Discarding Drugs...

Cabinets full of expired or unneeded medications?  Not sure what to do with them?  The Portage County Sheriff’s Office can help. 

It turns out that this Saturday, October 29th, the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, in collaboration with Portage County Water Resources Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration, is giving the public an opportunity to safely discard unused and unwanted prescription drugs.

Halloween In Kent...

The late night downtown Halloween festivities tend to draw the most attention but there’s a lot of other good old fashioned Halloweening that goes on around Kent. 

Last weekend Kent Parks and Recreation held their Haunted Hayrides (a big hit with the under 10 crowd) and this Friday, October 28, Main Street Kent is hosting their Family Friendly Halloween activities from 5pm to 8pm in downtown Kent. 

Here’s the details:

But wait, there’s more — and in very Halloween fashion its found in unexpected places. 

It turns out that Kent State University will open the doors to the Recreation Facility for a Haunted wRECk event for children ages 12 and under on Thursday, Oct. 27 from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.  — read the details in their press release below.    

Halloween Comes Early to Kent State University

Kent, OH – The Student Recreation and Wellness Center (SRWC) and Ice Arena at Kent State University will be celebrating Halloween with their annual event, Haunted wRECk, on Thursday, Oct. 27 from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Haunted wRECk is a free trick-or-treat costume party designed for children 12 and under and includes nine themed areas to explore and collect candy!

The festive night starts with Halloween crafts and a scary photo booth. Participants may park at the SRWC for free from 5 – 9 p.m. Ghoul guides will then escort guests through a spooky tour of each area. Visitors can hitch a ride on the Spooky Express to the Ice Arena to hear the rest of the story and for the “Greeks, Ghouls and Goblins Pit Stop.” The pit stop is part of a combined effort with Kent State’s fraternities and sororities to provide a safe environment for children to trick-to-treat. Each Greek chapter will decorate a car in the parking lot and participants will collect candy when visiting each one. After the final decorated area at the Ice Arena, visitors are welcome to stay for a free food and ice-skating.

On the ride back to the SRWC, participants are invited to judge a staff decorating competition by voting for their favorite themed area. While there is no fee for this event, nonperishable food items would be greatly appreciated. All donations will be given to the United Way.

For more information about the event, please visit our website at www.kent.edu/recservices/hauntedwreck.

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And last but not least, the City of Kent officially hosts traditional trick or treating in City neighborhoods on Sunday, October 30th from 3 pm to 5 pm.  Houses with their lights on have goodies for every little ghost and goblin. 

Sugar will be in abundance for the next 4 days in Kent. 

Have fun and stay safe. 

Fairchild Bridge Opening...

It’s official, the new Fairchild Avenue Bridge will go into service at 8:30 am on Thursday, October 27. 

The engineers sent word around on Tuesday that the final touches should be done on Wednesday so the bridge could be opened on Thursday.  Being engineers, the bridge opening was just another task on the work schedule that followed after item 5,643 (remove the barricades on the bridge) — so when we heard the good news we intervened and added cut ribbon and take photos to their task list.

The bridge opening has been a long time coming, and as the largest bridge project in the history of Portage County, it seemed worthy of a momentary celebration, a few snips of the scissors and pictures for posterity. 

I know, it sounds a bit dramatic — yes, it’s just a bridge after all — but if you knew how much work went into getting to this point, you’d raise a toast to the engineers and everyone involved in this project.  We can’t do that on company time so we’ll settle for some ribbons and pictures — saving the bottle popping and toasting for a little later. 

Technically, the project still has a lot more work to go.  Most immediately we’ve got some more signal work that needs to be finished before the Crain Avenue connection can be re-opened, so at least until next Monday the new bridge will only be open to Water Street.

Then the old bridge will come down and we’ll build a new hike and bike bridge in it’s place.  The roadway alignments still need some work and all of the green space, including the park like landscaping and the stormwater features all have to be built next year.  

