Joining the Facebook Crowd...

About 3 years ago we had hired an intern out of Kent State University who like many folks his age were riding high on the social media craze of Facebook.  The intern kept telling us we needed to jump on Facebook too but at that time the jury was still out whether Facebook had much relevance for cities. 

We didn’t have any issues with Facebook in principle, we just weren’t sure how to use it for city purposes.  Looking back I think we were over-thinking and over-complicating it, and it turns out that the intern was ahead of his time as we’ve seen a steady rise in the number of Facebook pages for cities popping up all over. 

We decided it was time to climb aboard and we are now live with the beta site the intern had created way back when.  Better late than never. 

We dusted off the beta site, put some finishing touches on it, and jumped with both feet.  The site is pretty basic — we’re not going to win awards for the most creative use of Facebook, but that’s ok because our goal was to provide another source of information for people to follow all that’s happening in Kent. 

Click here to visit the Official City of Kent Ohio Facebook Page.
We also have a Kent Economic Development Page that Dan Smith, City Economic Development uses that you’re welcome to follow as well. 

We understand that not everyone will want to Friend us (and we won’t take it personally) but for those Facebookers out there that like to receive notice of new things popping up in Kent, we’ve now got another way to be on their radar screen. 

Part of our challenge with Facebook has been finding the time and the staff to keep it updated.  There is no position description in the City titled Offical Facebook Manager — for that matter, we don’t even have any IT Manager — so we’ve had to learn on our own and find a volunteer who was willing to add Facebook updates to their own other duties as assigned list.  Fortunately, we found one. 

The longer we Blog, Tweet, and now Post on Facebook the more we’ve come to realize how much information we have and how many people want access to more of it.  We’re all about sharing information; the challenge is providing a way to get it to the people that want it in a form that they want it in.

The print media was the old standard — and between local newspapers and our quarterly Tree City Bulletin — we continue to make print a part of our communication strategy.  But today people want more so we have a City web site, a Kent Police web site, a Kent Parks and Rec web site, a City blog site, a City of Kent Twitter site, a City Economic Development Facebook site, and now a City Facebook site.  

We also had an online emergency notification system that would allow us to post emergency messages or alerts, e.g., water main break, snow emergency in effect, etc., that would automatically send text and/or email messages to anyone that signed up to receive those notifications.  For about a year that was a free system and we used it while it was free, but as it grew in popularity they began to charge more than we could afford to pay so now we’re back looking for an affordable reverse 911 system that would let us send voice messages out for public notification when we have these sorts of troubles to tell people about (like the Kent City School phone notification system).   These reverse 911 systems are pretty pricey but we’re hoping to find one to buy sometime in 2012. 

Plus, we’ve also got plans to add a community electronic bulletin board in 2012 at the corner of SR43 and SR 59 adjacent to the downtown project that will scroll local community and campus information 24-7. 

We promise to continue to take advantage of technology as long as we can figure out how to use it, afford it, and keep it current. 

By the way, I’d love to find someone to build us a City of Kent app for smart phones, any volunteers?

Governor In Kent...

Last week, Ohio Governor John Kasich paid a visit to Kent to help us celebrate the Grand Opening of Mac Trailer and the 250 new jobs Mac is adding at the Kent facility. 

Thanks to my various positions in city government in Virginia, Tennessee and Ohio, I’ve had a chance to meet maybe a half dozen governors during my tenure.  Regardless of their political persuasions, I’m almost always impressed by how well these seasoned politico’s work a room and a crowd — and Governor Kasich was no exception. 

Governors that are really good at their job have that unique ability to reel you in with their speeches and help you forget wherever your political allegiance lies, sweeping you up in their messages.   

Each time I’ve seen Governor Kasich speak I walked away thinking that he genuinely believes in his message, he wants the best for Ohio, and he’s going to do whatever it takes to do that.  Its the doing that gets tricky and I don’t envy any governor who is pushing a platform of change.  State politics can be a full contact sport. 

But last Tuesday Governor Kasich got to step out of the fray for a couple of hours and turn the spotlight on Kent’s newest corporate resident, Mac Trailer — thanking them for choosing Ohio (and particularly choosing Kent) to expand their business.  

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be expected to say any welcoming remarks before the Governor took the stage so I prepared a few comments and showed up ready if they needed me.  It turned out that I didn’t need to speak at the podium but I hate to waste a speech, so for anyone who gives a hoot, here’s what I would have said:

I want to thank everyone for being in Kent with us this morning. 

The City staff is turning into regulars here at Mac Trailer – we’re here so much they’re thinking of issuing us company Id cards.  

We helped Mac Trailer celebrate their first days in Kent, celebrate their first hires, celebrate the first truck to come off the Kent production line and now we’re here again to celebrate their official grand opening. 

