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Main Street Reimagined Podcast
This is a podcast for dreamers, creators, developers, and entrepreneurs to learn, share, and be inspired to change your community through small business.
Main Street Reimagined Podcast
Episode 17: Revitalizing Marion; Vision, Innovation, and Community Growth with Mayor Bill Collins
Listen in on the story of how a law enforcement veteran turns city leader, whose vision for Marion is reshaping the status quo through innovative public-private partnerships. Mayor Collins shares how he is looking to ignite change in Marion, emphasizing the importance of leaving a positive first impression and letting others know we are “open for business”.
From the resurgence of Lincoln Park and the Aquatic Center to tackling food deserts, Marion is climbing toward a future of growth and opportunity. Learn about the positive "Love Your City" campaign, a community-wide effort to instill pride and attract visitors, and how the innovative Night Moves Bus service is enhancing tourism and accessibility.
With strategic vision, the future looks bright, with plans to increase transparency, attract new residents, and expand community amenities. The Mayor discusses the city's strategic approach to financial stability, infrastructure improvement, and rebranding efforts, all designed to make Marion a destination, blending small-town warmth with big-city amenities.
Guest Links:
Mayor Collins email address: Mayorcollins@marionohio.org
Main Street Reimagined:
Facebook: facebook.com/MainStreetReimagined
The Main Street Reimagined Podcast, Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqfkmF5bRH0od1d3iiYKs3oEn_gvMYk7N
Henry Development Group:
Facebook: facebook.com/henrydevelopmentgroup
Website: www.henrydevelopmentgroup.com
Developing News Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/33110524eb5c/developing-news
Luke Henry:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/luhenry
Facebook: facebook.com/luke.henry.148
#LoveYourCity
#MarionOnTheRise
#CityLeaderVision
#PublicPrivatePartnerships
#BuildingMarionsFuture
#ReshapingMarion
#CommunityGrowth
#OpenForBusinessMarion
#NightMovesBus
#SmallTownBigVision
#MarionPride
#InnovativeLeadership
#DestinationMarion
#LincolnParkRevival
#FutureOfMarion
#MarionStrong
#BuildingOpportunity
#TourismInMarion
#CommunityFirst
So if you drive through a downtown where everything's shuttered up and it just doesn't look appeasing to anybody, you're going to have trouble selling yourself or selling your city to anybody. So we wanted to make sure that people that come to our city the first impression that they get is a positive one that we can build on and then have conversations with them after that, and I think that this Love your City campaign, along with all of the other things we're doing, is paying dividends to us already.
Speaker 2:This is the Main Street Reimagined podcast a show for people ready to turn visions into realities and ideas into businesses. Hey, I'm Luke Henry and each week I lead conversations with Main Street Dreamers who took the leap to launch a business, renovate a building or start a movement their ideas, their mindsets and their inspirations, as well as some of the highs and lows along the way. This is a place for dreamers, creators, developers and entrepreneurs to learn, share and be inspired to change your community through small business. Enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:Hey everyone, howdy-do. This is Luke Henry, so glad to have you with us. This is the Main Street Reimagined podcast, and I'm excited today to have Mayor Bill Collins with me in studio and we're looking forward to a great conversation. Of course, the mayor here is not an entrepreneur, but we will be getting into a lot of conversations about the way that entrepreneurs the private sector, working with the public sector, working with city government is so critical in that communication and all the things that go into it, and so I'm excited to have you here today. First of all, good morning, luke. Yeah, absolutely Thank you for being here. We've got a lot of things to talk about. I'm excited about all the things that are happening here in the city of Marion. I know that you are too, absolutely. Start with just a little bit of your backstory. Folks that don't know you may not know that you've had basically a long career in law enforcement and then decided to make the leap over into this part of government, so tell us a little more about that story.
Speaker 1:Sure, it's really not just my career in law enforcement. So I came from a family of law enforcement, grew up with my dad worked at the Marion Police Department for 25 years, my brother's in law enforcement, my nephews, my sister, my brother-in-law so I have a lot of people In my family. You're either in, you're a public servant of one way or another, so you're either in law enforcement, health care or teaching. So that pretty much makes up my family, is everybody's involved with public service.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I love that. So your career spanned a long time About 38 years in law enforcement.
Speaker 1:The final seven well, actually not the final seven years the last seven years at the Marion Police Department. I served as the chief of police and then a friend of mine, matt Bales, ran for sheriff and asked me to be his chief deputy. So that's what I did for about three years until I decided to run for mayor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and tell us a little bit about that decision to run for mayor. I mean, when did this kind of come across your radar and come across your thought process that this might be in your future?
Speaker 1:You know I had considered it in the past and as chief of police you have to attend all of the council meetings every week anyway.
