At the Center of Growth: A Regional Perspective with Mayor Groomes

In this episode, we sit down with Mayor Chris Amorose Groomes as she reflects on her historic tenure as MORPC’s longest-serving board chair and looks ahead to her new role leading passenger rail efforts. From Central Ohio’s rapid growth to the evolving needs of our region, Mayor Groomes shares her perspective on where we’ve been and where we’re headed next.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Growing Better Together, a new show from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Convention, where we connect with key leaders and explore the policy, partnerships, and opportunities shaping the future of Central Ohio.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Growing Better Together. I am Joe Gertie and I serve as Morpsey's Chief Strategy Officer. I'm really excited for today's conversation. It is with Mayor Chris Amros Grooms, Morpsey's longest-serving board chair in Morpsey history. And the purpose of this podcast is we all know Central Ohio is growing, but some of the big things that we want to achieve as a region, from passenger rail to bus rapid transit to addressing uh housing, can't be done unless we work together. And so I'm I'm excited to have our outgoing board chair, um, the mayor of Dublin, and a friend join me today for today's conversation. So, mayor, thank you so much for having us today.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Thank you, Joe.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So you've spent essentially your entire life in Dublin. You went to Dublin High School, you have led a small business in Dublin, you went to the Ohio State University, and my goodness, Dublin has evolved and changed uh in that time. What was what was it like growing up in Dublin, and who were some of the people and leaders who influenced you along the way?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yeah, thank you. Well, you know, um people ask that question frequently, and I and I occasionally will say, I've lived in Dublin my whole life, but I feel like I've moved at least three times. Because early on, when I was very young, it was a rural agrarian community. Uh there was a lot of farming that took place, and uh, you know, there wasn't a whole lot going on. Fast forward through middle school, high school-ish kind of years, and it really developed into a full-fledged suburb, right? And uh, there's a large corporate presence, uh, population was exploding. You know, it wasn't until 1987 that we reached city status. Um and you know, things were changing pretty rapidly. And and now when I look at the community of Dublin, it is a full-fledged city. Uh, you know, it has all of the components of a vibrant, active, and lively city. So uh we've had great leadership in the city of Dublin over the course of time. Um our our founders who wrote our charter and and did all of those things, um, there was a lot of brilliance in that space that set the community up for the success that we enjoy today.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

The 1987 becoming a city that always boggles my mind. Whenever I go to the state of the city and hear that history.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

And you had to have 5,000 people.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, yeah. That so uh young Chris Amrose, who who uh who was it, a mentor, a family member? Like what was it like just in Dublin as a as a kid growing up?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Well, if you would have known me as a kid in Dublin, you would have called me Chrissy. Oh uh as my family and all of my school-aged friends uh would refer to me as. You know, I my family was really engaged in community. My mom started the Dublin Chamber of Commerce uh when I was four or five years old. They just celebrated their 50th anniversary a couple years back and just dated myself. But hey. Um and uh, you know, my dad served on the Planning and Zoning Commission, which I served on our Planning and Zoning Commission, and um watched him serve as city council member and as vice mayor in the community. But I tell you that there were so many great people that served out of a love for community. And I that is one thing that strikes me every time I think about where our city has gone. It's been true public servants that have built that community over the course of time.

