good evening bexley i am so happy to
welcome you
tonight to this beautiful space in
the bexley schools and we are grateful
that the bexley schools are hosting us
this evening
i think i know most of you but in the
event that you don't know me
i'm lori ann fiable and i have the honor
of being the president of bexley's city
council
tonight we gather to celebrate what
in helen keller's words
bexley knows is true that alone
we can do so little together we can do
so much as a collective
our innovative industrious inclusive
collection of institutions and
organizations
energize one another and thus
cooperatively
strengthen our community
celebrating the exciting achievements of
various organizations
and institutions while at the same time
getting a glimpse of what their leaders
are planning for the future is what the
state of the community
is all about tonight we will hear
from the superintendent of bexley city
schools
dr kimberly miller everyone's
favorite librarian director ken hickman
ben hickman
our good mayor ben kessler will speak
jeff walker from the community
foundation has some thoughts to share
and rounding up our night will be elaine
pelz
the superwoman who keeps bexley area
chamber of commerce
progressing in its eighth year running
the state of the community is one of my
favorite
newish traditions thank you mayor
kessler for starting it
before i turn the microphone over to our
first
speaker i would like to introduce the
elected officials
that have joined us today i believe
there's all kinds of exciting
um happenings in the bexley schools so
we're honored to have michael dennison
and i believe that can you see him
michael
michael filled me in that that his
colleagues have some really great
excuses including some of them
having their sons and daughters perhaps
being
um inducted into some kind of special
program so it's pretty exciting for all
of them
um i know our city auditor bill harvey
is here bill
and then a few of my colleagues are here
as well mary goddessman is here
and steve kaise
monique lampke
troy marcum and richard sharp
[Applause]
without further ado please help me
welcome dr kimberly miller to the stage
to teach us a few things about the
bexley schools
[Applause]
good evening i'd like to also welcome
you to bexley city schools and our
beautiful castingham theater
um the board and i are always happy to
host members of our community so thank
you for coming this evening
i wanted to
there we go um provide
um as lorianne said a a brief review
of where we have been in the last year
and where we're planning to go
in the next few years and i would like
to start with
our why the reason that we do what we do
each day is because of our students
and and when your why is is
young faces and and young minds who are
eager to learn and grow
it's very easy to come every single day
and put forth your very best effort
so that's our why in bexley city schools
as a review in the last year
at the leadership of our board of
education we embarked upon a strategic
planning process so that we could plan
for our future
and ensure that we are providing the
very best educational opportunities for
the students
both today and into the future and so
we've implemented a very bold strategic
plan we've launched a new mission
statement that guides our plan
and that is to provide educational
experiences
that engage equip and empower each
student
and we focus very very intently on the
word each
because truly educating our children
means that each student
with whatever they bring to our schools
each day
is having an experience that will propel
them into a future of their choosing
and for success why now
why would we here we go why now
why are we doing this work now one of
the reasons we embarked upon this
process is it had been
some time back in 2007 since the
district last
took the time to really stop reflect and
set a vision for the future
and so we felt that that was a fair
amount of time and it was time to do it
again
as i was coming new into the district
and again the board realized
this is important work for us to do as
we think about
21st century learning and 21st century
work
we have to be thoughtful about what we
do for our students
and so the first part of our mission
statement is that we will engage our
students
we are focused on engaging our students
on in individuals lives
learning with research-based practices
of teaching and learning
that make a difference for students we
want to equip our students to be
successful not only in school
but also to compete in a global and a
rapidly changing economy
when they leave us and finally we want
students who are empowered
we are working diligently to empower our
students
to impact their world their community
through real world experiences
tied to the classroom we know that our
students will be problem solvers artists
creators
and a myriad of other professions that
don't even exist right now
so empowering them to believe that they
can make a very
real and positive difference in their
world is extremely important to us in
the school district
we are not sure what happened there
okay
and we're back on okay so less than a
year into implementing our new goals and
our plan
what have we accomplished so far we've
implemented consistent
k-12 instructional goals and
district-wide curriculum
that is an exceptional accomplishment