Speaker 1:So I gained a lot of insight during that seven years that I was chief and oftentimes I'd go for the chief prior to me. So I had a lot of time that I spent in city council and I would say really just, you know, after leaving the Marion Police Department and working for the sheriff and continuing to go to the meetings, I felt that in my opinion, it felt like the city was stuck on Groundhog Day. It's like that movie where you get up every day and, as long as the trash is being picked up and we have firemen and policemen, that status quo is okay. And I've never been one where status quo is okay. I felt like the city should have been more progressive in helping private business and entrepreneurs develop the downtown. You know the downtown has had a great resurgence, but all from private investors. Really the city, you know the city didn't have a big part to play in that and I'd always thought, if we help you know, if the city helps, along with the private investors, we can do much bigger things, much quicker.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to get you know. I didn't see that the city had a vision of where we want to be five years from now, you know, and status quo was no longer doing it for me and I just felt that with my leadership you know, proven leadership in law enforcement over those 38 years that I would be beneficial for the city and help us grow and obtain things that we hadn't done for quite a while.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I remember it was actually in this very room that we met about a year and a half ago and I remember you coming to me and saying, hey, I'm thinking about running for mayor. And I remember you coming to me and saying, hey, I'm thinking about running for mayor. Yeah, what do you think? You know, what do you think of the status of the city? What do you think of the opportunities that there are? And you know, it seemed like you were just kind of starting that you know, feeling out process of starting to gather public feedback, to say what is everybody else seeing? How can we make this community better together? And I really appreciated that.
Speaker 1:Well, and in that, about eight to 10 months before I decided to run for mayor, I did reach out to a lot of people, a lot of people from downtown, whether it's a 501c3 organization or a religious organization the churches and the businesses, and the overwhelming opinion I got is everybody was ready for a little bit of change.
Speaker 1:Everybody was ready to move forward and I think that's what pushed me over the finish line to decide to go ahead and do that. Had a lot of support from people saying, yeah, let's get this done. You know, let's move the city forward. So go for it, and I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I believe that we've made a lot of progress in the first year, working together, bringing those same people together that you went and talked with prior to running, and so tell us a little bit about some of those initiatives that you've seen some quick wins here that have come along. I know some of that's been focused on the downtown but of course you know you are the mayor of the entire city and you've done a lot of work in some of the neighborhoods and some of those areas as well. So tell us a little bit about some of those wins so far.
Speaker 1:You know, I think everybody asks me what's been the biggest transition or the biggest learning curve for me, and absolutely it has to be the fact of you know, in my prior roles as the chief and the chief deputy, if you decide a direction you're going to go, then everybody gets behind that and we go that direction. And city government I learned very quickly that it doesn't matter what my opinion is. I have to convince nine or ten other people that this is the direction that we should go. And once I learned that very quickly is to keep city council informed and let them know the initiatives that I want to. You know that I that I look forward to for the city is keeping them involved in the process so they have ownership in it also. So once I got past that hurdle, we've done a lot of just in nine months. We've done a lot of great things that I thank for the city.
Speaker 1:I get compliments every day from people that drive downtown and see. You know how good the downtown looks. It's just like it has a new fresh coat of paint. It looks good, it's fresh. The flower program that we did this year by far has been the best that the flowers have looked in a long time, I agree.
Speaker 1:And we're looking to expand that even into next year.
Speaker 1:We're already planning for spring and what we're going to do and the things we're going to add.
Speaker 1:The other big thing that I talked about on the campaign trail prior to becoming the mayor was Lincoln Park and how I felt that that pillar of our community, lincoln Park, had gone downhill over the years and we really needed to get that back to where it was a vibrant place with a lot of activity. We went from having over 500 kids a year playing baseball up there to under 200. And that was a goal that we made early on meeting with Kenny Ballinger and Randy Holt, the two people that are instrumental in that, and through the cooperation of the city schools, we were able to get in the city schools and really reach out to the kids that were in school, and I'm happy to say that we reached our goal of having over 500 kids sign up again for baseball, that we reached our goal of having over 500 kids sign up again for baseball. We've hosted a fall league out there that had over 52 teams from the county and the city, and that's another big thing not to get off track but when.
Speaker 1:I talk about the city of Marion or Marion. I talk about the city and the county. I think it's very important, and that's something else that we have probably lacked for several years is cooperation between the city and county and working together toward common goals. Yes, and I think that I have made great strides in reaching out across the street and going over and talking to our commissioners and, you know, working on projects together and working on projects together Mark Davis and I worked on. We knew we had a food desert out on the West End and he and I worked together to entice a Dollar General store that will soon hopefully soon be popping up on Silver Street near Kenton Avenue and they'll have fresh produce and those kinds of things, not just a regular dollar general, but one that will meet the needs of the people on the west end of Marion that often get caught on that island with the train traffic and whatnot down there. Yeah, so Lincoln Park, if you've been up there at all. We had a great year at the Aquatic Center, the thing that you hope for. You know that the Aquatic Center is never really going to make money, but you try to make it at least cost neutral for the city. We have come very close to doing that. If it wasn't for some repairs that needed made this year, we probably would have done that. That's awesome. We probably would have done that. That's awesome, and I would like to thank.
Speaker 1:One of the other great things that we've been able to do was convince any council that we needed a budget director, and we made a great hire in hiring Tacey Courtright, who came to us from Mansfield City Schools, was their treasurer and now she's our budget director, and I cannot tell you how much of an impact she has had as far as our finances go.
Speaker 1:When I ask about numbers, I'm very confident in the numbers that I get from her.