unknown 4:11

No doubt.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Um, so I have had the honor of getting to know you and your family and even your extended family over the last seven or eight years since you've had been a uh a part of our executive committee, and then through uh your time as secretary to your your time as chair, and the universal theme on the amorous side of the family is this passion and love for horticulture. Um why is that and how has that uh maybe passion for the land impacted your um vision for public service?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Huh, that's a good question. Um yeah, I'm a horticulturist by trade, so people say, Well, how did you get to be the mayor of Dublin? I'm like, well, you start out being a horticulturist, obviously. Uh you know, what other path would you take? Um You know, as I mentioned, it was an agrarian past. I mean, uh, you know, we grew up, um we had a farm that was just off of Powell Road, but you know, we lived on a larger piece of land. And uh recently I we have a strawberry patch at our house, and my son and I were talking, we we canned jam every year out of the strawberry patch. And uh he says, Have you ever not had a strawberry patch? I said, No, I I've always had a strawberry patch. But you know, I think it's just something about, and that's really why I wanted to serve on the Planning Commission, because the the green space in the city of Dublin and the and the way that the trees interact with the street and the setbacks and all of that is very horticulturally focused, and so that when you enter into the city of Dublin, the the everyone says it's greener in Dublin. Well, well it is, and that's very intentional. Um and so I think I just took the my love of horticulture and my family's love of horticulture that goes back, you know, certainly generations before me, and adapting that into a community that is sensitive to the the growth environment.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Nice uh segue to the theme of the podcast, too. Um so you mentioned your mom. She started the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. So you're part of a family that's very entrepreneurial driven. Um how did that shape you growing up and then also impact your your leadership style today?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Oh goodness. You know, I in retrospect it it seems more intentional than it ever was at the time. You know, my dad uh he started a landscape company when he was in college that uh I joined him in once I graduated from college. He was a horti, he's a horticulturist as well. Um, my mom loves people. She loves people like nobody I've ever known. And the the greatest gift that my mom gives is everyone that she meets is belief in them. And she can really trick you into believing in yourself simply by the amount of belief that she has in you. And she is gifted at transferring that. Um, and you know, hard work, if you own a landscape company, you you're gonna be accustomed to hard work. I remember friends looking forward to snow days. I dreaded them because that means your dad was gonna take you to work with him with a shovel in your hand, or maybe you might be sitting in the back of a salt truck, you know, tossing salt out of the back on a parking lot or something. So I, you know, I believe I believe in entrepreneurialship, I believe in capital markets, I believe in working hard. And I believe that this is the greatest country in the world with more opportunity than any place else in the world. You know, our founding fathers didn't write a more perfect union by mistake. It is a journey every day to become a more perfect union, realizing in the present that you're imperfect.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Right, no doubt. Very well said, it's the uh American uh experience, yeah. Uh not the experience, but an experiment and just that continually uh trying to get better. And then about your mom too. The energy that people bring is just as contagious as the common cold, right? So if someone's having a great day and they walk by on the street, I think that impacts your day indirectly. So that's awesome about your mom. Um so 2015, there's a the there's a shift in your career, and you decide to run for office. What was the turning point uh in saying, hey, I want to do this for my community in Dublin?

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Yeah, it was really, you know, our community was was shifting. You know, we were starting to look at density for the first time. We were starting to talk about transit corridors, and we were starting to talk about those things. I had served on our planning commission for eight years, I'd been the chair for six years, and there was a city council race coming up, and people said, you know, I think that you ought to take a look at that. Um there were, you know, there were some things happening in the community at the time that I really wanted to have an impact on. And, you know, the great, I've served with a lot of council members over the course of time, and the best council members have a why and something that they want to have an impact on. Um some, you know, you see around, you know, some people that want to hold public office, and then you see people that want to impact their communities. And uh I wanted to have an impact on my community.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

No doubt, no doubt. Um so you were elected in 2015, and that was citywide.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yes, I'm an at-large member. We have ward members and at-large members in the city of Dublin. I'm an at-large which represents the entirety of the community.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

And there's an anecdote that you like to say is sometimes when NIB people are upset, like I'm never gonna vote for you for mayor again, but they never do, right? How do you how do you vote for mayor in Dublin?

SPEAKER_02 9:51

So we are a city manager form of government. We have an excellent city manager in Megan O'Callaghan, and uh it it's funny because people say, Oh, I voted for you for mayor. And you say, Oh, thank you. But in reality, the only people that ever get to vote for the mayor in the city of Dublin are council members. So, unless you've ever been a council member in the city of Dublin, you have never cast a vote for the mayor of Dublin.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

So, I and I believe you became mayor in 2020 for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

I did. I served as vice mayor 2018 to 2020 under Greg Peterson, who was the mayor at that time. Fantastic mayor and the greatest person to ever have the opportunity to learn under. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So, how how was it going from being a member of council to then being mayor? How does that respond? Do those responsibilities do they weigh you down? Do you feel like you need to do more? How has it impacted you?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