because consistent curriculum and
consistent learning supports
children as they move through our
schools and it supports our teachers so
that they can better collaborate
we have implemented a comprehensive k-12
curriculum review and revision process
so that we no longer look what are we
doing in biology
but we look k-12 in science and what do
we want a k-12
education to do for our students so we
look
across the board vertically and
horizontally when we implement any new
curriculum
so far we've also identified a tool to
assess the social and emotional
well-being of our students
you may be aware that mental health is
is a serious concern for us in schools
and in our societies
nationwide children's hospital has
recently reported in
through through one of their campaigns
or commercials but i've also read this
research that
it's estimated that 20 percent of young
people are suffering from mental illness
we need to be very intentional about
supporting the development of social and
emotional literacies in our young people
and supporting their needs and so we've
just recently in fact i signed the
contract today
have identified a tool that will help us
to assess our students social emotional
well-being
so that we can then put programming in
place to support them
we've identified an in-house leadership
development program
to support the growth and effectiveness
of our district leadership team
in order to successfully administer the
programming in our district we need a
strong leadership team to do so
and so we've developed an in-house
program to support our leaders
as well as our teachers and we've used
or implemented enhanced and improved
safety procedures on all three of our
campuses
one of the most important things we do
each day is to keep our children
safe that's the social emotional safety
but also their physical safety
and so while i can't speak specifically
of what we've done i can tell you
that we have worked with a consultant
and we've also made some some
significant
improvements in our safety and security
procedures across the district
what is our current focus to be
these are these are things that will be
implemented next school year
we are currently working with our
treasurer mr kyle smith who is here in
the room as well
um we'll beginning the budgeting process
and we are working to make sure that our
budget our financial resources
are tied very directly to the district
goals that we have set forth
we will be implementing a coordinator of
experiential learning
this is a new position for our district
and it will focus on
real-world work experiences and service
opportunities
that students will be able to take part
in outside of our schools
as well as in our classrooms this is a
really exciting and unique
position that will connect with our
community both in bexley and in the
larger central ohio community
in order to bring those real world
experiences to our students
and then the third big uh new new
new thing for next year will be
implementing instructional coaches
we'll be identifying three of our
teachers who will act as instructional
coaches going into classrooms
coaching teachers demonstrating lessons
supporting teachers
research shows that the most effective
way to support the development of
teachers
is through job embedded instructional
coaching and we will be moving in that
direction
because it is what our teachers need and
what our teachers have asked for
and it also leads to improved learning
for students
what is next for us these are some next
priorities that will take place
over the next number of years these are
not things that will happen next year
but they will be
processes that will be we will be
engaged in over the next few years
first we want to develop a comprehensive
technology plan in order to increase the
functionality of resources for students
and teachers
again 21st century learning most of us
can't do our jobs without technology
our students cannot learn as effectively
as as they
could with a comprehensive plan to
support them
and so that's going to take some time to
develop and implement
we also want to create a comprehensive
facilities plan
to ensure that our facilities are ready
to meet the needs of 21st century
teaching and learning
our growing student population we have
grown by about
10 percent over the last five years and
are projected to continue to grow
over the next five to ten years so
student growth
enrollment growth is something we must
consider and also operational efficiency
[Music]
okay we want to make sure that we're
channeling
most of our dollars into the classrooms
and so we'd like our facilities to be
operational okay i will keep going
to be more opera we want our buildings
to be operationally efficient again that
will take us some time
and will certainly involve community
involvement and then finally we want to
organize our district structure that
aligns to our goals and creates a more
flexible and responsive system of
support
for our staff and our students so again
as we look over the next two to three
four years
those are some of our priorities i'd
like to leave you with a brief video
that talks a little bit about how this
plan is working
for our students and our staff
the next step is to organize all of the
goals and the strategies
into a format that we can monitor our
progress
hold ourselves accountable for
