the most of them expired at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:Some are one term, one year, three years and four years. The other surprising part was how many I had to swear in cause. On council, you know we do an oath of office every term. Merit is an oath of office, but some of these boards, because they handle finances, they have to take an oath of office. So I had to get with the city clerk, get the oath of office printed and actually swear them in, just like I was sworn in. Board of Works is a good example. There's just every day it seems like something new pops up and I get reminded by department head oh, this committee is meeting last week, this commission's meeting next week and you need to come and swear them in. I had other plans, but no, I'm doing the job, I'll be there.
Speaker 1:I was gonna get to just a couple of things you talked about during the campaign. You said that during the campaign you stated that restoring public safety would be a top priority, and that's where some of the personnel changes you've made and the chief, the new police chief, the majors, the new fire chief, assistant chief. So what did that process look like and how did it go when these appointees were announced? I mean, how did that go?
Speaker 2:As expected, some people were happy and some people weren't, so that's just the way it is. On the police side, one of the things I wanna bring back to city tried community policing maybe two decades ago and there was an officer who was the chief at the time and really tried it but the establishment just fought him all the way. So one of the things we're bringing back is community policing. So the majors I brought over with experience in the Sheriff's Department, they have background in that and we're gonna reenact community policing, reengage people, reengage the neighborhood associations and reengage as citizens. So it's not just hiring up the officers which we're doing. It was kind of funny the day I swore in January 2nd, the day I swore in the department heads and the chiefs, they turned around and swore in one new police officer and five new firefighters, and one of those firefighters is a fifth generation family member. So Rotunda, the city of Illinois, was full of all the family and friends watching these new officers being sworn and it was a good day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it felt really good. Yeah, you mentioned I mean, any decision evokes certain responses, positive and negative, no matter what.
Speaker 2:And that's a tough.
Speaker 1:that's a challenge in leadership. You have to do what you feel is follow your convictions and do that, and that's just part of the comes with the territory, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:So we've had a problem with crime. We've had a problem with opioid crisis. The biggest problem with crime is a youth crime. So we have three officers now in charge of traffic and juveniles. So I think that's a big plus having three out there on the street watching for the juveniles working with the juveniles. It's just like the opioid epidemic. You really can't arrest your way out of juvenile crime problems. You have to educate.
Speaker 1:It seems like law enforcement agencies are short and personnel all over. Where does the Richmond Police Department stand right now? As far as personnel, how many more officers are we looking for currently?
Speaker 2:Last summer they were down 12, now I think they're down five, five or six, and I say that because there's always some in the retirement drop too Right, that'll just pop up and there's probably some coming, I think, in the spring. So I think we're down five, but we could be down eight. But we'll hire up more. One of the things that help is bringing in a chief of police from the Sheriff's Department with 22 years of experience, has a relationship with other agencies that RPD didn't have. So there's our agencies, interesting and lateral transfers. So that's something we're working on too.
Speaker 1:Right, so maybe five to 10 additional officers would be nice. Yes, sounds like yes working on it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we're truly trying to do is restore pride and respect to law enforcement. I think and this is my opinion and you may agree with me since 9-11, our firefighters are the heroes and they've been the heroes for a long time. And it's not hard to find firefighters. Sometimes it's hard to find EMTs and paramedics because we have the ambulance service, but there's a lot of honor and respect and dignity going to firefighters. But since stuff that the national media has portrayed in the last three years, it's making it less desirable to be a law enforcement officer. So we need to change that nationwide, change that image nationwide.
Speaker 1:I mean we live in a smaller community, but I think we're just because of things how it's portrayed, like you said, in the medium, whatever, it's still probably a challenge. I mean it's.
Speaker 2:The best thing you can do is just turn off the national news. Pay attention to what's happened locally and you'll see that we're not that bad.
Speaker 1:I've had different. I've had several interactions with the Russian Police Department, not on a negative side, but you know just you know my office is right across the street from the police department and you know you have a lot of different reasons why I would have had interaction, but I've always had outstanding response from the Russian Police Department. You know it's obvious that they're here to protect, but I always like to think they're also here to serve, and I think when they demonstrate service qualities, that's when they really catch my hand.
Speaker 2:And restoring this community policing, getting officers back out in the neighborhoods and establishing relationships. I think it's very important Restoring public safety.
Speaker 1:What does that look like? I mean, how are you going to measure that? Is it like less reported crimes, solving crimes, more arrests, convictions?
Speaker 2:Yes, all of those things, all those things, all those things More officers, more patrols, more people on the street, so you've had a lot of personnel considerations you've had to make.
Speaker 1:You mentioned. The thing that surprised you was all these boards you had to put people on. Part of what you're wanting to do was the city advisory committee. Have you even had time to think about that yet? I mean, where do you stand with that?