You know, it really gives you a platform to uh have influence in your region. So the mayor of council has a couple of priorities or a couple of responsibilities. One, they're to run the public meetings, uh, and to serve in a couple of different capacities within the structure of local government, but then it's to be the voice of the city in the region and outward facing to the community and to the region at large. And so, you know, it is a tremendous honor, but it is a great responsibility too, because the city of Dublin is in and of itself a fantastic success story. Um, and so you try your best every day to represent your community with the excellence that it deserves.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

So I mentioned at the top of the podcast you're the longest serving Warpsey board chair. Um, I know you had a big decision in 2015 to run for council, but you also had a decision of, you know, why do I want to serve on Warpsey's board? Why do I want to view issues not just from a community lens, but from a regional one? What attracted you to serving on Warpsey's board?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I think just the opportunity to understand that we're all in relationship with one another. As people, we are all in relationship with one another. As communities, we are all in relationship with one another. And to have healthy ecosystems, you need to have folks that are intentional about growth, intentional about transit, intentional about the things that matter, that can either hamstring or catapult a community forward. So it was very interesting when I came on the on the executive committee for Morpsey, it was in the in the midst of COVID, right? COVID hit very shortly thereafter, and so um it was it was an opportunity to really speak with a regional voice, and I think that reinforced the regionalism in me because in you know it was something that everyone was trying to figure out together, and nobody really had all of the answers.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

So one thing I've enjoyed, I've worked at Morpsey now for for over a decade, though, is each chair kind of brings their imprint on the agency. So like you still have the same glove, but it's molded in a in a different way. And I think two items that I you deserve a lot of credit for and how you've impacted our agency is uh the impact and leaning into the opportunities of passenger rail. And then the other one was how are we effectively collaborating with the business community? There are other ways I know that you've also had an impact, but do you want to talk a little bit more about why passenger rail and and those public-private partnerships are so important for Morpsey and local governments?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Sure. You know, whenever we talk about, you know, we're looking at building a bridge over I-270 in Dublin adjacent to Sawmill Road, and that bridge costs is going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 million. And so when you talk about the cost of adding additional transit, um, it it can become prohibitive. And when we look at how are we going to solve these regional transit issues, um, land acquisition, uh, easement acquisition, uh water and sewer, storm, you know, storm water, all of those issues become incredibly difficult. But the rail corridors exist. And to garner right away is virtually it would be virtually impossible for this country to undertake the interstate network today. It it the cost would be so prohibitive, there would be so many obstacles, we would not be able to do it. Um, but we have corridors that exist, and these are on these rail corridors, and why not partner with those people to look at how we can move people around in a different way that isn't so cost prohibitive. Sure, there is a cost associated with it, but it's not nearly the same cost as constructing new roadways. And so I think that bringing the business community along because they want to have transit options to attract talent. They want to be able to get around you know safely, quickly, um, and in an environmentally sensitive way to do that. And I tell you, the business community has been one of the biggest champions of passenger rail. And I believe in the business community. You know, they are what drives all of us forward. Morpsey, we often talk about being a region of prosperity opportunity. And without our business community, we have nothing to offer. Um and there's a lot of wisdom in the business community. Not that there isn't in the public sector as well, but when you can share those perspectives and you can share that wisdom, you're gonna be a lot further than if you just keep operating on your own path.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Now, one thing I like about the the culture at Morpsey too is in the state of Ohio, you don't uh members aren't mandated to be a part of Morpsey. So we have to sing for our supper and make sure that we have a return on investment. So even though we are in that public sector environment, um there's an entrepreneurial spirit because we want to continue to have that return on investment and we need to continue to produce in order to retain that that membership. So I always enjoy that about Morpsey. Something that's let's blend the last question together. So you're the outgoing uh Morpsey chair now. It's just gonna be weird to think you not being the chair, but you are going to be chairing this passenger rail um committee. And I know you were integral in creating this rail executive network that we've partnered on with folks at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Business Roundtable. Thinking about Dublin or the value add for a local government uh in the region, what's the case for passenger rail?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

