Expanding the Menu...

I’ve been a little behind in my blog announcements, so for any regulars at the Water Street Tavern and Cajun Dave’s restaurant, this is old news — but if you’ve been as busy like  me and haven’t had a chance to drop in for a bite to eat at Kent’s favorite New Orleans style eatery, I’m happy to catch you up on what we’ve been missing.

It turns out we missed the unveiling of a new, expanded Menu at Cajun Dave’s featuring some tasty dishes with all the seasonings that we’ve come to love about Cajun Dave’s.  Personally I was pretty happy with the old menu but the restaurant business is like the food they serve, it’s got to be fresh, so Cajun Dave’s has mixed up their best offerings with some new and improved options that offer a lot of something for every palette. 

Eater beware, just because this food is served in one of Kent’s best bars, this is not your grandpa’s bar food — this is real deal cuisine.  With Blackened Mahi-Mahi and Marinated Zucchini and Feta featured on the menu, it should be obvious that this is a meal tastefully prepared by professionals.  

Don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself.  

City Firefighter Don Beckett...

If there is anything good to come of Don’s health troubles, it’s shown that when you spend a career giving to the community, the community gives back.  Community members have stepped up to fill the gaps (financial and otherwise) that this disease has brought to Don and his family. 

From organizing a trip to watch his beloved Ohio State football team compete (and win!) in the Sugar Bowl against Arkansas, to helping pay his mounting medical bills, the community has demonstrated a sense of urgency for Don’s condition that again, if under different circumstances, would be heartwarming. 

The latest local company to pitch in is Don Joseph Toyota.  Don Joseph is donating a dollar for every person that “friends” them on Facebook and then writes “Team Beckett” on their Facebook wall.  They will donate up to $2500 and if they reach their goal, Toyota will match it and the amount will be $5000 that they donate to the Don Beckett (Kent Fire Fighter) Be Well Account!!!   Please help out by adding Don Joseph Toyota to your friend list and write “Team Beckett” on their wall! 

For those that want to follow his progress, Don has created a health blog which he updates frequently with news of his treatments and response.  Don’s Blog

Don's Health Blog

Don, pictured with his wife, receiving the 2010 Firefighter of the Year Award

Arbor Day...

With Arbor Day officially arriving this Friday, April 29th, the Arbor Day Foundation made their annual announcement of all the cities that met their criteria to receive their Tree City USA designation, and once again, Kent made the list. 

I still recall as a kid having a warm place in my heart for Arbor Day — heck ya, it mean’t getting out of class and digging in the dirt for an hour or so on a nice spring day, and being given a twig with a couple of roots dangling off the bottom to plant at home.  Sunshine, dirt, and presents – at 8 years old that’s priceless. 

I suppose those early recollections from my impressionable years shaped (or distorted?) my personality to the point where I still get warm fuzzy feelings for Arbor Day.  It’s actually one of the few remaining holidays that has not fallen victim to a hostile takeover by the greeting card companies and candy manufacturers. 

It’s really not all that different from what it was 30 years ago;  it’s kids digging in the dirt, planting a few twigs and celebrating trees.  Some things are too good to go out of style and honoring trees (or at least getting out of the classroom) is one of them.   

Of course, with Davey Tree founded and headquartered in Kent, Arbor Day has even more local significance.  The Davey family legacy in Kent is more than the company they founded, it’s also  a deep appreciation for caring for trees and everything green.   Davey’s leafprints can be found all over town and environmental stewardship runs deep in Kent’s DNA. 

For 25 consecutive years Kent has been recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree City USA — a recognition that is bestowed on those cities that demonstrate (in dollars, staff time, and tree care commitment) a priority for sustainable urban forestry. 

The popularity of the green movement over the last decade has led many cities to jump on board the green train and now thousands of cities receive the Tree City designation every year — but Kent sticks to it’s tag line of being the original tree city, and shows it off  a bit each Arbor Day.

More Kent Music On The National Scene...

It’s not every day that you see a musician on national television (David Letterman show) whose bio credits the Euro Gyro in downtown Kent for providing her first big break, playing for tips and free pizza every Monday — but that’s Jessica Lea Mayfield’s story and she’s used that experience to become a rising singer songwriter in the world of country/rock music.

I’ve seen a local band play in the Euro Gyro and it’s reminiscent of the old road houses, just without the chicken wire to catch airborne bottles that find their way towards the stage.  The gig I saw had an audience member jump on stage grab the microphone and tell the shocked rockers that their music was lame.  Half the audience responded by leaving the show while the other half turned up the energy in the mosh pit and booed the interloper off the stage so the band could resume. 