Some might argue that we just can’t turn down free food and ribbon cuttings — and I won’t say those folks are wrong, but the truth is we are extremely proud that Mac Trailer chose Kent to call home and we can’t think of any better way to thank them than to keep showing up to support them whenever they ask. 

We’re happy to shamelessly promote Mac Trailer because of their leadership in the market and because it’s a great example of rallying around a great company to help close the deal.

We knew that Mac Trailer was a great fit for Kent from the start:  the facility was exactly what they needed; their corporate leadership and employee base was a great match for Kent; and the location offered a great position in their market.

That’s why we reached out to them early on and went after them at full throttle. 

Like so many things in life, the art of the deal (and the devil) is in the details.   Our Economic Development Director, Dan Smith, just makes this look easy but landing Mac Trailer took fast action and collaboration — neither of which state and city agencies are historically known for — which is why we take such great pride in proving what we’re capable of as a City and a State. 

This Mac Trailer project was starting hit its stride early on in Governor’s Kasich term so we were not sure what to expect or even who to contact with the administrative transition. 

The good news was, all it took was one call to get the State ODOD wheels turning.

In an extremely short turn around time we had City Council and State ODOD commitments to partner in the financial package that we knew gave Mac Trailer what they needed to pull the trigger. 

City Council and the State of Ohio delivered, the deal was done, and here we are celebrating 250 new jobs. 

As the City Manager I lead the business of city government, and for the most part I get to stay outside the politics of whether you have a D or an R on your jersey.

I know that there are lots of pressures on governors to honor their home team but in the case of Mac Trailer I have to say that it was refreshing to see that the only thing that mattered was Team Kent and Mac Trailer.  

I don’t know all of Governor Kasich’s policy positions but I do know that we share a passion to prove that government can be nimble, responsive and innovative when it comes to supporting companies who want to create new jobs. 

Governor Kasich had just traveled up from Cincinnati, and despite the fact that we like to refer to Cleveland and Akron as suburbs of Kent, I realize that Kent is certainly smaller in proportion to these other cities but when it comes to jobs we are no less significant. 

We’re proud of our region, and we’re proud to do our part in Kent to spur an economic recovery.

The bottom line is every job counts so I’ll tell this Governor the same thing we told his predecessor – Put Kent To Work for Ohio. 

We’ve got great assets here – mine them, leverage them, exand them:   Kent State University, Davey Tree, Smithers Oasis, Ametek Corporation, Alpha Micron, Kent Displays

These diverse Kent businesses share 2 things:  1)they are leaders in their respective industries; and 2) they call Kent home.

I’m delighted to be able to add Mac Trailer to that list.

Thank you.

__________________________________

I was asked during the lunch how it was that Kent has been lucky enough to land some great economic developmnet projects of late and in 30 seconds or less I explained that our City Council and the staff are committed to being a part of the solution, making strategic investments, and tackling tough issues head on. 

Sounds like a bit simplistic but it’s a fair summary of what it takes for cities to beat the odds in a dismal economy.  That and great partners like the State ODOD.

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.        

———————–

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.

On-Line Accident Reports...

Being involved in an accident can be a harrowing experience, and we take our job as first responders very seriously.  In less than 2 minutes after you find yourself in trouble, we expect to be at your side, providing whatever help is necessary to get your life back on track. 

The focus at the accident scene will always be ensuring the safety of everyone involved but once we get that covered there’s still plenty of work to be done documenting and reporting the incident so that insurance companies can get busy on your behalf to fix or replace what’s been bent, broke and damaged.

One of the key pieces that the insurance company needs to do their job is the Police Report for the incident.  That’s where we come in again. 

The Police Reports outline the details of what occurred based on the investigative results noted at the scene.  From that data, the insurance company will make the call as to what is or is not covered under existing insurance policies. 

Getting those Police Reports into the hands of the insurance companies is a critical first step on the road to recovery — and I’m pleased to report that the Kent Police Department has now begun to make those Police Reports available on-line.  No more driving down to the Police Station to request copies — your accident reports are only a couple of mouse-clicks away at any time. 

We’re hoping that the convenience and timeliness of online access will reduce some of the administrative pain that can follow an accident.  Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to put the incident behind you as quickly as possible. 

Here’s the link to the Kent Police Web Site for Accident Reports: http://www.kentpd.org/Accidents.html

Stay safe out there.

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.

 —————————

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

Old Hotel Perspective...

We’re all too familiar with how the exterior of the old hotel buildings looks, and if you checked out any of the video clips of the building walk thru last week, you’ve got a sense for what awaits Mr. Burbick on the inside. 