Speaker 2:I have a couple of people who helped in my campaign are putting that together community advisory committee. So a few community leaders have been asked and are working on getting that started. Probably I don't know if it's next week or the first of February when we'll start meeting how. Now I have gone, so I'm on the chamber board now. So I'm a lot of boards. I'm out there myself. My goal was I will be out there myself, but there comes a time when I wanna bring people to the mayor's office and just have a conversation.
Speaker 1:But when you mentioned city advisor committee, that is your own committee, your creative of people that you're asking to help serve the community in that unique way. So how many are? Do you have a kind of an idea of how many people you're gonna have on that committee?
Speaker 2:I think it'll start in the 10 to 12 range is what we're looking at. All right, and it's leaders from all aspects, not just business leaders, not just medical leaders, but non-government agencies, churches, church leaders. I have a group of people from a church who come in and pray over me once a week and pray over the city. I think that's helping too.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I believe that one challenge asking people's opinions. Sometimes people get disappointed or even upset when you don't follow their advice or input. How do you deal with that, or how do you think you're gonna deal with that?
Speaker 2:When I ask people's opinion, answer or advice, just like in business. Say, you're doing a market study, you're gonna get five different ideas and you're gonna choose the three that are best. You can't always choose all five and I think most people will realize that we can't do all 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 great at a time, two things great at a time, three things good. There's a lot of research on good to great and I want the city to be great, not just good.
Speaker 1:Right, Well, that's you know. Hopefully, when you meet together and you convey, you know, your goals together, people can understand that there's, like you said, there's only so many things that you can grasp onto.
Speaker 2:Well, there's only so many things the mayor can do. We need the community leaders to step up. Yes, and people like you. You're taking care of this show and your business. You have one of the best maintained manicured lawns in the city out there in front of your business. You do a great job with landscaping and keeping it nice and we need every business owner to take that respect or take that responsibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely would love to see more of pride in our downtown.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I want to ask you. I actually do have a question for you about downtown, but I want to ask. And one other part about you stated you want to be small business centered. So a quote from some of your paperwork says government shouldn't work against our small businesses. Let me start over Business a government shouldn't work against our small business success. They should be working for their success.
Speaker 2:Yes, government for the people. So that's going through policies and practices, going through code enforcement. I'm taking a really close. I'm basically taking control of the code enforcement department and the mayor's office is and making sure that we're doing things that help the community, not hurt the community.
Speaker 1: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 from somewhere. Government shouldn't be working against. So I mean, what's this working against?
Speaker 2:Government has a lot of rules and a lot of codes and a lot of regulations and you need to enforce all those, but you also need to be reasonable. So government needs to be reasonable. If a someone's struggling with mowing their grass, you know, don't just give them a fine. Give them a solution, help them out. Talk to the neighbors I live by. We used to have three widows who live next door to us and now there's two, and we make sure their lawns mowed, we make sure their trash is picked up. Being a good neighbor is important. So my view of code enforcement yes, they need to crack down on the bad actors, but if they're out there and they see something and they can help someone, they need to help someone as much as enforcing the code, or even more so, but also just talking to the neighbors.
Speaker 2:There's people on social media who are complaining about somebody's dog is outside during his cold snap, and it's their neighbor's dog. And I ask them have you gone over to an offer to help? And some of them say yes, but a lot of them say no. I want the government to help. It's not the government's job to go into someone's yard and take care of a dog, unless, of course, it's truly being neglected and we need to enforce some laws. It's if the person's having trouble, they don't have money for food or shelter for their dog. Just go help them out. Go help out your neighbor. Be a good neighbor. That's what we need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned. I mean we had Joyce Luckett here from Animal Care Alliance and just on the animal side of things, it's a huge issue within our community.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of people really trying to work hard to help that topic. Yes, the government needs to help them. The government needs to help the people who are trying to help, and that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1:We could go through a whole huge list of things and I won't do that to you, but I do have to ask you a little bit about downtown Richmond.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think this issue has so many moving parts.
Speaker 1:You mentioned, my business is located in part of downtown. The city building is at one end of the downtown area, but I think this opinion, I mean this issue's been around for decades and I don't really feel like we're making an attraction.