Tough crowd.    So I can completely see why Jessica’s wikipedia site says that the Euro Gyro is known for its rough and unforgiving crowd and that experience toughened her up.  In places like that I’m sure you figure out who you are pretty quickly or you’ll get eaten alive so it’s no wonder Jessica has been on a roll ever since. 

Here’s Jessica’s appearance on David Letterman — I love to hear Dave Letterman say “From Kent Ohio”  — Jesicca Lea Mayfield making her television debut…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvjLdO3SYmU

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A little bit about Jessica off the Internet:

Jessica Lea Mayfield (b. August 27, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter, from Kent, Ohio. She is known for writing dark, sad songs, with a plaintive minimalist style that draws on both country and rock music.

New shows with The Avett Brothers
Jessica has announced new shows with The Avett Brothers in July. Check out the tour page to view a full listing of dates and to purchase tickets.

Vogue picks Jessica as “Artist of the Week”
Vogue magazine recently named Jessica their “Artist of the Week”, calling her “raw and authentic”.

KEXP stream of Jessica’s SXSW performance
Head over to KEXP to stream Jessica’s SXSW performance at Mellow Johnny’s.

“Our Hearts Are Wrong” is NPR’s “Song Of The Day”
NPR chose Jessica’s “Our Hearts Are Wrong” as their “Song Of The Day” today, saying “The strength of 21-year-old Ohio native Jessica Lea Mayfield’s voice isn’t in its power; it lies in the haunting cool she conveys as she sings with emotional depth and reflective self-awareness.”

iTunes “SXSW: Featured Artists” playlist
Download the free “SXSW: Featured Artists” playlist on iTunes featuring “Our Hearts Are Wrong”.

BBC reviews Tell Me
BBC recently reviewed Tell Me calling it “A treasure of tremendous emotional resonance and focus from the rising country singer.”

New U.S. and European tour dates announced
Jessica has announced additional dates for her U.S. tour, as well as European dates. For a full listing of shows visit the website tour page.

Spin’s 35 Must-Hear Acts at SXSW
Spin has featured Jessica as one of their “35 Must-Hear Acts at SXSW“, saying “Only 21, this precocious badass singer-songwriter — discovered (and produced) by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach — delivers bluesy folk peppered with blush-worthy tales of lust.”

Jessica performing on the Late Show
This Friday (Feb 25th) Jessica will be performing on The Late Show with David Letterman. The show airs at 11:35pm Eastern/ 10:35pm Central.

Spin Magazine calls Jessica “Next Big Thing” in 2011
Spin recently featured Jessica as one of the “Next Big Things” in 2011. The article goes on to conclude that “In truth, she’s kind of a badass.”

Kent Got That Funk...

Yesterday I shared a list of recent press coverage for Kent, and as good as those news stories were, for me the best coverage comes from the real life that’s going on every day in Kent that speaks for itself.

Kent is not a scripted community, it’s more of a free-wheeling house party sort of place, so when we have scripted news conferences it tends to feel a bit out of sync with who we are, and it’s probably why we only do them about once every 2-3 years.

Kent’s never been much of a talking-head, choreographed City — we tend to favor more natural, organic and spontaneous events, which is why I’m particularly happy to share a clip off of YouTube that is arguably one of the best compilations of everything Kent in one package. 

A couple of months back the Water Street Tavern hosted George Clinton and Parliment Funkadelic for a retro-night in downtown Kent that flat-out rocked the house.  Kent’s musical reputation was built in the 1970′s when bands like Parliment Funkadelic topped the charts and their recent visit to Kent proved that Funk never goes out of style.

The standing room only crowd was filled with young, old, and everything in between rockin’ to the funkadelic beat.   It was a visual extravaganza, with some of the oddest mixes that you’ll see — which is why it screamed Kent. 

If Kent was to adopt an anthem, Give Up The Funk, would be it.  It’s improvisational, unexpected twists and turns, with a driving hip-shaking backbone beat sums up Kent.  It’s how Kent rolls. 

See for yourself —

George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic- Live, Water Street Tavern in Kent, Ohio

Kent Press...

Kent City Government doesn’t have an in-house PR staffer (although many cities do) — so we all end up doing some degree of media relations.  

