City Energy Savings...

With Earth Day right around the corner it seemed appropriate to share an update on the status of the City’s energy conservation efforts.

Thanks to some tips from Kent State University, about 4 years ago the City hired an engineering firm that specializes in helping clients reduce their energy consumption through smart technology investments that promised to replace the old energy hogs that are still rattling around in City buildings with modern, lean and mean high efficiency units.

From lighting to heating and air conditioning, the professional firm put City building utilities through an audit ringer and came out the other side with a list of units that needed to be upgraded ASAP.   The firm produced some excellent spreadsheets that ran the numbers out 5-10 years and showed how the City’s front end investment in upgrades would pay off in 5-7 years from utility bill savings.

Looking at reducing our carbon footprint and saving money the City jumped on board with both feet.  It turns out we timed our jump just right and before our feet hit the deck running we found a couple of grant sources, including Federal stimulus dollars, that paid our up-front costs on our behalf — leaving us to enjoy immediate savings on our City utility bills from day one.

It’s been a couple of years since the energy firm roamed the halls replacing light bulbs, thermostats and anything else that they could find along the way that wasn’t bolted down and the City has watched our bills drop more each year as the technology upgrades went online.

The City’s Public Service Director sent around a couple of nice summary charts that illustrated the success of the City’s energy conservation efforts:

If you spent time digging through the specific data you’d find utility savings in every City building but with the Water Plant and Water Reclamation Plant consuming 70% of the total energy demand in City buildings the biggest bang for our buck came at those facilities.

City staff are proud to be adding to Kent’s environmental legacy with these energy improvements.  Maybe it’s time to pull out the pair of 1970′s faded bell bottoms with the ”First City to Recycle in Ohio” patch on it and add a badge for energy conservation.

Plum Creek Success Story...

Back in 2011, the City of Kent was awarded the Government Project of the Year Award by the Ohio Stormwater Association for the Plum Creek Restoration Project. 

The goal of the project was to save a stream that had been dammed-up for years and was suffocating from a lack of oxygen in the stagnant water.  

The City staff put together an ambituous intervention plan that sought to restore the natural meandering stream and release the free flow of water in order to pump up the oxygen level that is so critical to supporting healthy acquatic life.   

The plan looked great on paper and it looks great after construction.  The question has been, is it working?

The Ohio EPA came back into town in September of this year to run some follow up tests on water quality and acquatic life to try to answer that question.  We received word this week that the EPA results for Plum Creek were great. 

Just 2 years ago there were almost no fish surviving in Plum Creek but as of September of this year the EPA counted over 2,000 fish and 19 different species. 

The acquatic life rating was found to be excellent and the EPA noted that our project turned out to be one of the most successful restoration projects they have worked on. 

Below is the official press release that the City’s Public Service Director released to spread the good news. 

Blooming Thoughts on Farmers’ Market Mural...

A couple of seeds already sprouted from my Wednesday post on the Farmers’ Market Mural Celebration so here’s an update on the Winter Farmers’ Market hours and a fantastic animated poem written by Kent 3rd graders who were inspired by the local farm fresh food.   

Let’s start with the animated poem since it is too good to keep waiting and is such a great example of town gown partnerships.   

Earlier this Spring 3rd grade students at Holden Elementary School scripted a poem that they entitled Blooming thoughts that celebrates the spirit of local food and farms.  The poem was such a good fit with the spirit of the new Mural that lines of the poem were incorporated into the Mural for everyone to enjoy.   

The lines of this poem are now part of the Haymaker Farmers’ Market Mural and thanks to the Wick Poetry Center and others at Kent State University, they have been digitally animated with student voice-over in a format that can be shared all over the world. 

Do yourself a favor and take a minute to view the animation and listen to the poem read by a child — it’s really, really good at making you smile. 

Everyone is invited to visit the Haymaker Farmers’ Market on Saturday, October 27 from 9:30-10am to hear the Holden Elementary School poets read their poem.   Posters and note cards featuring the poem are available for purchase through Wick Poetry Center, and a series of note cards with details of the mural artwork will be available for purchase next season.

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In case you’re worried about symptoms of Farmers’ Market withdrawal with the wrap up of the outdoor season, fear not, the Haymaker Market is moving indoors to get you through the winter season.  Here’s the details:

Haymaker Farmers’ Market Mural Ceremony...