Speaker 2:Well, we haven't had major investment downtown since explosion in 68, but now with between the market rate apartments coming to the old Delta Rooftop Project, which is roughly a $40 million investment some of it public, most of it private and the $25 million revitalized Richmond Lilly Grant, the Earlham Health Facility and the matching dollars for that $25 million Lilly Grant were over $110, $120 million investment downtown coming in the next three years. So these properties are going to take two or three years. It's not going to happen overnight people. So give us two or three years. They're going to tear down some buildings. They're going to modernize some buildings. Once we get more people living downtown we'll get more people shopping downtown. We already have three bakeries downtown. We have Susie's Pizza moved in, moved out of the basement of the old Y and they're up here now. And we had Kathy Hewreid on her not long ago now her downtown deli's hopping.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:We have three restaurants in Sweet Bestlings have breakfast and lunch. We have three restaurants again downtown. We have three bakeries. So we need some boutique shops to come downtown. But honestly, we're not going to get major retail after COVID downtown anymore. We can't even keep them all because everybody is ordering on Amazon. So that's never going to happen. But what will happen is the boutique shops. You take other small towns like Richmond, cities like Richmond and their downtowns revitalize with boutique shops and you get boutique shops because you get people living near downtown who want to patronize those boutique stores and then a steakhouse and other things. They'll just keep on snowballing in professional offices.
Speaker 2:You talked about the city building and the county building. There's 800 people working right down here doing the city and accounting and sheriff's department 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 I was walking downtown to go to a restaurant. I can believe how many people were coming out and going to these restaurants and shops again. So the shops will come.
Speaker 1:Right, you mentioned the apartments and I think that's. Those are gonna go where the former elder bearman building is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me tell you something about those.
Speaker 1:I'm a little skeptical about this the departments, if it's really gonna happen. I hear lots of talk about it and whatever, but I guess I won't understand until I actually see something happen.
Speaker 2:Let me paint a little picture for you. So this developer out of Indianapolis has done this all over the state for years. They have 40 something of these. They've done this in Kokomo and Lawrenceburg. They've been up places where people said you can't do it. And it's working. And you know the doughnut cities of Indianapolis where they started, of course makes sense, but now they're out cities like Richmond. And why will it make sense for Richmond? We have somewhere.
Speaker 2:A largest employers here talk all the time that our biggest problem is the housing problem. They can't attract and retain talented employees because we don't have housing and most of them want either a zero lot line house, like their building on Garwood Road, because they don't want any yard to take care of, to speak of, or they want a market rate or resort style apartment building. So right now in Greenwood three of these apartment buildings like this are being built at a cost that's almost twice what these are and the rent will be 50 to 40% more. And in Greenwood it's the south of Indianapolis which isn't the best doughnut city of Indianapolis. Sorry, greenwood, I'm at the Greenwood mayor. I mean, greenwood has problems, richmond has problems.
Speaker 2:So they're building these in this area and they're putting in retention ponds and I'm like we got a gorge. We can walk about an eighth of a mile to natural water resource that we're activating. We'll soon have canoeing, kayaking, zip-lies. So Denise Ress is doing a great job with the parks department. The veterans are doing a great job with their parks Stardust Nets there, the farmers markets down there this is the only market rate apartments like this. We'll be able to walk down to a river gorge, historic gorge, and do all these water activities or just go down and do yoga or just go and meditate or just stop at the farmers market. In Bloomington they've got the farmers market along an old railroad track. Yay, but other places, if you compare what we're gonna have, nobody's gonna have it quite like this. None of these apartments like this are built close to a lake. Now, lawrenceburg is right on the Ohio River, but that's a pretty well rushing river. That's not a place you could just go hang out.
Speaker 1:So these apartments that were elder bearman's building is who are the different partners involved with making this happen, and has everything been signed? Is it a done deal or are we still just waiting on certain things to happen?
Speaker 2:There's the city has committed money, the county has committed money, the redevelopment commission has committed. In theory, they have to go back to redevelopment commission for one more vote. On the actual finance side of that, we have banks who are waiting to I'm talking at the bit, so to speak to fund this thing, cause they believe in it and they believe in this group. Now that this group is building this, this is unlike most others, this flirting Collins group out of Indianapolis. When they build these, they maintain ownership and they manage them and lease them themselves. So for 25 years there's a contractor written into the deed. If for 25 years, these will be market rate apartments, they're gonna have a dog spa, they're gonna have a gym.
Speaker 2:So these apartments, yes, it may be more than a rental house over here in this other district, but it comes with your gym memberships, it comes with a common space, it comes with a swimming pool, it comes with a dog spa, it comes with a bicycle repair shop, cause it's on the multimodal trail, so they'll have a free bicycle repair shop to place the store, your bike and work on your bike If you walk down to the river or you go to the swimming pool or you go to the gym. It's all included. That's pretty cool. Indianapolis doesn't have that. These apartments like this along the canal canal is cool and you can rent a paddle boat and go on the canal, but you can't fish it, you can't just go hang out. As a place to just hang out or in the day when the weather's nice.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, I'm just interested to see when it could all come together. I mean, any cause that building's gonna have to come down? Yes, so if you're, I'm gonna. I don't think we're gonna hold it on you because there's so many moving parts, but do you have any? You know, I did in your mind when the wrecking ball would show up and we start knocking this, leveling the current building to the ground, so we could build.