But those are tomorrow’s worries, today we celebrate the bridge opening.

Dowtown Kent Cider Fest...

It’s time for the annual Downtown Kent Cider Fest which means Fall has officially arrived.

Here’s the event announcement from the good folks at the Standing Rock Gallery that have made this an event not to be missed for 8 years running.   

-Magic Show with “The Great Brad” at Noon.

-Old Time Music performed by The Kent Shindig All-Stars (Weather Permitting), 1:00pm. featuring champion flatfoot dancer Charlie Burton of Beaver County, PA and flatfoot dancer Lori Jo Folger

-Baked Goods for sale

-Children’s Activities

-Amazing and Unique Kent Businesses Open to Serve You

-and more!!!

WHEN: Saturday, October 22nd, 2011. Noon to 3pm

WHERE: Home Savings Plaza, corner of Main (59) & Water (43) Streets, Downtown Kent

ADMISSION: Free and Open to the Public

-There is a charge for cider, baked goods, and other vendor food items

Small Town Connections...

In an era dominated by big box retail and 24-hour infomercials, the personal touch seems to be a lost art.  Press 1 for billing…2 for a listing of our hours…3 for returns…4 for directions…5 to start all over again.

If you’re tired of feeling like the hamster on the flywheel, take solace in knowing that Kent’s mom and pop merchants offer first rate products with old time service. 

Kent’s merchants may not have all the consumer data and merchandising formulas like the big guys, but that’s ok because it’s the local nuances and imperfections that give Kent’s shops their home grown sensibility. 

It’s from that hometown heart that I share a notice from MOMS (aka Miracle on Main Street) announcing their partnership with the Main Street Gourmet to help raise funds and awareness of breast cancer. 

I know that the MOMS announcement is hardly a newsflash since this is breast cancer awareness month nationwide, and I know that many of the corporate giants have lined up with their support too, but somehow I thought the MOMS free muffin offer on purchases over $50 had a great small town ring to it. 

Sure, it’s part shameless promotion, but that’s part of the charm of mom and pop marketing — what they lack in style that more they make up in substance. 

Moms and muffins, it doesn’t get any more home town than that.

Aquaponics...

Nothing says local food better than something you grow for yourself, and now, thanks to a little help from an internationally acclaimed expert, Kent is getting a new look at home grown food that is compliments of Aquaponics.

If you’re having an Aqua-what? moment, then you’re a perfect candidate for either of the information sessions being held on October 28th and October 29th here in Kent.  See for yourself. 

 
This is the kind of eco-cool stuff that is popping up all over Kent.  But it’s only cool if you take advantage of the opportunity, so sign up and join the movement. 

Haymaker Farmer’s Market...

With 19 years of selling local goods and produce, the Haymaker Farmer’s Market in downtown Kent is hardly the new guy on the block but year 19 was a year of transition as Fritz and his wife handed the reigns off to Kelly Ferry as the new Market Director. 

So how has it gone?  If you listen to the chatter around town, it’s been a great year.

It’s always hard to follow such a success, but by all accounts Kelly has honored the legacy that she was handed while still finding a way to start to make her mark and add her own touches.

In keeping with the growing interest in locally grown food Kelly has done a great job at giving market shoppers a lot of great local options.  One of my favorite new market pieces that Kelly added was a partnership with Kent State University to get food to people who need it most. 

On October 8, Haymaker Farmers Market had Kent State University Campus Kitchen on site. KSU student volunteers passed out information and accepted donations of either cash or food which was used to purchase produce at the market, and all food was brought back to the kitchen to prepare hot meals for clients of Kent Social Services.  That’s what local Farmer’s Markets are all about. 

There’s still a couple of more weeks of the market left in the 2011 season so check out the great things going on downtown at the Farmer’s Market. 

The musical entertainment in the remaining weeks includes the following:

October 15 Galgozy and Zeleny Duo eclectic folk guitar/vocals duo.
October 22 Noah Gfell and friends.
October 29 Ashley Brooke Toussant folk vocals and instrumental.