Great News:  Our good friends at the Haymaker Farmers’ Market have announced a welcoming ceremony for the official unveiling of the Market Mural for Saturday, October 27th at 9:30 am.

The mural is a great example of using public art to express our community values — in this case tapping into Kent’s green roots and cheerleading for locally grown fresh food.  The support columns for the Haymaker Parkway bridge have never looked better.

The less great news is that the local growing season is wrapping up this weekend.  I hate officially admitting the end of the Summer and Fall, but Mother Nature leaves me no choice and I have to report that this will be the final outdoor Farmers’ Market of the year.   But don’t distress, I’m sure it won’t be long before the Market announces their indoor winter market hours and location.

In the meantime, enjoy the last taste of the season and help celebrate the latest addition to Kent’s public art family.

Here’s the schedule of events for Saturday’s ceremony:

9:30-10:00 You’ll hear from:

• Fritz Seefeldt, market founder and manager for 18 years, who had the original idea for the mural

• Elaine Hullihen, fine artist, who turned the idea into a visual feast

• David Hassler who believed in the project as a major sponsor, and shared the Wick Poetry Center’s partnership with Holden Elementary School students to create a poem for the mural

• Holden Elementary Students, who will read their poem, Blooming Thoughts

10:00-noon free live music with Elliot Ingersoll

12:30 – 3:00 Food & Seed Swap

The Market Manager says she hopes you’ll join with your friends and neighbors to get to know the local food community a little better and if you want to participate in the food swap plan to bring at least 6 items. Items may include any type of homemade, home grown, or foraged food items, and any type of seed for exchange. Please label every unit clearly with your name, the name of product, and ingredients.

She says she will have tables set up near the market info table, where you may drop off your items starting at 12:30. You will need to sign in and fill out a name tag and a swap sheet, which will both be provided. Swap will begin at about 1:15. Lizette Royer of Barton Gardens will be on hand to help – she’s an experienced food swapper.

What’s a food swap? Take a look at the information here: http://www.foodswapnetwork.com/what-is-a-food-swap/

WHEN:  October 27, 2012

WHERE:  Haymaker Farmers’ Market, Franklin Ave. & Summit St. Kent, Ohio

City and Haymaker Farmer’s Market Recieve Gr...

Farmers have been digging in the dirt to grow produce for centuries and history tells us that it was their success in sustaining human populations that led our ancestors to abandon their nomadic ways for a more communal lifestyle, giving birth to villages, towns and later cities like Kent.

A lot has changed through the centuries but local farmers are still digging in the dirt and sustaining us, contributing to a more modern community lifestyle — they’ve just been re-branded to become hip Farmer’s Markets.

These days it seems that nothing shows your community green colors better than all the greens you can buy at the Farmer’s Market.  Farmer’s Markets are in and overalls are trendy, so communities are racing to have a Farmer’s Market to showcase their commitment to sustainability.  Oh yeah, and to sell some home grown food as well.

Whatever the motivation behind the recent proliferation of shiny new Farmer’s Markets, I’m really proud of Kent’s Haymaker Farmer’s Market that remains true to its grass roots.  The Haymaker Market was serving the Kent community long before Farmer’s Markets were cool and that grass roots vibe continues to be a central theme to what they do today.

When it seems like so many of the newer Markets are using their popularity to charge more and cater to a higher end crowd, Kent’s Haymaker Market is actually stepping back and making sure that no family gets left behind in the local foods movement.

And thanks to a new $38,000 grant award announced last week, the Haymaker Market is reaching out to the other end of the socio-economic demographic that doesn’t look like they’re straight out of a trendy outdoor magazine arriving at the Market with their black lab and a supersized sport utility vehicle.  

The Haymaker Market is taking the rather unhip step of offering low income families a way to purchase healthy, fresh produce using government assistance cash.

In partnership with the Haymaker Farmer’s Market, the City of Kent received a grant award of $38,855 for its “Expanding Use of Existing EBT in Kent Food Desert” proposal.   EBT translates into electronic benefits transfer, which is a politically correct way of saying it’s a debit card that draws from government funded programs for low income families.  It’s a bit like a digital version of food stamps.