Speaker 1:We sat down with every department once or twice already this year talking about our 25 budget. She kept them on track for their 24 budget and there's no doubt in my mind that next year number one the budget process is going to go much easier this year for city council people. Instead of getting a packet that's three inches thick with hundreds of line items on it, they're going to get a booklet that talks about our revenue, our expenses and the main focus of what the budget should be. So I think it will be a much easier process for them to see what our revenue is and what our expenses are, and it was very well received by the department heads. Nearly everybody that came to those meetings went away feeling like they have control mostly of their budget, but they know what numbers they have and what they have to stay under, what equipment they're going to get. So it's been very good for everybody, I think, and that's been a key position that I'm glad city council allowed me to fill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are. Those are great wins, and I think that a couple of things come to mind. First is that when you, when you look at true leadership, I think that it starts with the vision. You know. So often I've seen these patterns where people are like, well, we can't see exactly how this is going to play out and so you know we're not going to get on board with that. But really, the way that things go is that the money, the people, the resources follow great vision. And I think that you've come in with a vision for some of these things and it's starting to come to fruition. And I think that we're aligned on vision for the downtown community and the community as a whole in terms of where we can go and not knowing exactly how it's all gonna work out, but believing that it will. And it is amazing when you put the vision out there of what's possible and where you believe we can go, how the right people, how the funding, how all the things start to come together.
Speaker 1:And it takes a lot. Again, going back to the cooperation thing, whether it's county officials or other agencies throughout the city, you have to share that vision with everybody. And for economic development obviously is one of our big goals. And for economic development obviously is one of our big goals and through CanDo and a lot of work from the city and the county together, we have five sites that have been authenticated through Jobs Ohio that will be marketed to the Intel Development Project and we're right on that 50, 60-mile area radius that hopefully we'll end up with a couple companies that supply Intel. In addition to that, we know that to drive economic development we have to have workers. In order to have workers, we have to have residential development. We have a housing shortage. Here in Marion we talk about affordable housing, which is a term that is used. You know what's affordable for one family? Certainly isn't for another.
Speaker 1:So you have to have various types of affordable housing.
Speaker 1:And we have met with five or six residential developers and we feel very good about that. We put together a map so they could all see what areas we had for residential development and I think in 2025, we're going to have some good announcements there as far as getting a new neighborhood built here in Marion. In addition to you know we talk about all of our blighted housing and we're doing very good on tearing down the blighted housing that needs tore down. We're also doing very good and going and looking at those houses and if they're savable then we put them in the rehab lane and we get them rehab so they become another active member of that neighborhood where you can have somebody renting or owning a house back in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, problem with tearing down a house is you leave a vacant green space and it's really not economically sound for somebody to go build a $200,000 house in an area that really doesn't support $200,000 houses. So we are working with other places like Clayton Homes, to try to get housing back in these postage stamp lots that we've tore down a house, Because if we keep tearing down houses and don't replace them with something, our population is going to continue to decrease. I think over the last census it went down about 1,000 people, which doesn't sound like a whole lot. You know, way back since the beginning of Marion our population has stayed around 35,000, 36,000 people and we want to maintain that or grow our population in a positive way, and this residential development and economic development go hand in hand with trying to make that happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So folks that come to Marion, whether they live here or whether they're visiting, can't help but notice some of the visual changes that have occurred, especially around the downtown, and so a lot of that is around the Love your City branding, which I see on your packet there, of course, as well as your shirt, and everywhere around the city. Tell us a little more about kind of the genesis of that saying and how you've rolled that out and what you feel that impact has made on the community.
Speaker 1:So the Love your City campaign we obviously knew coming into our positions, mike Bodine and I had a lot of conversations about. You know what we want our city to look like and we knew that we needed to rebrand the city in a way that would have a positive structure for people to get behind. If you have something positive, everybody wants to get behind and work toward that goal and have a feel good feeling. For when you're driving down the street and you see this icon it just gives you kind of a good feeling about your city and you know that other people besides you are thinking that we want to go in a positive direction. And how we came up with Love your City? I frequently attend the Nazarene Church and a year or so prior to deciding to run for mayor, they had a Love your City campaign going on within the church and had some shirts and design on the outside of the windows and we just kind of picked that up and ran with it.
Speaker 1:And obviously all the churches there are 75 churches in Marion. They're all a big part of our community. So we want everybody to feel involved and we thought Love your City was a campaign that everybody to town from Columbus and played in the tournament. And we got an email Monday morning from a guy that works for a MI homes in Columbus and he's like hey, we were in your town over the weekend and for a ball tournament and saw all the love your city and how good the park looked, and you know, I think we need to come up and pay a visit.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about your downtown or outside your downtown whether it's the parks or other neighborhoods when people come to Marion, they see those things and that is what's going to initially form their opinion of our city. So if you drive through a downtown where everything's shuttered up and it just doesn't look appeasing to anybody, you're going to have trouble selling yourself or selling your city to anybody. So we wanted to make sure that people that come to our city, the first impression that they get is a positive one that we can build on and then have conversations with them after that, and I think that this Love your City campaign, along with all of the other things we're doing, is paying dividends to us already.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Again, I think it starts with vision and just a willingness to make some changes and it's not easy to do that and I know that that occasionally gets met with opposition, but by and large I think that the adoption has been very good and very positive. I will share that. I also had. We hosted a convention of landscape contractors about a month ago and we had 50 or 60 people here from like eight or nine different states around and everyone commented.
