Kent 360 - Kent, Ohio

Blog of Dave Ruller, Kent City Manager

N Water Street, Better Block Themes

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I blogged a couple weeks ago about a new effort being led by the property owners on N. Water Street (with a little help from the City and Kent State University) to re-imagine the street and to come up with creative ideas to test out as a “Better Block Project” hopefully later this year.

(To get a feel for how Better Block works you can take a look at how the Better Block Foundation helped the residents of North Hill in Arkon re-invent their neighborhood for a weekend).

In the first working session, the imagineers broke into small groups, drew ideas on maps, cut and pasted ideas, and then presented their works of inspiration to the full group.

This week, a few members of the “core team” sat down and reviewed each of the recommendations in order to identify common themes and distill the big picture ideas into a blueprint in hopes for a Better Block test run.

Here’s that list of common themes:

1. Star of the West open area could be used for outdoor activities (stage, seating, cornhole, yoga, jenga, dancing, chess, etc)
2. Mill District branding could be displayed on the Star of the West building (and other locations)
3. Crosswalks at intersection of Columbus & N. Water
4. Crosswalks at intersection of Portage & N. Water
5. Parklet in front of Scribbles Coffee
6. Pop-Up Market in the Hometown Bank parking lot next to Bent Tree Coffee
7. Vacant lot open area used for outdoor activities (across from 257 N. Water Street)
8. Low wall murals/painting in front of houses north of Bent Tree Coffee
9. General: wide use of green space (wall gardens, pocket park, etc)
10: General: wide use of bike racks

These are still just “drawing board” ideas which will have to be worked through if they’re going to make the cut for the Better Block event.

Lots of work yet to be done to figure out how to take these concepts and turn them into “proto-types” to put in the street for a weekend but it’s a great start.

The group welcomes help from anyone that finds this sort of grass roots community based planning fun.  Feel free to contact Harrison at 330 676-7500 to sign up.

Kent Heart & Soul

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Last year Council announced a community wide effort to resume the kinds of community conversations that led to Kent’s Bicentennial Plan in 2003.

This new effort eventually took on the name the OneKent initiative to emphasize the desire to have these conversations enrich the sense of unity and common purpose in the “one” Kent that we all share.

The OneKent drafting board already has a lot of great ideas posted on it — achieving the international Compassionate City designation, welcoming City designation, assisting refugees, celebrating Kent’s people.  With so many ambitious projects to choose from — where do we start?

Fortunately, Kent’s not the only community that holds big goals for the community close to it’s heart.  We found an exceptional template/road map/process that has been used and refined in many communities all across the country — it’s called Community Heart & Soul.

The more we learn about the Heart & Soul process the more convinced I am that it’s exactly what we’re looking for.

Last week we had the pleasure of meeting with a representative from the founders of the Heart & Soul process and I thought I’d share my summary of the meeting that I also shared with City Council to keep them posted of our progress:

Good Afternoon,

I wanted to let you know that this week we met with a representative from the Orton Family Foundation (Leanne) to discuss how to get started using the Heart & Soul template to engage the Kent community in the next round of community conversations and planning.  
 
The foundation representative actually flew in from Burlington Vermont to meet with officials in the City of Medina who are looking to start a Heart & Soul project in their community and since she was in the area we were able to get time with her for about 2.5 hours to talk about Kent.  By the way, she said she’ll also be back in the area in March or April and we suggested that perhaps we can set up a time to meet with each of you too.  She’s worked with literally 100’s of communities across the country so she’s got tons of practical advice and is very pragmatic about the process which we found to be extremely helpful and I think you would too.
 
The one walk away that I didn’t have before talking to Leanne was that Heart & Soul is very intentional about getting input from everyone in the community.  There’s a lot of emphasis on making sure there are no “missing voices” and she used the phrase “no voice gets left behind” as a point of emphasis to distinguish Heart & Soul from more conventional public visioning meetings.  These are not your “grandfather’s” public meetings — most of the data that is collected over the first 6-9 months is done in 2-3 person groups in a casual conversation which they refer to as allowing residents to “tell the Kent story” in their voice and from their perspective.    
 
Then, all those stories are assembled, analyzed, categorized and summarized in a way that they then become the “findings” that are presented in a larger group format for reactions and comments.  Gradually, after many meetings and discussions, the core beliefs, values and aspirational themes of the community begin to emerge, and those then become the targets for the next rounds of brainstorming, creative problem solving and planning projects to make sure those themes are honored and advanced in the community.  
 
One thing that stuck with me is that she said this is not a “sprint” — it’s a long, deliberate and slow process by design but she said that it is imperative to not short circuit that process and try to jump right in to the final stages of problem solving as tempting as that may be.  She emphasized that the slow deliberate process helps build relationships in the community as people share and tell their stories, and it’s those relationships that will pay the greatest dividends so we have to be patient enough to allow the time necessary for those relationships to evolve.  
 
There’s far too much that we learned in our meeting with Leanne to capture in an email but I wanted to give you a flavor of the conversation and let you know that we’re still working on defining the next steps we need to take.  Leanne made it very clear that one of the most important tasks for us will be finding and recruiting a core team of residents to lead this effort.  We don’t have to have a list of names yet but we should probably start thinking about who we think should or could be on that list.