Thanks to the grant funds, the Haymaker Farmer’s Market will be able to expand low income food options to include items available for purchase at the Farmer’s Market using an EBT card.  The grant will enable the market to promote and expand the use of the EBT card so that low income families can buy healthier foods that were grown locally.

Operating on a belief that healthy foods shouldn’t be limited to high income families, the Haymaker Market is making sure that their Market keeps its strong sense of social conscience.  Maybe that’s not cool yet, but its definitely the right thing to do — and that’s what the Haymaker Farmer’s Market does best.

Kent Bike Shops...

I admit it’s a personal bias but I tend to measure community retail success by how many bike shops are in town — and things are looking great now that we have 2 bike shops that serve the Kent market.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a bike rider and I spend (too much) money on bikes and bike paraphenalia so I’m a big fan of local bike shops and they tend to be big fans of mine too.  It’s a relationship based on mutual satisfaction.

Until about a year ago, buying bike stuff mean’t driving to another community and spending my local dollars to support their economy rather than ours.  I’m a believer in supporting our region but I’d still to prefer to support Kent first – and now that I have two local bike shops I feel much less guilt over indulging my bike spending habits.

The local bike shops have opened up a whole new line of rationale for me – “yes honey, it was expensive, but I’m supporting a Kent business — isn’t that a cause worthy of my support?”

The first shop to open in our market, The Portage Cyclery, is technically about 1 mile outside the Kent border in the Franklin Township (but I still manage to argue that the retail market could care less about whether that’s in the incorporated boundaries of Kent or not, it’s a part of greater Kent).

Inside View of the Portage Cyclery Shop

Plus, the owners of the Portage Cyclery searched long and hard for a downtown Kent location to open their business but with all the new stuff going in downtown they couldn’t find a spot that would work so they ended up in a location along SR59 that really turned out to be perfect.  They get an A for effort and I feel a civic duty to reward them with my business.

The other more recent shop, Kent Cycle, opened at the end of Lake Street (near the trail head to the hike and bike path at Crain Avenue) but they’ve also announced their plans to be a part of the old hotel retail mix on Main Street across from the Kent Stage as soon as that space is fully renovated (likely by the end of this year).

Inside View of Kent Cycle

Are two shops redundant?  Heck no, you can never have enough bike shops.  Each shop tends to cater to the part of the bike market that is most in their wheelhouse.

Kent Cycles has a retro, almost hippy vibe going on, with lots of bikes at prices that any good environmental steward can afford and would be proud to ride.  Portage Cyclery has a little more retail space to work with and that means they have room to carry more bikes, not only at the modest end of the price spectrum but also more high end stuff.

The bike shop business runs on paper thin margins so both bike shops know they have to have something for everyone but each shop still manages to have its own style and feel.

I’ve always said that one of the best parts about Kent is all the choices it offers, and now the same can be said for retail bike shops.

But don’t take my word for it, check out the shops for yourself.

Water Improvements...

Last week City Council held a spirited community discussion on fracking.

The standing room only crowd was testament to the level of interest in the prospective economic and environmental impacts from this rapidly growing industry in our region.

No doubt Ohio is poised to benefit from the kind of economic resurgence that Texas enjoyed for the last decade — the question everyone seems to be wrestling with is can the drilling boom be done in an environmentally safe manner, particularly as it relates to protecting our precious water supply.

Big question, high stakes, and unfortunately no easy answers.

We’ll keep working with the State (since they regulate the oil and gas industry), local businesses (who are seeing job numbers grow to support the demands of this rapidly growing industry) and the residents (that want more jobs, just not at the risk of sacrificing Kent’s water supply) to come up with the best answers we can, but in the meantime the City will keep doing what it does best — protecting our water resources and delivering great tasting water to your home every day.

I know Fracking is a big news story, and for good reason, but I’d still argue that some of the most important water protection work goes largely unnoticed every day by the Kent City employees that operate the water plant, test water samples, repair pipes and pumps, and guard our raw water aquifer at all costs.

Anything that gets done well 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is easy to be taken for granted, and for me, the whole discussion of fracking serves as a reminder for how important and how well the City employees manage our water system.