implementing the strategies that will
help us to achieve our objectives
so now it's finally here i want to see
everyone
be supportive and find ways to to get
involved
and stay involved and to help things
move forward the further we dig into
this plan the more valuable we'll see
as a whole district that this plan is
really
going to drive the work that we're doing
and i believe that when high
expectations are placed on anyone
we rise to that occasion there is not
this
confusion or this disorganization and i
think that's going to help
us as parents know that our kids are
taken care of and going forward
so i feel like this is really helping
both teachers and families
connect as community members and utilize
education for what its purpose really is
to prepare them for the future
each building has its own personality
which is a wonderful unique thing
for bexley but at the same time we all
want the end result for our children
we want them to be the highest
performing or the best they can be and
who they
are and with that road map in place
our children no matter which building
they're in should be able
to get there be exceptional for me be
exceptional for me
be exceptional for me be exceptional for
me
be exceptional for me be exceptional for
me
be exceptional for me be exceptional for
me
[Music]
thank you we are excited and we are very
committed to providing an exceptional
experience for each of our students both
today and tomorrow and i thank you the
community of bexley for supporting
bexley city schools and our students
each day
and now i it is my pleasure to introduce
the favorite librarian mr ben heckman
[Applause]
thank you dr miller i'm confident i'm
not the favorite librarian
excellent okay uh it's great to be here
tonight thank you as everyone in this
room knows i can be a talker
so i've got my own timer we've gone
through this a couple times today
i know sam's here too all right let's
get this let's get this going
uh so uh i love being a part of this
community and i love being the director
of this amazing library so it's great to
be back again this year so thank you
and i'm happy to share this with you on
behalf of everybody
i just want to say that we love being
your library your community
the community here is supportive and the
way you use the library is tremendous
and so
you inspire us every day to keep doing
innovative programming and providing
services uh
that are that are the best in class
uh so all right let's take some fun with
numbers of 2018 okay
all right this is how many items that we
circulated
here's the number of resources that are
available just in our library in our
building
uh that doesn't count the millions of
items available
through the consortium and search ohio
and ohio link
so we have millions at our disposal i
mentioned these numbers here we sent
over 5 000 items out and only requested
300 plus items
that should talk to us about the depth
of our collection the well-roundedness
of our collection
we want to be the people's university
and so i think that demonstrates that we
are
because we're the best of all libraries
everywhere
we have just over 6 000 patrons use our
meeting rooms that is
an increase of a thousand patrons from
last year i think this is a trend that's
going to continue to grow
and we're going to need to make room for
them we had
just shy of 23 000 people attend our
program so that's a big number
so a good way to think about it is about
16 programs a week with about 240 or i'm
sorry 440 people coming
of all ages for all different things
from story time to
uh you know all types of different talks
we had 32 000 people get onto the
computer in our library
we had sixty seven thousand people get
on through our wi-fi
so together that's like a hundred
thousand people
connecting to the internet through the
library so that's just a demonstration
of the different ways the library is
getting used here in the future
what else what do we got here all right
oh yeah what's new at your library we've
got a lot of great new stuff uh
guitars and ukuleles this is something
that we uh started last year you're able
to check these out so instead of getting
a ukulele for christmas or wherever and
having it sit in your closet
you can check one out and see that
you're not going to use it first
[Applause]
personalized picks this is a great this
is really fabulous
you can go online fill out a survey tell
us what you love to read
and we will personally pick three books
that you can come and pick up at your
library
you can do that every month you can do
that one time
so it's like amazon but like way better
and personal for you
and in the last two weeks we've launched
the music version of this so let us know
what you like to listen to and we'll get
cds ready for you
uh board games we launched board games
like a month ago
there's only like six left i think we
put 88 into the collection
uh it's a new hot trend as board games
so come and try them out before you uh
you buy them
uh new program guide oh this is the best
did anybody get this in the mail
yeah all right so thanks to ken flower
shout out uh we had a tri-fold uh
program guide and now we've got it
more sleek gives us a little more room
to let you know what we're doing at the
library
plus we can mail it so it's your library
at your doorstep
i say that because that's like the only