Speaker 3:We held some of our convention at proscape and then part of it downtown at the brickyard and a number of people commented on the love your city traffic boxes that they saw, as well as just the flowers and the charming nature. And it is amazing um know, I've talked about this with some other guests where so often folks from outside our community come here and they say, gosh, you know, the people are so kind, the place is just charming. I love walking the streets, I love seeing the flowers, the storefronts, you know the unique stores and restaurants and places and it's really a nice community and sometimes it's still taking a while to get some of our local folks and I don't think this is a situation unique to Mary and I talk with people from other cities as you probably do too that also have these challenges of kind of changing public perceptions. They sometimes, when you're making a lot of progress, the public perception changes more slowly than what the actual reality is changing. Have you experienced that as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know and talking to everyone. I think number one you have to be a good listener, so where you figure out where to go next is you go to all of these meetings, whether it's in the downtown or the West End Neighborhood Association, and you listen to what people have to say and what they feel their needs are. And in doing that and having a very open dialogue with people and going to a lot of these events and my office is always open I have people stop by or send me an email or a text and you know that's how these ideas develop, like the Night Moves bus. You know we were—.
Speaker 3:Yeah, talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we were. You know, from talking to people downtown and talking to the hotels, our hotels are full quite a bit. I mean there's a lot of people that are at the fringe of our city that would like to be able to come into the city rather than stay out with all the box stores and the chain restaurants, and be able to come downtown and enjoy that.
Speaker 1:But they might be intimidated by the one-way streets or not knowing how to navigate that. That, and going back to a perfect example, there was for about 12 weeks back in the spring, every weekend there were female bowlers here from all across the state for a big bowling tournament that they had. And I heard more than a dozen times from those people hey, we would really like to be able to get from the hotels to come into town, not have to drive. You know, we can all. I said well, a bus would be a good idea, right, if we had a bus that went around, picked up people, brought them downtown, and so from that beginning conversation and a lot more coordinating with the downtown people in the hotels and our transit director, julie Welch, we were able to sell that idea to the state. They thought it was a great idea to try that.
Speaker 1:So we put together that pilot program where the night move bus right now runs Thursday, friday and Saturday from 5 to 11. And we're in the very beginning stages of that. So in a month we'll assess where we're at and how the rides are doing. But as with anything new, it's going to take a while for it to catch on. But one thing that has certainly already caught on with it is we will rent that bus to wedding parties that have a lot of people at the hotel. They need to get in town, and we've already done a couple of weddings with a couple more on the books, and so, again, going back to what we said about the pool, this is a service that we want to provide, but we wanted to try to be cost neutral for the city.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think that through advertising and rentals and ride fairs, that we'll get to the point where it'll be a cost neutral thing for the city and be a great thing for the downtown and getting feet on the street and people downtown to see what we have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, and it's another one of those things where people are recognizing that innovation from around the state you mentioned, odot, is on board with this programming. My understanding from Julie is that there's you know, she's going to conventions or people are wanting to come here and see it.
Speaker 1:We've already had another city here that came to look at everything we had and they love the wraps on the bus, as far as you know, getting that positive feeling out to the community as well as our Night Moves bus. We've already had a lot of people ask about that from other communities and saw what a great idea it was. And you know, a lot of times you don't invent the wheel, but you help make it better and that's what other cities do and that's what we do when we go to other towns. I was in Ashland, ohio a couple weekends ago.
Speaker 1:We took our grandkids there to see all the pumpkin men downtown and just got the idea there about they have these huge planters on the street and right now we have a lot of planters that are below trees and they don't really do that well downtown. So that's what I said when we're reassessing things for spring, we're looking at buying a lot of those big planters to put downtown. And you know now I find myself everywhere I go I'm looking at streetlights to see what kind they are and what they're made of, because we need new downtown streetlights. So every city I go to I look at it in a much different way than I did a year ago, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, welcome to my life, the last six years as well. My kids. They used to roll their eyes. Now they just know that that's part of any trip that we take, whether we're here in Ohio or whether we're states away. We're going to seek out some downtowns. We're going to seek out some neighborhoods, even in a big city, to look at some of the architecture. We're going to seek out some neighborhoods, even in a big city, to look at some of the architecture.
Speaker 3:And, like you said, I mean it's not one thing that makes a city really unique and charming. It's a thousand little things and I think that you know again those are. You know, the conversations that you and I have had and that I know that you're having with a lot of other downtown folks and community leaders are just what are all those different things? It's parking, it's streetlights, it's parking signage, it's you know our codes downtown. It's flowers.
Speaker 1:Feeling safe in the community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's feeling safe.
Speaker 3:It's you know, it's having freshly striped crosswalks, I mean it's literally just a thousand of those things that all go into people coming to our city or living in our city and just coming to different parts and saying this feels like home. This feels like a place I want to be.
Speaker 1:And, like you said, I think it's a wheel with a lot of spokes in it. Right, you can have the best-looking downtown in central Ohio and if your people are mean or not cordial, or vice versa, if you have great people that are very nice and your downtown doesn't look so nice, so it's all of those things together and it can't just be downtown. So we talked a little bit before we went on the air about a book. I read that your city is sick and on the front of this book is actually a picture of a heart. And if you think about that and the downtown of your city, the downtown of your city really is the heart of your city and that's what most people see when they come into the downtown. But it can't stop with the heart. So there's a lot of veins and arteries that go out into the different neighborhoods and that's what you have to develop. You can't just focus on downtown, you have to focus on the entire city as well as the county. So if we go from the heart of our city and go a couple blocks either way and you start seeing blighted housing, then you're really not doing a service for anybody. So that's why we have your Love your Neighborhood program where we go out into different neighborhoods in the city and we spend two days a month working in a particular block area to try to improve whether people are living in a house and they just don't have the means to try to clean up the neighborhood, to make it look nice and give these people a sense of pride that they'll continue.