Taking care of the City’s water gets done every day but there’s nothing routine about it.  If commitment is judged by what people do, not just what they say, I can make a good case that no one is more committed to protecting and preserving Kent’s water system than Kent’s employees.  We spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours as the stewards of Kent’s water resources and the fact that we consistently rate as one of the best tasting water in the U.S. is a real point of pride to our employees.

And it should be for all of us that drink it every day too.

So, as boring as it might sound, we’re getting ready to begin the Middlebury Road Waterline project this month.  It doesn’t have much drama but its arguably very important to anyone that turns their faucet and expects safe, good tasting water.

Here’s a few project details:

The City will begin construction of the Middlebury Road Waterline project in April 2012 and be complete by November 2012.  The waterline work will include the replacement of an existing 6″ waterline with a new 8″ waterline on Middlebury Road from Akron boulevard to Longmere Drive.

The project will also replace an existing 2″ waterline with a new 8″ waterline on Munroe-Falls-Kent Road from Middlebury Road to Roosevelt Avenue.

It turns out that the City of Kent Service Department has recorded 17 total waterline breaks along the existing Middlebury Road watermain since the year 2000. The City’s Central Maintenance Department has been responding to the frequent breaks and here’s a map that shows the locations of the trouble spots:

Approximately 3,800 feet of water main replacement is proposed.  This project will tie into the new Middlebury/Cherry water main and continue northeast along Middlebury Road, terminating with a connection into the Longmere Drive watermain.  The new 8 inch ductile iron pipe will be wrapped in plastic to protect it from corrosive soils.

Boring but effective.

That’s our motto.

Haymaker Farmer’s Market...

Periodically here on the blog I try to give a friendly shout out to my favorite farmer’s market — the Haymaker Farmer’s Market – so here I go again.

The market may be closed for the season but the folks that run it are always hard at work making plans to make it better.

There’s a team of staff from my office and other departments that are working closely with representatives from the Haymaker’s Farmer Market, KSU, and a local aquaponics group, to apply for a grant to expand the farmer’s market, increase advertising and marketing of the market, and better integrate the local food with local restaurants here in Kent.

It’s an ambitious effort but we’re convinced that with everything that’s happening downtown now is the time to go after funds to elevate the market to the next level with the ultimate goal of eventually finding a location to host the market year round.

One of the models that we’re using is an organization called LocalRoots in Wooster Ohio (http://localrootswooster.com/ ).  Our grant request will go to Council for discussion in the next couple of months but I wanted to give a little preview of the effort.

Also, it appears that the farmer’s market is closing in on the fund raising goal to pay for the mural that was proposed for underneath the Haymaker Parkway; you can refer to this link for further information on their fund raising and to make your own contribution to a great cause.  http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f1036a317185939ad45f415d8&id=4bbb8a42ce&e=1d2be891cf

Kent $1.3 Million Grant Award...

Typically when my phone rings late on Friday afternoon with an urgent message it’s usually not good news but after today I’ll never view Friday calls the same.

This afternoon I received a call from Dan Smith, Kent’s Economic Director, on his way back from the State hearing where our Clean Ohio grant application for $1.34 million was up for consideration.   Of course the cell phone connection cut off just as Dan was about to tell me the results of the grant review.  

Seriously, it was like a scene from a bad sit com.  I kept trying to call him back, text him, anything to find out what happened.  Nothing for about 20 minutes — at which time I was ready to fire him, but fortunately for both of us, he finally called me back with great news – our grant request was fully funded at $1.34 million.

This was an extremely important grant because it knocks down the first domino in a series that we’re hoping leads to many new business and new jobs in Kent. 

Here’s the domino chain: 

- By getting the grant, we can now proceed to work with the property owner on the final soil clean up at the old RB&W site on Mogadore Road.   

- The grant funds bring enough new capital to the deal to allow the environmental work to be done so that the site can be transferred to the City for redevelopment. 

- The City can then work with a business prospect that has some interest in the location.

- We hope to then package the new business prospect as an anchor tenant in our application for additional State Economic Development Funds which would help us finance phase 1 of the Great Atlantic and Western Business Park.

- The Business Park would serve as a business innovation and incubation center to help emerging technology companies — particularly those companies that spin out of the research from Kent State Univeristy – get a jump start on commercialization of their new products.