The City Department heads and I tend to share the PR duties, typically based on the topic and our respective areas of expertise.  Economic development tends to be some of our most newsworthy stuff so Dan Smith often finds himself in front of a microphone.  

Anyone that knows Dan, knows that he’s never met a microphone he didn’t like, but when it comes to microphones with rolling cameras behind him, that’s a different story and he’ll say that he has a face made for radio so he tends to pass off the TV interviews to the nearest staff person — which is usually me. 

I’d prefer to keep a low profile and let the political leaders in our community cut the ribbons and make the headlines but I realize that running the City’s business affairs also means announcing, reporting and explaining issues publicly so I end up doing my fair of  interviews.

With a bunch of recent good news announcements for Kent, Dan Smith circulated a list of the articles and interviews.  In case you missed any of them, here’s Dan’s list:

Plum Creek Restoration Project Wins Award...

We don’t do projects to win awards, but when you invest a lot of time and energy into making something better, I have to admit, it’s nice to receive positive feedback. 

That’s why there was some quiet fist pumping going on when we were informed that the City’s Plum Creek Restoration project was selected by the Ohio Stormwater Association as an outstanding stormwater project and our staff (Cori Finney) will be accepting an award from the Association on the City’s behalf at the annual Ohio Stormwater Conference held in Columbus May 12-13.

The Plum Creek project was part of an ongoing effort to re-open waterways that through the years have been diverted and dammed in ways that might appear harmless enough but are actually slowly debilitating our creeks and streams by literally sucking the oxygen right out of them.   Oxygen matters, and while the old Plum Creek Ponds (isn’t that an oxymoron?) were actually reasonably attractive to look at, their swamp smell was a good indicator that trouble was lurking just below the surface. 

Standing water has a nasty habit of going a bit septic on those hot summer days, throw in piles of goose waste and you have a recipe for bad water quality — which is exactly what we set out to fix in this project.  By re-opening the culvert dam, we admittedly lost the pond-like look, but if you stood close enough to those ponds you knew looks could be deceiving and you headed up-wind as fast as your feet could take you.  But no more. 

Free at last, Plum Creek is actually back to what it started out as – a creek, a free flowing body of water — and soon enough the vegetation on the new creek banks will be back accompanied by the sounds of the bubbling brook. 

AMATS Bike Planning Meeting In Kent...

I can’t say that the weather has been great for mountain biking (still too wet to responsibly ride the trails) but skinny tire folks have had plenty of chances to burn up a little asphalt under their tires. 

I’m not a roadie but if we keep building trails at the pace we have in the last couple of years, I might become one.  The bike trail network in Kent and in the region is becoming one of our strongest assets for quality of life, and even economic development.  It’s to the point today where business relocation decisions end up being made based on what used to be the soft selling points like bike trail connectivity, parks, river, etc. because those are what separates one place from the next. 

Face it, in this global economy you can almost choose to locate a business anywhere and still be everywhere you need to be, so companies are looking at the quality of life for their employees as a first tier decision point rather than as an afterthought.  That’s great news for places like Kent where our longstanding eco-sensibility,  passion for everything green and abundant natural surroundings has put us at the forefront for outdoor recreation pursuits like hiking, biking and kayaking — all of which can be found at the top of corporate site selection lists these days. 

Kent’s Parks and Rec Director talks about Kent as being positioned as a hub for the regional hike and bike network — strategically located between the Summit/Akron/National Valley trails and the trails to our east which will eventually extend to Warren, Youngstown and even Pittsburgh. 

Kent prides itself on being in the center of the action and we’ve got plans in place to ensure we stay that way but planning never rests so if you’re a bike or trail enthusiast the region’s bike planners at AMATS have scheduled a public bike planning forum in Kent for Wednesday, April 27th at the Kent Free Library at 5:30.  So hop in your bike, ride down to the meeting, and let your voice for biking be heard.

2 Giant Leaps Ahead For Downtown Kent Project...

Before I get to announcing the good news for the City’s portion of the downtown project, have you seen what Ron Burbick has been up to lately for Acorn Alley Phase 2?  Holy cow. 

As if there was ever any doubt, Ron Burbick is in it to win it, and he’s putting up new buildings to go along with his revitalized buildings at a pace no one thought was possible.  But if we’ve learned anything about Ron from the first phases of his Phoenix project, never underestimate the power of  impatience and persistence in the name of progress. 