Taking Out the Trash

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Kent’s Health Commissioner and his staff have worked hard to step up their attention to proper trash handling in City neighborhoods and it’s encouraging to see things looking better than ever before — but there’s still room to improve and at the recommendation of the Health Department, City Council approved a new set of regulations, tickets, and fines that can be used at properties of repeat offenders who choose week-in and week-out to ignore basic trash storage and containerization requirements.

The Health Department made their recommendations to up the ante on trash compliance because they’ve received an increasing number of trash complaints called in during 2014 — with many of the TrashPiccomplaints coming from neighbors living near properties that have become chronic violators.  It was time to try something different and bring those neighborhoods some relief.

Improper handling of trash can lead to a long list of troubles from unsanitary conditions and the types of vermin and problems it attracts.  Not to mention it’s an unsightly nuisance when it’s spread all over front yards rather than in trash cans where it’s supposed to be.

The Health Department doesn’t want to play the role of trash police but when all else fails there needs to be some recourse to protect neighborhoods and that’s where the new tickets and fines will come into play.

Despite what cynics might suggest, the tickets are not a money maker for the Health Department and they’re truly are a measure of last resort.  The Health Department will not go looking for problems but when they receive a complaint there’s an expectation that they have the tools needed to fix it.

Fixing something on private property is always tricky and everyone is happiest when a knock on the door and a little education produces the results everyone was hoping for but not everything goes that smoothly and for those cases that require a little extra push, the new ticketing system should go a long way.

That’s a bit of the logic behind the new trash tickets and here’s more details supplied by the Health Department (you can also jump to the Kent Health Department Web Site to read more by clicking here).

NewTrashRegs1

NewTrashRegs2

 

 

 

 

 

Kent Community Liaison On-Line

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The Kent State University Graduate Assistant, Neal Stefanko, who was hired to serve as the Kent community’s first neighborhood liaison has been a busy guy.  This Fall Neal walked his beat — those neighborhoods that are predominantly student rentals — to introduce himself, to listen and to get a lay of the land. 

Bridging the town gown gap is not an easy task, but by all accounts Neal has navigated these waters very well.  And although we were realistic in our expectations for what he could accomplish in his first 6 months, I still think he’s done a great job at communicating with the neighbors and I think it’s working. 

With a couple of long warm stretches late into Fall there were plenty of late night outdoor festivities in the neighborhoods that could have turned ugly but at the end of the night the revelers went home on their own usually without a police escort — which is always a good thing for everyone involved. 

I can’t say that Neal is the reason we had a safe and civil Fall but I think it’s fair to say that his personal touch has helped take some of the edge off of the town gown relations. 

Neal let me know that he’s uploaded information for folks to access and download that he thinks offer the kind of sound advice that students and permanent residents need to know.  Here’s the welcome message that Neal posted on his site as part of his first neighborhood newsletter called the Kent Communicator:

Welcome to “The Kent Communicator!”

My name is Neal Stefanko and I am the University-Community Liaison and I would like to welcome you to the new “The Kent Communicator.” First, let me explain my position. I am a vital communication tool that will be used between Kent State University and The City of Kent Community. One way I am working to obtaining communication has been to walk through the community going door to door talking to residents and students. Throughout this process I am pleased to say I am enjoying meeting everyone and look forward to meeting those residents and students that I have not yet met. The feedback I am receiving will help in my position continue to make informed communications and educate where needed to obtain a well balanced approach to the University and Community residing in harmony.

Second, I want to welcome everyone to “The Kent Communicator”. This newsletter will be of great value to students and residents alike. Every article will be vital information for students and residents with emphasis on important issues that are needed to help educate and inform students and residents alike. There will be a blend of information streaming from University and Community sources. As this newsletter continues to grow I would encourage anyone and everyone to submit ideas or articles to my email. This may include pictures and graphs or any other information that would be considered vital for everyone from students to community to read about.

In closing, I welcome your feedback at anytime. Feel free to contact me at UniversityCommunityLiaison@kent.edu or 330-672-2480. I cannot wait to hear many more good stories about our amazing student body as well as the opportunity to answer your questions.

Sincerely

Neal A. Stefanko
University-Community Liaison

You can read the entire newsletter by clicking here.  (I particularly like his column on How to Get Caught By the Police — good message delivered with a sense of humor.)

2009 Community Development Block Grant Report

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The City staff in the Community Development Department have wrapped up their 2009 Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report — called the CAPER — and they’ll be submitting it to HUD this week. 
 
The report documents how we spent the Federal HUD dollars to achieve the purposes of serving the needs of low and moderate income families in our community neighborhoods.
 
As a Federal report, this document is chock full of details — which is great for accounting of the funds, but it’s less great when it comes to readability (if you’re counting, it weighs in at over 130 pages).  So for those that just want to know the important stuff we put together a 2 page summary, which is shown below. 
 
Also, it’s worth pointing out that a related new program, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), is not covered in this report, but its accomplishments for last year include:
  • City identified 9 properties for demolition.
  • 6 of the 9 properties have been cleared by the courts for demolition and 5 of them are expected to be demolished by December.  Remaining 3 properties still awaiting court action.
  • City entered into contract with developer for the construction of 3 new residential structures.  Construction expected to begin in early spring 2011. 

Here’s the CAPER Executive Summary:

Contact

Contact me: Dave Ruller: RullerD@kent-ohio.org