- As new businesses graduate out of the early incubation phases of the Business Park we hope to expand the Business Park into a linear advanced materials industrial production hub that extends through the old Kent railroad corridor heading south all the way out to Brimfield creating new clusters of technology based businesses.        

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Receiving $1.34 million is always a great thing but getting $1.34 million to knock down the first domino that sets our industrial corridor strategy in motion is fantastic.  

Here’s a little more insight into the corridor development strategy (and how it builds off our downtown redevelopment efforts and Kent State University) that we’ve been working on for years now. 

Industrial Corridor Development
The industrial development corridor (also called the production corridor in the map below, green shading)  extends from downtown Kent and runs along the rail lines out to Interstate 76.  The City’s industrial development plans create a hub and spoke framework, with the Kent central business district and Kent State University serving as the hub, and business clusters extending outwards through the utility corridors to form the spines of industry activity. 

The City’s business development strategy is built on the premise that innovation and business growth enjoy a competitive advantage in places where the specialties of research, technology, commerce and culture are given opportunities to converge.  The goal is to create a shared physical environment where people will gather, ideas will cross-pollinate, and innovation becomes a way of life. 

Kent supplies that shared space in its vibrant downtown, on the Kent State University campus, in business incubators, and in the many recreational, cultural and social opportunities provided in the Kent community.  

The strategy aims to align city, university, and business assets in such a way that Kent, as a place, can be a catalyst for an economic revival that creates jobs, inspires new technologies, spawns entrepreneurship, and keeps Kent the kind of place people are proud to call home. Simply stated the strategy seeks to put Kent’s assets to work for the local, regional and state community.

The goal is to unlock the opportunities of Kent and jump start the region-wide rebuilding  process  for  sustainable  economic  growth  irrespective  of  the  highs  and  lows  off business cycles.  Kent’s investments are positioning Kent to be the flagship for the new economy where innovation, entrepreneurship, global reach and leading edge research technology are the drivers of economic success. 

Kent is seeking to affirm its role as a place that attracts and retains people and businesses who seek out the energy and culture unique to university locations; seeding the pipeline for emerging business opportunities that generate real growth in the local and regional economy.

The close proximity and connectivity of the industrial corridor to Kent’s downtown and Kent State University puts the Mogadore site in a position to be a catalyst for economic renewal, making this grant one of the most important domino’s we’ve tipped in a long time.

Kent Sustainability...

One of the founding principles of Kent’s Bicentennial Plan was sustainability. 

In the Plan, sustainability had broad shoulders holding up goals for environmental sustainability, social sustainability and even fiscal sustainability. 

With such a broad reach, sustainability initiatives can be tough to pin down.  The good news is the Bicentennial Plan recognized that challenge and came up with a to do list for each of the sustainability categories. 

The City, sustainability-minded volunteers, the University and Kent businesses have been quietly going about the work of achieving those initial goals (see the latest sustainability status report), adding new ones along the way as the first batch get accomplished. 

Sustainability is still probably most closely associated with environmental preservation, protection, and restoration — and one of the most effective environmental movers and shakers through the years has been the Kent Environmental Council. 

This 1970′s community organization may not be as young as it used to be but its membership is still as environmentally committed as ever with local projects big and small.  Education and sharing information remains one of their top priorities and they have announced the 2011 Kent Environmental Council Fall Forum, titled (appropriately) — “Kent Sustainability?” 

The Forum will be held Thursday, November 10, from 7-9pm at the United Church of Christ, 1400 E. Main St., Kent.

The featured speaker will be David Beach, from the Cleveland Natural History Museum and founder of EcoCity, Cleveland, reporter and author. He will address sustainability with a focus on Northeastern Ohio. His keynote address will be followed by the three aspects of sustainability. Melanie Knowles, Manager of Sustainability at KSU will address Environment. Robert Howard, retired hospital administrator will speak to the issue of Equity and Jack Crews, Kent Regional Business Alliance will address Economics.

For additional information go to http://www.kentenvironment.org/or contact Deb Butler, 330.678.0227.

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As a side note, I noticed that some sustainability minded students had recently completed some clean up work at the Mogadore Reservoir.  Being the young techies that they are, they produced a home grown video to show off the work they did. 

It’s great to see the next generation picking up where the list one left off and on this cloudy rainy day, the fall shots of the Reservoir are worth watching. 

Mogodore Reservoir Video