thing i contributed to the program
other than lead it
lynda.com this is a great online web
resource so that you can learn
everything from how to do excel
spreadsheets to cad drawings
to uh i see you sam making me nervous
uh to how to play the banjo we have
creative bug this is another fabulous
online tool it's all things crafts
macrame is back so if you want to learn
how to macrame
there's patterns and everything on
creative bug all through your library
though
one thing that didn't make the cut is
the new york times is now available
through your library you can get it at
home
you can get it at a library all online
sans the crossword puzzle and the
cooking
section all right what's coming up at
your library
we're very excited to announce tonight
that thanks to the tremendous support of
the bexley community author series
we're going to offer in the fall a
counterpart geared towards family and
youth so we'll be having a ya author
come or
a children's illustrator come in the
fall as part of this series
so keep your eye out for more
information about that
bird watching kits so when you're
looking for an adventure and you want to
look at birds you can come and check out
a kid and go look at birds
if that's your thing uh coast sci
science fest we're teaming up with the
city and the schools and
a bunch of institutions here in bexley
and we'll be participating in the
science festival may 1st of this year
and we're working on a civic center so
if you want to know the best way to get
a hold of your legislative
representative
at any time throughout the year you can
come write them a note we'll send it off
to you
this is something that you can keep an
eye on for the future
coming up beck's the community author
series april 23rd at seven o'clock
tickets are on sale now uh so come and
join us for that great evening
summer community read blasts off may
31st
we're doing t-shirts we're doing yard
signs so come and check it out
it'll be super fun we're reading all
summer and so we just want to say thank
you to all the partners here in bexley
we couldn't do what we do without you we
want to say thank you to
all of our other partners that we work
with and last but not least i'd say
it's great partnerships like this it's
the tremendous staff at the library and
then this tremendously supportive
community
and with great pride i get to say that
we've gained an extra star in 2018.
so in 2017 that's right
[Applause]
in in 2017 we were a three-star library
and now in 2018 we're a four-star
library so there's seven and a half
thousand libraries in america
and there's 31 who get this designation
for libraries our size
and so with that coming under just six
minutes
we want to say thank you to everyone and
have a wonderful rest of your evening oh
right no i've got to introduce
thank you now it's very hard for me to
talk for five minutes
so thank you it is my uh great honor
and pleasure to introduce
the man of the hour for 10 minutes
whatever you have left
the one and only mayor ben kessler
ben i took one for the team going after
you it's always
it's always tough good evening
how is everybody good good
thank you all for coming out here i have
a couple thank yous that i want to
oops i i scrolled through that too fast
a couple thank yous i want to get out of
here
get out of i'm just like i'm done all
right see you guys later
um i want to thank sam metcalf who's our
communications coordinator and put a ton
of work into this evening
and recognize we have here bexley
directors
kathy rose beecher hale who's refinance
director kathy is our zoning and
building director
mike price our rec director bill dorman
our service director and the chief of
police larry reinhardt so thank you all
for being here
and for your help
[Music]
lori and fiable did a fantastic job
recognizing city council
if you are a board or commission member
with the city of bexley could you please
stand right now and be
acknowledged thank you for your service
thank you and i want to recognize the
youngest member in attendance this
evening miss
sophie kessler thank you for coming
so first let's start with a couple
highlights from 2018
in theory here we go 2018 we launched
the north community gardens adding 50
new
community garden plots to the city of
bexley
the north community garden set a
template for what we hope to do in
making improvements to the south
community gardens in 2019 and 2020
with raised garden beds with a pergola
and some meeting space
and a beautiful garden shed this project
was made possible by the bexley
community foundation and you'll be
hearing a lot of that
this evening the jazz at havenwood park
series launched
to great fanfare this this summer we had
four
jazz events at havenwood park it was a
fantastic
laid-back family-friendly picnic
listen to jazz event and i'm happy to
announce that we will be bringing it
back to havenwood park
in 2019. i want to thank you
oh yeah there we go i want to thank you
city of bexley for supporting issue 12
which is the bexley street levy which is
going to allow us to
fund some of our really exciting street
projects that we've been talking about
this evening but provided
really essential funding to our
community 2018 was also a year of
restaurant
explosion we brought harvest newfangled
kitchen
freshy brassica and house wine to bexley
in 2018
and we have more choices than are
reasonable