Speaker 1:That you know after we're gone and we finished our fifth one and um, I had the statistics and they really don't mean a lot I guess, unless you know tonnage, but we have. We have taken thousands of pounds of trash out of these neighborhoods and yard waste and bushes and trees and each time we get done. The other one that just floors me is we've taken like 2,500 tires out of these neighborhoods, out of the alleys, and was able to get a grant to dispose of those properly. So it doesn't just stop with downtown. We have to focus on the neighborhoods, we have to focus on the county. After that, you know. So you can't go from the city out into the neighborhoods and then out, you know, into the county and they all have to feed each other. So you have to water each one of those yards to make it beneficial for everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah Well, so many of these issues. It's easy for people, I think, especially that are challenged with vision or just can't see how we really could turn around some of these issues. And I remember, even when we were starting our downtown work, you know, folks are like there's so many vacant buildings, there's so many buildings that need so much work. How on earth are you going to, you know, be able to make an impact, a meaningful impact? And it's like, well, it's the same way that you know if you come to me when I'm eating my lunch and I've got a sandwich and you say, how are you going to fit that whole sandwich in your mouth? And you say, well, I'm not, I'm going to take one bite and then I'm going to take another, and then I'm going to take another and then I'm going to take another, and over time it's going to go away.
Speaker 3:And I think that we've seen that downtown. We just start with one building and then the next and the next, and you're talking about some of the neighborhoods are the same way there, and you're talking about some of the neighborhoods are the same way. There's some parts of the city that really have been neglected and needed some love, and one neighborhood at a time, one street at a time. You do these projects and then that ripple effect can be that people that weren't sweeping their front sidewalk after they mowed the grass they start to do that.
Speaker 3:The people that had trash in their front yard. Well, now they're going to be a little more conscious about picking it up, because there's sort of that positive peer pressure around the neighborhood. Somebody might paint their house. It ripples right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know a lot of times we focus on the word contagious as being a bad thing, but contagious is also a very good thing. When people see that going on around them, then they take more of a sense of pride in their neighborhood or their own street or their own yard and hopefully that's what we grow from there, so what you know a lot of the things that and so we're already thinking about next year. You know we've done a lot in nine months. One of the things that I would be negligent if I didn't mention was we were focused very early in coming into office that we needed another place downtown for our youth. We needed a facility that was downtown, that was accessible to the people that walked or rode the bus to be able to get to a facility where they could have recreation, blow off some steam, and so we focused on that very early on with the YMCA and the Marion City Schools, and I knew that we had a building. So we had the old rec center behind City Hall and it was just sitting there collecting dust, not doing anything for anybody. So we put a lot of these meetings together between the YMCA and the Marion City Schools and developed a very good work plan that we were able to get passed through city council, that we are going to provide the building for the YMCA. We'll pay the utilities. We fixed a lot of things that needed fixed with the building.
Speaker 1:The YMCA is going to supply the employees and the programming and Marion City Schools. So this just won't be a recreation facility. This will also be a learning center. So kids will be able to come in there they can blow off some steam, you know, playing basketball, volleyball but there are also going to be opportunities for learning and different kind of life learning, whether it's cooking or learning how to feed themselves or do their own finances or if they need help with after-school tutoring. That's where Marion City Schools is going to step in. So we look for that to really ramp up in January. We're putting the finishing touches on that. The YMCA applied for and received a grant from the Marion Community Foundation for about $109,000, which was a huge shot in the arm for them to be able to put in some stoves and a washer and dryer.
Speaker 1:If the kids show up there and they need to do their laundry, they can do it while they're playing basketball. So we are tickled to death and excited to see what's going to happen with the rec center over the next year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, what's really exciting about that is just the collaboration that came, you know, between these different organizations to create something that none of you could have done on your own. You couldn't have provided the programming.
Speaker 1:Like the Y could you know, or without the help of the school Absolutely, and that's why you know these collaborations or these partnerships I've had for years with these organizations. So you don't build a bridge when you need it, you build it long before you need it.
Speaker 1:And that's what I think we, you know, that's what I tried to do over the last 38 years is build the reputation with these other organizations that you can go to them and say, hey, we need, you know, we need whether it's the Nazarene Church and saying we need child care, you know, and then child care shows up there. So it's a matter of everybody trusting each other, trusting in their abilities and willing to lend that helping hand to make something happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've heard a number of people say lately that they believe that the level of cooperation and collaboration in the Marion community is at an all-time high.
Speaker 1:You know what I think we are in if you look, if we were to put bullet points together about where we're at currently, I think that we are certainly on the cusp of really great things happening, whether it be economically our economic growth, whether we get a company, a few factories, out on Kellogg Parkway which I absolutely think is going to happen and our residential development, and then all of these ancillary things that begin to happen after that. We have a lot of people in leadership positions now that get along very well with each other, and I think we're going to see a great effort in cooperation and collaboration over the next year or so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, I would say that we're already seeing great things happen, but I think that we're preparing for kind of the hockey stick effect of things really taking off. I think that the infrastructure is being built, the relationships are being built, the collaboration is there and I'm excited for the future of Marion. I believe that you are too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you kind of alluded to this, but tell us a little bit about, as you kind of are going into the fourth quarter of your first year here and then looking ahead at next year, what are, say, the top three initiatives that you feel are going to be a focus, that are really going to move the needle.