The case for passenger rail. Well, you know, I I think that if we want to continue to be a growing region, we have to be responsive to the way that people want to live. Um and affordability. So, you know, it is my hope that passenger rail would lean into light rail and would lean in it. The same with the way we're doing Link Us is that someday it you have to learn to crawl and then walk and then run. Do I think we're gonna have trains running everywhere at 120 miles an hour right out the gate? No, that's that's not the way it happens. But we need to establish these corridors, we need to identify them, we need to build transit-oriented development around them so that we can uh we can have enough users of these tools to justify the expense and then offer them to. And I think if we do that in a safe community, in a livable community, in a one that isn't overly expensive, I think we have the opportunity to attract great talent from around the world. I am a my Cora capitalist. I I realize that people often think that that's a dirty word, but I think capitalists with heart are the ones that are going to change the world. They certainly have been the ones that have laid a great foundation here in the United States. And I think when we can attract the greatest minds and we can attract great innovation, and we can we create an atmosphere and a culture which they can be successful, I think there's great opportunity. Some people say, well, I don't, do we really want to grow? You know, you have two options. You can grant you can manage a growing budget or you can manage a shrinking one. And it is a binary decision. And if our if the people of Central Ohio want to continue to have job growth and wage growth and opportunity growth, then we have to be committed holistically to growth. We can do that well. Rather than than endless sprawl, we can have great transit and we can have transit-oriented development, and we can develop dense more densify on these corridors that we have. And so I think that's the case for passenger rail, is that we want to be an opportunistic region, and this is how we do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

I I've had friends from the the Boston area or um maybe the the West Coast, and they'll come to Columbus and they think that they can just take a train down to Cincinnati, and I have to tell them no. And I've had had a friend take an Uber from Columbus to Cincinnati, and you're just thinking, like, what? Like that's um that's wild. Um so again, let's let's look at your whole tenure um as as board chair and getting to know your I feel like this is my funeral. Don't worry, you're not you're not dead yet. We need you as as chair of uh this passenger rail committee, and and then maybe we'll uh we'll put you on like the Lincoln train or something. Uh so alright. All right, so one thing I've noticed about your style is you're people driven. Whether we're in Washington, DC, or we're in Florida, or if there's a a business leader who's interested in helping us with passenger rail or working on Link Us, I've noticed you've had a very unique amount of diverse relationships. And uh, how is how did is that something you've cultivated, or is that something that's more natural to you?

SPEAKER_02 20:22

I think just coming from a family small business, you have to be an integrator, right? Like the workday never ends and recreation doesn't begin. Those two lines get infinitely blurred. And so um I was on the phone with a member of a congressional delegation and and at my desk at home. I don't have an office at City Hall at my desk at home, and one of my one of my adult children had stopped by the house to say hi. And, you know, like they they know them, and they can say, oh, hello, congressperson, you know, or and that's just me. I I there's two things. I'm not smart enough to lie because I don't remember who I told what to. So I learned that a long time ago. Don't even try because you'll fail miserably. And secondly, the lines of where work ends and life begins, there's really not a line. Because if you love what you do, you don't ever have to stop doing it. And you would want to bring everyone that is in your sphere together because they're all very important to you and it's genuine. And so I I am not a I I don't turn my phone off at 501. I don't, you know, shut the door and say, I'm done for the day. Because really, it particularly as an elected and local government, you never are.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Well, I think one of your strengths is as well as you're good at like having a leisure component while also still conducting business. Like I have been with you and like we're relaxing, and then I think about a conversation, I'm like, oh wow, we just hit five things on. A to-do list while we were just kind of leisurely having a conversation. I think I think that's a strength.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