for dining in bexley and the same amount
of parking spaces as we had beforehand
as well
this is a big one the blue jackets
foundation
granted the city of bexley 65 000 for
the
construction of a new playground at
schneider park we're going to be talking
more about schneider park later
but i do want to let you know now in
case i forget that there are excellent
volunteer opportunities for you at the
end of this month to help us
construct said playground
bexley ranked 11th in business insider's
list of the top 50 suburbs in america
we were not told about this until it
showed up on twitter
and they used a great photo of our old
city hall but nonetheless
baxley was 11th of the suburbs in
america by business insider
also we realized in 2018 a project we've
been working on for many years
to bring increased efficiency to our
electrical consumption in the city
by the installation of solar panels at
city hall they look a little bit like
this
rousing music
and also at our service garage
our vendor got a little excited
so those solar panels have about a 12 to
13-year payoff period and they have
about a 40-year life so we are going to
be
enjoying very green and very free
electricity for many years
we also launched a new program it was a
small program but it was a fun one which
was crossed with a cop where
officer chapman did a fantastic job of
helping middle school students get
oriented and crossing
main street and broad street to go to
their
new middle school complex and you would
think that
everyone knows how to cross the street
but we observed many adults
not crossing the street appropriately
and we were able to give some really
good tips
i'll tell you the top ones so you can
share them with your own family
walk your bike through the crosswalk
don't ride it through the crosswalk it's
the most important one
don't listen to music while you're while
you're crossing the crosswalk
and don't text while you're crossing the
crosswalk and cross when you're supposed
to cross the crosswalk so there you go
pro tips from cross with a cop notes
from the field
also we brought kogo stations to bexley
right in time for it to freeze so
nobody's really been able to enjoy those
yet but
come spring here very shortly hopefully
we'll all be able to get on those bikes
and enjoy some green transportation
around the city
so i want to talk about major priorities
we have in 2019 and i'm going to start
with
a uh some some momentum that we have
between
behind our new environmental
sustainability advisory committee
um they've been doing fantastic work
with the city's green initiative so i
really want to highlight that work
first off the esac has just launched a
new website esac environmental
sustainability advisory committee
esac has just launched a new website
greenbexley.org you can check it out
right now on your devices
but don't listen to me instead please
thank you
and this is going to continue to be
built out and provide really good advice
about how to recycle
how to recycle materials you can't
recycle through our traditional
recycling streams
and also how to use bexley's new food
waste
program which i'm about to talk about um
one of the initiatives that the esac
folks are working on in partnership with
several other groups because this has
turned into the like april
end of april i don't even we don't have
a name for it yet it's like
there's so much happening at the end of
april do we have a name for it monique
i don't know if we have a name but we
have arbor day april 26th we have a lot
of events on arbor day
greater bexley cleanup will be april
27th that's where you can bring your
shredder and hazardous waste
prescription pill drop off household
goods upcycling
will be the greater brexit cleanup and
then there's a new event coming to the
bexley community the green bexley fair
that's going to be at maryland
elementary school grounds
tesla is going to be there coda is going
to be there the bug guy is going to be
there the falcon guy is going to be
there
there are like a gazillion other folks
that are going to be there at the green
bexley fair
it will be focused on sustainability
sustainable living and we're also going
to have our cops and kids events
at the green bexley fair we're also
launching at the green bexley fair the
bexley
youth week of service and we'll be
giving a lot more information out of
there
but it's a initiative through
councilwoman monique lampke
that's going to provide a ton of
different volunteer opportunities for
bexley's youth
volunteer opportunities they can sign up
for and some really sweet prizes at the
end of it
and to cap it all off kosai science
festival which was referenced by
ben heckman will have several events in
bexley may first through third
and then the penultimate event at the uh
cytomile where it'll be a very very
large science festival
they are putting a ton of resources and
effort into it with the assistance of
battelle
bexley's food waste program launched
this week if you haven't signed up for
it yet you can at bexley.org
food dash waste or you can go on our
website and just google food waste
but what we've done now is provided food
waste recycling to over the 1
000 households who've initially signed
up which is really good uptake
um last year we diverted over 40 tons of
waste from the landfill
and that food waste is really critical