Speaker 2:We thought it would be the city before. You know, I just started as mayor. They thought it would be this January would be costing us some delays last year and some personnel changes and some other issues. It should be sometime this spring or early summer. Okay, so the one more vote for the last piece of funding for the redevelopment commission will come up soon and then it's a matter of we start tearing down a building and then they go back to the banks and they close on the properties and I think it's gonna be pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Now I hate that the elder room building's coming down. I wish we had two developers look at it originally while I was on council and the first council first one was put apartments overhead and the second floor and put retail on the bottom floor. I thought that was perfect because that building is poured concrete walls in and roof. That made explosion proof for a reason. That's how they got elder room to come downtown. So there's a lot of concrete and steel. But that didn't pan out for a lot of reasons. And the next one had an idea. The next one, the idea they had to make apartments in that whole space. When they looked at the facade they had this nice drawing and I could show you the drawing of the facade. But it was $7 million just to change the facade, to get windows in these apartments. So they said, well, this just doesn't make sense. What makes sense now is if we demolish it, raise it and we grind the concrete and steel and recycle it, just like we did at the old Reed hospital, not put it in a landfill. Grind and recycle the materials are now will get reused and then we can create a brand new space.
Speaker 2:They want 140, roughly, apartments in there. 140 apartments have 140 kitchens and some of them have two bathrooms. This property has four restrooms. The water's not there, the sewer's not there. The problem is under the building as much as the building itself. The most of the problems are under the building and around the building. We've got to put the infrastructure in place to support something like this and this doesn't exist. So we'd have to tear up the floor anyways just to get that many kitchens and restrooms in there. So it just wasn't financially possible and just didn't make sense.
Speaker 2:Well, but also the plan is if I can show you the drawings it goes from. It mostly faces west, so it'll go from Main Street all the way down to South A, so that little side street is gone. So the whole thing faces the west. There'll be some facing the east, of course, and they're leasing places from the parking garage. So on the backside, on the east side, they'll have the parking garage over there. They'll have some parking down here, they'll have their swimming pool area. So the thing will be long and narrow and on the sixth street side it'll look more like a Chicago brownstone walkup. So the first four residents will be able to park on all of sixth street. They'll be parking. They can just walk right up or you can park on the backside and come in and that's going pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's small apartments. There's big apartments. It's mostly, I think, mostly one bedroom and mostly smaller, the medium apartments. There'll be a couple of deluxe like eight deluxe apartments with like three bedrooms, two baths, and there'll be some studio apartments. But one of the things they said, because they maintain ownership, they only do long-term lease, so they won't lease to people moving in and out, but they will lease to corporations. So a lot of the businesses heard that and they're looking. Well, how many do I need to rent? So a lot of the businesses will come in and will lease four or five or even 10 spaces as they bring staff in and out, either temporary or long-term or give them a place to live while they get settled in their new career and then build their own house.
Speaker 1: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 agree I'd have to agree that I think that would be a huge boost for our city in general.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people living just in Ohio. There's a lot of. I know some staff people of different businesses and organizations who live outside Cincinnati or outside of Annapolis and drive here because we don't have the housing they want, the lifestyle they want. But I also found back to these apartments when they first started building these as infills. That's their specialty they take a property and do an infill. They had mostly young families or young professionals but it said in recent years it's flipped to 60, 40. 40% of their residents now are empty nesters who realize that I'm tardimonial on. I've got you know I may have a weekend home by the lake, but if I could live here cause my work is here four or five days a week plus they can walk down to the river, that's gonna have all kinds of amenities. They can walk to restaurants, it's gonna be pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'm excited for the possibility of that, and we'll just pray that it happens. I guess we'll wrap this up, but before we do, is there anything else that note worthy you'd wanna share about what's going on with?
Speaker 2:the city. I'm just very excited, very energized for the economic growth. Last week I did a interview with Earl McCollege for their immediate department, for the Lilly Grant, and we were on the third floor of the BSN Kessler's building looking out over the glass. And I bring that up because I made an appointment with them to do that again in three and a half years from that same spot and that same window and see how different downtown looks in three and a half years as it does today.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm excited about. I'm excited about the next three to four years.
Speaker 1:Well, I wish you the best of luck moving forward If you and your administration are successful.
Speaker 2:everybody wins, everybody does.
Speaker 1:And so thank you for coming on the hub Glad to be here and I really appreciate your time doing that, glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Next time we'll do it when the weather is a little warmer, because for our viewers, this is a cold space.
Speaker 1:Maybe we'll do a follow up out in front of the new apartments. We'll go remote Be awesome.
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