I don't know. I uh either that or I just don't have I don't have enough other interests that I keep going back to the same things. Maybe it's just a one-trick pony, I don't know. But I I I love I love the opportunities that I've had and I love where this region is headed. And I tell you, there are so many great leaders around. Um, you know, you there's the occasional bad apple, but I tell you, we have some wonderful, wonderful leaders to glean from.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Yeah. So um one thing I want to give you a shout out on is when you know you started on the board, I think it was around 2019, and then once you became secretary, we started going to Washington, D.C. And we just had our last fly-in a couple months ago. We had eight meetings on the Hill, and we met with every member of our congressional delegation. And I can say, again, working at Warpsey for over a decade, that's never happened. And I think a lot of it has to do with Warpsey's credibility. I also think a lot of it has to do with you. And um, I think you've had that imprint on us in cultivating relationships with other congressional leaders. So I just want to thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Well, I I that's that's kind. I appreciate that. I you know, people want to draw lines and say the good guys sit on this side of the aisle and the bad guys sit on that side of the aisle, and it it fundamentally isn't true. Unfortunately, our culture has has driven us into a binary decision. And it isn't that way because Joyce Beatty is wonderful and she carries the weight and the torch for organizations like Morpsey. Mike Carey is wonderful and he carries the same torch. And, you know, people can only view whatever it is from the perspective that they have. We all sit and we see something from just one direction. And when we have the opportunity to sit around the table that can look at the same object from different directions and describe to us what it looks like from their point of view, and we we need to appreciate that. And they need to appreciate where we see it from, and we need to appreciate where they come from. So the I don't bel I'm not a believer in the good guys and the bad guys. I don't think any parties got it right. I don't think any parties got it uniformally wrong. Um, but again, we are all we all need to be kind of rowing towards the more perfect union to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

I don't know if it's the 250th anniversary. I feel very patriotic talking about this. So let's let's go back to Dublin. What's one thing you're really energetic about? And then what's something that's keeping you up late at night?

SPEAKER_02 24:42

What am I really? Oh well, right now I'm I'm energetic about the 50th anniversary of the Memorial Tournament. We're getting ready to play here in a couple weeks. We had the Legends Luncheon the other day and just heard some you know great stories about the kids that are healed at nationwide children's hospital as a result of the fundraising that that organization does. And um, that is very exciting. And to bring the world's top talent, when Jim Nance can say on a Sunday afternoon, hello friends, yeah, welcome to Dublin, Ohio. Yeah. I I totally did that. I didn't do that any justice. But when you get to be a community that they're talking about and they're showing images of your river and your bridges and your restaurants and your community, um, that is energizing. Um but there's so many other things. We'll have the Irish Festival, we'll have the Fourth of July, it's gonna be a wonderful, wonderful season or a year in the city. What keeps me up at night is public safety. Um because that is the number one thing that we do. Uh that is the essential core role of government is to keep its residents safe. And you know, in this environment, um that keeps me up at night. I don't because you you just don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

So again, let's let's look at your your morpsey history. Um what's a like as your time as board chair, what's what's a favorite morpsey story that you have or something that you got accomplished? Like what what sticks out?

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Well, those are different questions.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

So what's your favorite morpsey story? Let's start with that.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

My favorite morpsey story is I'm gonna tell on you.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Oh, goodness.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

We had we had a meeting with a member of our congressional district who had uh who had to expedite quickly, and you were so kind, and you and you were so committed to to just to being green and being a good steward of expenditures that you finished a member of the congressional delegation's beer. And then you proceeded to tell the next day, and when we were with them in an office visit, that you finished their beer the night before. And I thought, that is, I love Joe Garrety because one, not many people would do that. Most of us would think about it, but not necessarily do it. And two, just own it the next day. And I love the way you own you, because you do a great job. I will say the Hill visits that we make, you attribute them meeting with us to me, I would flip that around and I would attribute it to you. Because the preparation that you do every time we walk into one of these meetings, they open this, it goes like this, and they open up their binder and they're like, wow, this is you, I don't even have to do anything. You did all of my work for me. And it's because of you. The preparation that you do in preparing us to look good is cannot be under, cannot be overstated, um, because that is incredible value. And I think that's why they meet with us, because they know that we're going to come and we're going to be incredibly prepared, and we're going to do their work for them, and so that they can see this 15-county region that is Morpsey, and they can say, these are the priorities that this organization all voted on and got behind, and this is their speaking with us, speaking to us with one voice. That's incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Mayor, that that means the world to me uh hearing that come from you. We have a fantastic team that puts together competitive advantage projects and bringing that investment back, um, I'm happy to go out there to compete for investment back to the region to make our region a better place. And every now and then I'm happy to uh to carry something for uh a certain member from from time to time. But um we close every episode with with a question, and you know, when you look at Central Ohio in 2050, um like how do you think it's going to be built? And and what role does Dublin have to play in making 2050 uh a better possibility for our region?