Portage County Streetwork in Kent...

Streetwork In Kent...

I realize that with all the construction going on around Kent these days, every day feels like it’s national street repair day, but actually the City’s street maintenance program is just now gearing up for the Fall push before winter arrives. 

Admittedly, we’ve thrown in a fair amount of street resurfacing and reconfiguration with some of our big projects, like the Fairchild Avenue Bridge, but the Annual Street Program continues to have a life of its own and is managed through the Public Service Department and Engineering Division. 

The Annual Street Program is the product of an engineering based assessment of the relative condition (safety, rideability, potholes, etc.) of all of the City streets that results in the allocation of funds to take care of as many of the worst streets as possible.  Like most things, there’s not enough money to do everything that needs to be done, so we rely on the independent evaluation performed by the engineers to determine which streets rise to the top of the worst list. 

The list of streets that show up at the top of that list for 2011 are as follows:

Ideally we’d like to resurface City streets on a 15-20 year cycle but unfortunately City revenues don’t support that level of re-investment so we do our best to handle the biggest problem spots each year, stretch our dollars, apply for grant funds, and as a last resort defer the rest until next year.

A Little Extra in Kent...

In today’s economy it’s hard for locally owned businesses to compete with big box pricing and sales volumes. 

Just look at what the Home Depot’s and Lowe’s of the world have done to small town hardware stores.   I’m not casting judgement as to whether this is good or bad, it just is, but it definitely has consequences for places like Kent that have tried to be distinctive in its shopping and eating options by catering to the small mom and pop stores rather than the national chains. 

We think there’s room for both big and small establishments in Kent, we just want to make sure it’s in the right balance for our community.  It wasn’t that long ago that Kent passed on the mega-mall proposal, in part, because of this retail culture clash.   And I think the popularity of Kent’s new Acorn Alley relfects the smaller, local shop preferences of the people that choose to shop in Kent rather than driving out to one of the suburban malls. 

At a time when consumers have less spare change in their pockets, price points are more important than ever – and that puts Kent’s retail strategy favoring small town shops at a competitive disadvantage.  How can anyone compete with the kinds of merchandise turnover that Walmart goes through every day, especially a small shop owner who could be in business for decades and never hit Walmart daily numbers. 

Here’s how — by going the extra yard for customers.  Shopping has become so ubiquitous today through the internet, smart phones, debit cards and every other electronic device that secretly monitors our buying habits, that even luxury items feel commoditized.  Shopping is so over-merchandized that it has lost its luster. 

But people still like luster and the anti-dote seems to be the shopping experience itself.  The big stores try to manufacture a unique shopping experience by misting cologne in the store, mixing funky music tracks, using customized lighting, and creating displays that make you feel like you’re in a club. 

The small shop owners by contrast ususally don’t have the resources to create a re-enactment of a special shopping experience so they have to do it the old fashionned way — with extra personalized service and attention to the customer.  The key ingredient to the small shop is personal contact.  People are yet to be completely outsourced or virtualized so great sales people can still matter. 

I read a great story of a small bike shop with an owner that understood his competitive advantage in the personal touch so he always added something extra to the bike, especially kids bikes.  Need a tire change, no problem, but when you picked the bike up it might have a new set of tassels hanging off the handlebars, or a new bell, new handlebar grips, etc., at no charge.

Obviously the owner had to keep the cost of the extras to a bare minimum but he was more interested in the personal connection that he would make between the bike owner, his shop, and the little add-ons that had some significance to the customer.  This wasn’t purely philanthropic as the little extra would lead to referrals and repeat business — which is the lifeblood of small lifestyle business owners who did what they did, and sold what they sold, out of their own lifestyle preferences. 

The extra yard isn’t so much a tactic to build and flip new businesses for profit;  it’s more about long term and staying afloat in a fiercely competitive retail world filled by giants.

Small business owners defying the odds and convention; that’s classic Kent.