Clearly, in and out needs a lot of work.  Assuming the building passes the structurally sound test (which it appears that it has), it’s no small step from there to a functional and relevant building in a modern sense — those little things like working plumbing and an elevator might matter to future tenants.

Like a lot of things, if it was easy someone would have already done it, but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  One architect pointed out that lots of things are improbable when it comes to conventional restoration of the old hotel — which is why it sat like it has for so many years — but it’s not impossible as Mr. Burbick intends to prove.

We’ve all seen what falls off of Mr. Burbick’s dreaming tree — little Acorn Alley 1 and Acorn Alley 2.  The question is can Ron pull another acorn out of his hat? 

That’s what we wrestled with as a City — we didn’t want to set Ron, or anyone else for that matter, up to fail with a Herculean task that exceeded our oversized aspirations.  

However, at the end of the day, with a lot of help from friends, we came to the conclusion that restoring the old hotel is possible, however impractical it may appear.  Part of that confidence comes from watching how the little town of Galion Ohio took their own dilapitated hometown hotel and brought it back to life. 

Believe it or not, the Galion hotel was actually in worse shape, and yet it turned out great.  If they can do it, why not Kent? 

Here’s a little pictoral comparison of the Kent and Galion hotels.  Notice how much worse the exterior of the Galion hotel was — large chunks of the building were missing and the roof had even more holes than the floors.  And on the interior, the Kent Hotel walls and doors and etc. have already been excavated and removed whereas Galion’s hotel was a maze of junk.  Also, the columns in Kent’s hotel are larger and appear to be in comparatively better shape.

All of which leads us to cling to the hope that salvaging this building is a cause worth supporting. 

If you’re interested, I’ve provided a link to a powerpoint that outlines the Galion Hotel project:   Galion Ohio PowerPoint Story

Old Hotel Call To Arms...

Been a busy couple of weeks closing the first deal on the old hotel building, and then trying to quickly structure a re-sale of the property to Ron Burbick.  Lots of work — but no complaints here, this is a problem that we’ve been waiting a long time to have. 

With a story that is 30 years in the making, we knew there’d be a lot of local interest to see what’s behind those boarded up windows and brick walls, which is why we invited the media to go behind the curtain and join the members of City Council last week to walk thru the building.  

Old Hotel Walk Thru (image courtesy of Kent Patch)

The building and media didn’t disappoint.  Curiousity drew a hearty crowd of media journalists, photographers and videographers — and the old hotel stayed in the headlines for about a week.  The story even got picked up by some of the larger news search engines and I ended up getting comments from friends as far away as Virginia that congratulated Kent on moving forward with the old hotel (and suggested that I will never make facemasks a fashion statement). 

For those that couldn’t join us, or had not come across the KentPatch video of the building walk thru (complements of Matt Fredmonsky), here’s your chance to get an inside peek:  Old Hotel Tour Video Link

Standing in the building, stepping around holes in the floor, and seeing how the weight of some 90 years had caused many of the concrete floors to bow, it was evident that renovation of this building would not be for the faint of heart, with weak convictions, inexperience – or shallow pockets. 

Which is why Mr. Burbick’s proposal to purchase the building from the City was such a welcomed offer.  With a project as challenging as the renovation will prove to be, success is going to depend on the perfect fit between the owner and the community. 

I have no doubt that this project will test Mr. Burbick’s patience like nothing else he’s done yet (and that says a lot because he’s done a lot) but being the astute person that he is, he already gets it, and he’s busy inviting the community to join him in resurrecting this structure. 

It’s going to take a village to restore this building and Ron has put a call out to all of the villagers that have something to offer to help him return this building to its proper prominent place in downtown Kent.  There’s a reason the building has been for sale for years – facing such large costs of restoration this building is going to be hard pressed to ever yield a business return on investment. 

Ron is a successful business man, and he’s run the math too — which is why he’s not trying to pursue this as a profitable enterprise in the traditional business sense.  He’s willing to take this project on as a community give-back; as a way of stepping in to fill a longtime need that if not met soon, would probably result in the loss of a significant local historic structure whose useful life has nearly run its course.   

Ron’s committed to not making a penny of profit off this likely $4 million investment.  After paying the bills, all proceeds will go into local community foundations and non-profit agencies in Kent and Portage County.  That’s a gift that will keep on giving for decades to come. 

The old hotel building is too important to Kent and Kent’s past, to not be part of it’s future — and that’s where Ron comes in.  He wants to carry the torch but just like those Olympians, Ron needs some fellow torch-bearers. 

Ron has already spent close to $15 million of his own retirement funds to redevelop downtown Kent and now he needs a little help from the community to finish what he started. 

There’s no limits on the help he needs, from investors to brick masons and plumbers and contractors. 

If you can help, you can reach Mr. Burbick through Main Street Kent at (330)677-8000.