Speaker 1:You know what. We have a lot more than three, but I'll try to focus on the ones that probably mean the most to the city and our constituents. Number one we have made great strides in our financial stability and moving forward with you know, it's no secret that we've had issues in our auditor's office the last couple of years, and we are very diligently working together to fix those issues. Our reconciliations are going to be done very soon, which, once those are done, we'll be able to reapply for our bond rating, which is very important for numerous reasons. You know, as far as borrowing money, we have a new fire station to build. A new fire station to build that's that's one of our main goals next year is to.
Speaker 1:We're currently working on site location now and talking to different people about acquiring some, some property to to, you know, to. That's the first thing we have to have as a place to build, and then we move on from there. So station one will be a main priority for us going into next year. And then I think another thing is just the things that we've done for the citizens to make things easier. So on, you know, city council night you don't have to be in council chambers to watch it. You can watch it on Facebook live as it's happening and I was shocked at the number of people. When I pull that up and see that like 1200 people tuned into the council meeting, I was astonished.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know because, normally we have 10 people in the audience.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But it might spur somebody to come to the next meeting because they heard something we were talking about at this meeting. So I think, as far as transparency in the community and them feeling involved in what their local government is doing, we're looking at redoing our website. We'd like to make our website more user-friendly so you can get online and apply for a demolition permit or a building permit, not have to come to City Hall to actually do those things. We know it's not convenient a lot of times for people to actually get there. We did that in our, you know. It's about listening to the people that are working for you and utility billing.
Speaker 1:Andrea said you know what? All these people go to Kroger's and they pay their bill. We're the only city bill that they can't pay when they go there. So I said go for it, you know. And she took the initiative to set up an account with the company and I think we've had 300 and some people that pay their bill at Kroger's. You know when they get paid each week. So it's seeing those needs and doing something about them to make things easier for the citizens of Marion. So that's what we're going to continue to do in 2025.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, We've talked quite a bit about the rebranding and all of that. Do you know? When was that done last?
Speaker 1:You know we talked about, we have like three things as you come into our city one on 309, one on 423 North, and it says you know the heart of it all, or something and that's at least 20 years old.
Speaker 1:So we're looking at redoing those. The last initiative really that the city, you know, even took part in was the Marion made thing and that's several years old now. Right, and you know that was somebody else's thing really was the city just kind of jumped on board with that. So we have made it our top priority to make the initiative. This is our initiative as a city and this is one where we want to see it go. We think we have a good plan in place to make that happen and, from all the comments I hear, 98% of the people love it. Like you said, you're never going to satisfy everybody. There's always going to be naysayers, but I think we're doing something very positive and I think people are really getting behind that.
Speaker 1:One of the other things I wanted to mention about 2025, we feel like we're leaving a lot of money on the table.
Speaker 1:There's millions of dollars in this state and federally for grants and the city has been very lacking in applying for grants and whether that comes to you know whether it's grants for advancing your sewer system to grants for a certain neighborhood, or grants for the Aquatic Center or Lincoln Park, there are millions of dollars in grants out there and the reason we're really behind in that aspect and that's one of the things when you learn when you go to a mayor's conference is a lot of these places have people on their staff that their main job and function is being a grant writer. Go to a mayor's conferences. A lot of these places have people on their staff that are their main job and function is being a grant writer, and we soon will be asking city council to allow us to bring that new job description into the city. We would like to have somebody full time on staff because when you get a grant, you know only applying for the grant is a small portion of what really happens with that Once you get awarded a grant.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of behind-the-scenes things that you have to do once you have the grant to administer it you have to account for the money you have to send in reports and right now that job falls to a clerk, maybe at the police department or a clerk at the fire department, and they really don't have the time or the knowledge to spend on this effort. We have actually somebody in-house that works for the city that we have in mind for that. She just graduated college recently with a degree basically in grant writing. We've had her help out on a few grants and she does great work, so we're really excited about getting her on board the first of the year and putting her as the main focus just to go out and seek out grants for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, which again have to start with vision. Absolutely, you know, you're starting with a vision, and a lot of these are like new initiatives, they're creative things, like the night night bus that you've got to get. You know they have to start with the vision and then you go out and you find the resources to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Right, and we're not saying that everything we try is going to be successful, but that's how you figure it out. You know, if you don't try it then you never know. So if we try something and it doesn't work out, then we move on to something different. We talk about the downtown lighting. You know we have like 90 city lights downtown that they all need to be replaced and they're expensive. But there's grants out there and we just haven't. You know, we didn't have a city engineer for a long time. We were just able to hire one recently. A gentleman that lives in Marion, jeff Shetler, comes from an engineering background and he was kind of on his own and ready to get back into a municipal job and we hired him. He started about a month ago. So we're expecting good things out of Jeff too and really getting a lot of our own engineering stuff done that we've been lacking, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:All the small pieces that make it happen. So you've kind of spoken to this a little bit, but just to give you a little opportunity to expand a little more. So say, I know there are some critics out there and again it's a small number, but sometimes they make a lot of noise. But some of your critics might say hey, mayor, it seems like you're spending an awful lot of time talking about downtown initiatives and some of that. What would you say to those individuals?