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Well, I think that Dublin has a significant role to play. We we have our objective in everything we do is to lead. Um to lead and sometimes that means failing. And we think that that is a bad thing, but we often learn so much more from our failures than from our successes. So if we wanted to take the passenger rail example, um, you know, that corridor started with studying Hyperloop. And Dana McDaniel, our previous city manager and I, we'd gone out to the Las Vegas, Nevada desert, and we saw Virgin Hyperloop. And we realized that these tracks ran along the western border of our community, and so we started investing in studying that corridor. Well, Virgin Hyperloop isn't going to likely build on those rail tracks in in my lifetime. That doesn't mean it was a failure because all of the work that was done and the studies that were done were environmental studies and right-of-way studies and topography and all of those sorts of things which completely feed into the passenger rail study that we're doing now. So, what do I see? What do I hope I see in 2050? I hope I see a region that has a great morpsey because that means they're still caring for each other and that every community, and we we just voted on our 98th or 97th member, and I hope that that number is bigger than 97. I hope that we're still caring about every single person that is a member. I hope that we have great transit options. I hope that we have light rail. I hope that we have passenger rail. I hope that we have all sorts of transit options. Maybe we'll have little helicopters that take people around. I I don't know. Um, but I hope that we're still leaning in. I hope we still have our shoulder trying to get the door wider, more wide open for opportunity for everybody that lives here. And I think in the city of Dublin, you know, to those who have been trusted much with much, much will be expected. Um and I think that we need to carry that torch forward and continue to lean in.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

No, I I think that's a good place to stop, but I I also just want to say that spirit of not being afraid to fail. I know I have been in many a room with you before, whether it's something like Link Us or something like passenger rail, and we'll hear uh a civic leader or someone say, Well, if we fail, we can't go to bat again. And that's not your style. It's you get up and you try again. Yeah, and that's swing harder. Yeah, and that that that reminds me a little bit of your background in athleticism. So let's close on this is you're an athlete. So you I not really you walked you walked into Ohio State Women's Basketball.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Oh, yeah, that's a practice squad. That was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

And then you are a uh a golfer, and I know you get up bright and early in the morning for walks or Peloton rides. Let's close on this. Is you have that capitalistic instinct of competition and athleticism. Uh, how has that shaped you?

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Oh gosh, I think when you learn to compete as a team on a team, that is a great life lesson for everything that you do. You know, we talk about size of high schools and all of those sorts of things in in various communities, and you know, uh there should be as many captains of of any sport that can be. There needs to be as many first-chair clarinets as we can possibly have. There needs to be as many leads in the class play as we can, because those teach you not only a lot about other people, but they teach you more about yourself. Um But I I do, I love the game of golf. I try to walk every round that I play because it's a quiet place. Um and there's just not a lot of people there. And as much as I do love people, I like a respite as well. And that's that's probably where I go to be quiet.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah, and I can vouch it. Let's go back to you answering the phone after 501 p.m. You've answered uh many a phone call on the golf course before.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

So Yes, so I I typically will have an ear pod in, and if the phone rings, I you know what, if you put there's so many things that happen in a given day, if you put them all off for a period of time, they're just gonna stack up so high that you're never going to get them done. So I take them as they come.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Mayor Chris Amrus Grims, it's been so much fun having you as our board chair. I'm excited that you're gonna continue serving on our executive committee and as mayor of Dublin and uh on all things passenger rail and the passenger rail committee.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Well, it has been uh certainly an honor of a career to be uh the board chair of the of Morpsey. And um for all of those people that endured my harebrained schemes like yourself and William, uh I am forever indebted because I learned a whole lot and it has made me a better person.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

The feeling is more than neutral. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Thank you.