Ron’s next phase is starting to take shape with concrete walls, steel beams and elevator shafts rising into the sky.  It’s a dramatic image to go along with the big dreams that he’s making possible in Kent.  Ron has walked the walk, and taking a path less traveled to restore Kent’s sense of pride for where we’ve been as a community and optimism for where we’re going.  

Ron is still claiming that mid-summer opening for a lot of his new stores and restaurants is possible — and I’ve learned long ago to take him at his word.  He delivers and I can’t wait to see how all this comes together.  Wow, wow, wow.

With Ron’s project blazing a trail, the City’s downtown project is doing it’s best to keep pace and this past week we passed 2 major milestones. 

On Friday, both Davey Tree and Ametek officially signed their leases to be tenants in Fairmount Properties new buildings in our development block.  These two corporate anchors will bring 120 employees into downtown Kent on a daily basis which is exactly what all the new restaurants and retail stores will need to keep their cash registers ringing and generate the kind of daytime traffic downtown, that along with our already active evening crowd, adds up to a vibrant downtown scene 24-7.  

Davey Tree and Ametek are long time Kent companies that played a significant part in shaping Kent during the 20th century, which is why it’s so exciting to see them continuing their partnership with our community and committing to the be major players in writing Kent’s next chapters.  Add in Kent State University with their hotel and conference center plans, and the downtown project includes three of Kent’s most influential partners in our last 100 years — a fact that bodes well for the next 100 years. 

The signing of these 2 leases should set in motion securing construction financing, completion of construction drawings and the issuance of bids for construction companies to build the project.  These deals are so complex that I’ve learned never to assume smooth sailing but with these leases in hand the tradewinds are defintiely blowing to the projects favor and should really help fill the sails to see activity in late summer. 

By the way, the Planning Commission is reviewing the hotel & conference center plans this week and the Architectural Review Board is taking a look at the renderings for the new Davey Tree building — so the right pieces are falling into place at just the right time. 

Here’s a peak at the plans to be presented this week.

Proposed New Davey Tree Building (corner of SR59 @ Water Street)

Proposed New Hotel & Conference Center (Depeyster / Erie Street View)

Proposed New Hotel & Conference Center (Erie Street View)

Kramer Fields and the Redmond Bridge...

Whether it’s streets, sidewalks or bridges, time has a way of turning reliable assets into liabilities.  That’s why the City has 5 year Capital Improvement Plan — we take stock of what we’ve got, check to see how its holding up and make plans to repair or replace accordingly. 

The closure of the Redmond Bridge (old wooden bridge that crosses the Cuyahoga River to access the Parks and Recreation ball fields) is a stark reminder that sometimes infrastructure and mother nature don’t always cooperate with the best laid plans. 

 The Parks and Recreation Department have been working with the City Engineering Division to quarterly check the condition of the old wooden piers that hold that bridge up.  Even to the untrained eye the piers have shown signs of water-rot for some time now  – the question has been are those piers just looking bad on the outside or is the integrity of their strength on the inside in question too. 

Everyone understands that these piers are nearing the end of their service life, but like old cars, they could safely keep chugging along for another couple of years, or as appeared to happened, they might start sputtering out sooner.

Obviously safey is the top priority when it comes to bridges, and even though this bridge only serves as access to and from the park ball fields, the Parks and Engineering staff take bridge safety very seriously no matter how many people cross the bridge.  To that end, for the last year, the City Engineers have been poking and prodding all around the piers every quarter to draw reasoned conclusions for the rate of decline in the safety of the bridge.  They’re looking for evidence of things getting worse in the piers that could affect the load carrying capacity and structural integrity of the bridge. 

Infrastructure decline can happen slowly or it can happen unexpectedly, so the key is to keep checking it often so that you have a good baseline to identify any changes at the earliest possible moment.  It appears that moment came for the Redmond Bridge sometime over the last 3 months as the round of inspections done this past week indicated that the bridge had actually shifted in place. 

In bridge parlance, shifting is not a good thing.  Does it mean that a collapse is imminent?  We can’t necessarily predict that but when a bridge is moving it’s safe to say that the risk is too high to keep the bridge open which is why the Parks and Engineering staff decided the bridge had to be closed.

Of course the bridge trouble had to happen just as the Kent Parks and Rec ball fields were entering their peak baseball season, so the staff is scrambling to make contingency plans but as inconvenient as those plans may be, there really is no other choice at the moment.  I know the Engineers will work with Parks and Rec to secure the bridge, stabilize the piers and make replacement plans ASAP but all those things take time, so for the short term the Redmond Bridge will be off the grid.