Speaker 1:You know, I would say that number one. If you go back to that picture, the city is going to be the heart, the downtown area is going to be the heart of everything that you know. If you don't have that heart in the city, it's hard to move out to those other areas. But the other thing I will say is we put a new playground in Martin Luther King Park on the west end. All of our neighborhood cleanup efforts were outside in neighborhoods.
Speaker 1:You know they were in individual neighborhoods, so we are not. Although a lot of the things you see may be most visible downtown, we certainly are working in each and every neighborhood to try to make the city as a whole better. We have new playground on the drawing board for Garfield Park next year, so there's a lot. We have pickleball courts on the drawing board right now for three different parks.
Speaker 1:Right now pickleball is like the fastest growing pastime recreational thing there is to do in the country right now and we only have one court, that's out at the senior center and it's busy all the time. So we have people asking again. It's listening to what people want and people are asking for pickleball courts. So we're going to try to do that through a grant writer, you know, to try to find us the funds to do that. We also have the leisure path at Lincoln Park.
Speaker 1:We're going to continue that effort to make Lincoln Park the pillar that it once was in this community and the first length of leisure path will be starting this week along North Prospect Street. We then have phase two and three, which will encircle the entire park, on the drawing board and we're currently working on funding for both of those. And, as Mike Bodine would say, our pipe dream is to get that leisure path all the way from Lincoln Park out to Corey Park and it's very doable. It's just a matter of us having the time and the money and the effort to spend to make that happen. We want to make our city more walkable, more rideable for everybody. You know, a city that has walkability and rideability gets a lot further ahead than just, you know, the cars downtown.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Again, it's a thousand little things and I think that, as we position our community to be a place that people want to seek out as a destination, both as a day trip or a weekend trip, but also as a place to live, you know, we want to and I think that we're seeing I mean, I've shared on other podcasts here recently that, just kind of anecdotally, folks that are coming and renting our downtown lofts. They're exclusively people from outside of Marion.
Speaker 3:The last five that we've leased have been people that have been moving here from Franklin, delaware or Union County, and you know they're seeing the amenities here, or Union County, and you know they're seeing the amenities here, the things like walkability, downtown coffee shops, craft beer, restaurants, boutiques. But they're also looking for those public amenities green spaces, walking paths, bike trails, parks dog parks, transportation, all of those pieces as well.
Speaker 3:Those are important to people and I think that it's easy for some of us to get tunnel visioned on our preferences. You know, just because we may not use public transit, or maybe because we might not, you know, be a biker or a runner or whatever, or a baseball player, that those things are not important, but they are as we look to create amenities that are the types of things that are great for all people that make up a city. You know it sounds like.
Speaker 1:You know your vision is very wide in terms of including all those Well, and I think you touched on it exactly, which is why we've had such good success in getting developers here, especially on the residential side.
Speaker 1:They know that the Delaware County, the Union County, those places are filling up, they're getting capacity on their sewer projects and so you can come to Marion, pay about half the taxes that you would pay in either one of those counties, get three times the house for your money and yeah, it might be a little commute for you.
Speaker 1:But so what we are trying to pitch now is we want Marion to still have the small town feel but have big city amenities. You know that's what those like you just went through that whole list. That's what people are looking for when they want to move to a community. And I am astonished by the number of people that I meet downtown that say I don't even live here, but that's good stuff. You know they're not even from Marion, but a lot of the people that are coming here I met a couple last weekend from Cleveland that came just to do the Presidential Library, the Harding Home that tour but they were downtown having dinner and having a few drinks and really enjoying what we had to offer, and they said you got a great community here.
Speaker 1:And that just makes me stick my chest out and think wow, is that we're having that effect on other people? But we want our own people to feel that way too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You recently said in a speech that you had shared at the ribbon cutting for Connect Coworks that you know we want people to know that Marion's open for business. Absolutely you know what are some things in that lane that you, you know messaging that we're using to share that.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that the main thing with that is when somebody comes to your community, the first thing that they want to hear is not no, you know, they want to hear when and I go back to a meeting that we had with a residential developer and when we meet with those people, I bring in my sewer department guy, my engineer, and we're all at the table having that conversation and we were talking about Barks Road area and the development that he wanted to put in and we started talking about sewer and capacity and we're like we're not sure you know, but let us find out our sewer projects and put them on the task of how much development can we do out here with the existing structure that we have? And then, once we get to that point, what's our next best option, which I know you know, and this is something that people will start hearing a lot of talk about we need a Southwest interceptor, we need a sewer system, we need to be able to take our sewer all the way down Barks Road, across White Oaks, through the park, to one of our main tap-ins on 739. Very doable project. It's going to cost a lot of money, but again, there's money out there for those projects and we just number one.
Speaker 1:We can't say, well, we want the money. Well, they're going to say, where's your project, so we've got. And we just number one. We can't say, well, we want the money. Well, they're going to say, where's your project, you know? So we got to get these things lined up and be ready. It's a lot like when you talk about economic development and a company that wants to come in. They don't want to hear. Let me do all my homework. I'll get back with you.
Speaker 2:They want to hear hey.
Speaker 1:I have, you know, 130 acres. That's dig ready.
Speaker 3:We've done our homework.
Speaker 2:We've done our homework.
Speaker 1:It has sewer, it has water, it has the infrastructure that you need to build that building right now. It's turnkey, just go build it. And that's what they want to hear. And you have to be ready as a city to answer those questions and say, yes, we're ready rather than you know.
Speaker 3:Give us eight to 12 months we'll figure it out, because they're going to go somewhere else. Yeah, we talk a lot about hospitality on the business side of things. You know we operate some hospitality businesses, but also we recently had one of our bagels of business meetings that we do in cooperation with the Chamber Connect Coworks, on hospitality in all businesses and the definition of hospitality that we use is we thought of you before you got here. Right, and as you were talking, I thought about that definition. Obviously, it's very unusual to apply hospitality to the public sector, but what you're saying is, in essence, that we thought of you before you got here. And you know you can sit down at a meeting with a developer of any kind and say we've been expecting you, we've been preparing for you to show up for the last year and we're ready for what you have. We're positioned for growth and we have what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Like we said, there's a lot of spokes to that wheel, whether it's having the dig-ready locations for factories and then having the residential development to go along with that. We don't want people working here and living somewhere else. We'd rather have them living here and working here.
Speaker 3:Right right people working here and living somewhere else.
Speaker 1:We'd rather have them living here and working here. So that's one of the. You know that just comes from having that vision and, as far as I know, I don't know of a five-year plan that Marianne has ever had, but that is something that we diligently work on every week is trying to develop our five-year plan of where we want to see us in five years. And if you can't answer that question, then you have no vision and you're going to stick with Groundhog Day, like we talked about before. It's like you get up and every day is the same. Nobody wants to get up and have every day be the same. You don't want it to be worse, you want it to be better and that's what we're working for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I mean, there's probably nothing any more unsexy than a sewer project, Right, but you know, when you're talking about residential development and some of that, there's, you know a few things kind of more important in that area than making sure that we're prepared for that Absolutely. And it sounds like that project, that interceptor to really have kind of a straight shot out to the treatment plant, would be significant for sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that at some point I think this week, hopefully we're getting back with our consultants and they have the results that we're waiting for and then we'll know. You know, we'll know how soon do we have to. Does that plan need to be in our next five year plan or is that something 10 years down the road? Or you know we'll know how soon do we have to. Does that plan need to be in our next five-year plan or is that something 10 years down the road? Or you know, because you had out at that south end of town I had the lady.
Speaker 1:I sat down with the lady from the mall that runs the mall and she started asking me what I'm going to do for the mall and I said you realize you're in the county, right? She goes well, you're the county mayor. No, I'm not, but really you are. You know you try to do, even though that's in the county. I'm sure the county would love to work with the city and we work together to try to figure out something for that mall location. You know, because as it is now it's just going to keep deteriorating until the point where you know it's useless to everybody. We need something to happen out there and hopefully we can entice somebody to come and do something with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, it takes vision. Yeah, so one project at a time here.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Well, this has been a really great conversation Again, hopefully not only for folks that live here locally.
Speaker 3:Hopefully, folks that live here locally have learned some things and are a little more excited about what the future is looking like, as you said, for not only the city but also for the county.
Speaker 3:And I know we also have a lot of listeners that tune in from other communities, that are looking for fresh ideas, that are looking for new perspectives and looking to kind of rip and duplicate some things that we're doing here in Marion, and I know that we're open to that because that's how we've learned. I know you know you mentioned that you go to a lot of different cities and towns and I do too looking for ideas, and I think that there's also a cooperative spirit. As you go around the different towns in Ohio, you know everybody's kind of looking to grow and reinvent themselves as we kind of go into a new era, and there's a lot to be excited about, I think in our state as well, just with a lot of prosperity coming with some of the bigger projects and making sure that we're positioning ourselves well to receive the benefits that may come from those.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think for you know whether it's any of the other communities. If people are hearing this show today and they're from outside our community, come and give us a look, you know whether, if it's just a matter of taking your grandkids somewhere and having lunch and walking downtown to see how pretty it is and how nice it is, that's what I mean in addition to we're open for development, economic development, we're also open for business downtown. We're open for people to come and view our city, see what we have to offer and see where we're going in the next five years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Well. Thank you again for your time, mayor. Thanks for your continued work to make Marion a better place. I'm excited for what's ahead. I know that you are too. If folks here and are looking to learn a little more about Marion or get in contact with you, where would you direct them?
Speaker 1:Anybody can call City Hall. I hand out my business card. It has my email address and my cell phone number on it because I want people to be able to reach out and talk to us. But the email address that we have is mayorcollins at marionohioorg, and that's probably the easiest way to get a hold of me. And if you have a great idea, if you live here locally, stop up and we'll have coffee over it and see where we can go. But again, we're excited about where we're going and we have a vision for where we're going and, with council's help and the commissioner's help, we're going to get there. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Good stuff Well to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to continuing to share on upcoming podcasts. So we hope that if this has been helpful to you, you'll pass it along to someone else who might benefit and learn something new. So thanks again and we'll catch you the next time.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to the Main Street Reimagined podcast. To learn more about Main Street Reimagined Henry Development Group or our work in downtown Marion, ohio, please visit MainStreetReimaginedcom If you want to connect or if you know someone who we need to interview. Shoot us an email at info at MainStreetReimaginecom. Until next time, keep dreaming and don't be afraid to take the leap.