to divert from the landfill not just
because
it goes to farmers and community
gardeners as compost but because the
amount of methane gas is released by
food waste when it's properly turned
into compost
is dramatically reduced from that what
would otherwise show up in the landfill
so this is a really innovative program
it's not so innovative if you live for
example in most european countries where
it's been standard for years and years
and years
but it is innovative in ohio where we
have now launched ohio's very first
community curbside food waste recycling
program thank you for supporting that
bill dorman our service director was
hard at work this year securing a grant
to make sure that the bexley recycling
toters can go to every bexley household
and those will be coming to you in may
so look for those
there are a couple other initiatives of
the environmental sustainability
committee
that we'll be talking about over the
coming months we just had a business
workshop with businesses throughout
bexley to talk about two key ideas
that we're pursuing one of them is
universal recycling
so bexley has been recycling for over 15
years
at our curbside for residences but one
thing that we hear from
apartment residents is they would really
like to see that service at their
apartments it's an incredibly rare
service
to finder departments in bexley and
anywhere
the other one is business recycling it's
difficult for businesses
and multi-family owners to secure
affordable recycling options
and that's because individual businesses
are kind of left on their own to go out
and find contracts and it's
pretty inefficient for a hauler to come
out for one stop to any individual
business
so we're listening to businesses we're
gathering that intel and we're trying to
come up with a bexley solution
for universal recycling our commitment
is that by the end of 2019 we will have
a roadmap in place
to bring universal recycling to bexley
by 2020.
the other thing that the esac is
tackling is single-use plastics
so i think we all know that there are
some problems with plastics in the
environment and it's becoming a
ever more pervasive issue throughout the
throughout the world
the city of actually would like to show
some leadership and single-use plastics
regulation
we've met with our largest vendor or
supplier of single-use plastic bags
which is giant eagle
and we are pretty excited that we think
we have a plan to work with them and
with other vendors in bexley to
eliminate plastic bags in bexley
and to encourage the use of reusable
bags we're going to take it a step
further and we're also looking at other
plastics plastic straws plastic lids
non-recyclable takeout containers and
council has been working through some
some legislation troy markham is the
council member that's been
drafting that and redrafting it and
taking feedback and drafting it some
more
so that you'll probably see that in the
next month or two the legislation that's
proposed has been
very heavily vetted by businesses and
users and
will hopefully introduce a meaningful
single-use plastics ban
uh to bexley starting uh at the end of
this year
our commitment as a city thank you
[Applause]
our commitment is as a city is that at
community events
starting this summer we will be only
having compostable products
at our events and the bexley city pool
will be a zero waste facility in 2019.
thank you
so last year i talked to you about pace
pace means
property assessed clean energy it's a
way for us to help
property owners afford things like solar
panels
and properties and stretch the payment
over time at a favorable interest rate
by putting that on the tax duplicate
it's been really hard for us to get off
the ground but we've started working
with other regions
notably the toledo region that's leading
on residential pace
and we hope that by the end of the year
we'll have an enactable residential pace
program
and we hope to flip the switch on this
at the same time as toledo does
in concert with that i will be working
with city council this year to create
a plan to incentivize the installation
of solar panels on new construction
now some states are considering
mandating solar panels on new
construction
that's probably not the best solution
for ohio especially in bexley where we
have
an inordinate and wonderful amount of
trees but not every property makes sense
for solar
but some properties make a lot of sense
for solar and it makes even more sense
at the time of new construction so i'll
be working with council to propose
a program that asks property owners who
are developing new
principal structures to at least study
installing solar and the impact that it
will have on those properties
it's free vendors are very happy to
supply you with analysis of solar
and it's a very sensible and easy way
for us to make solar more accessible
in concert with our pace program that
will provide
meaningful and easy access to funding
for solar
i want to talk about some of the
exciting developments we have happening
in the bexley recreation and parks
program
if if you guys know me one of the things
you know about me
is i love a good logo and so i'm happy
to unveil
this evening the new look of some of
bexley recreation parks
major programs here we have the jeffrey
mansion preschool the backpack which is
our before and after care program
jeffrey summer camp which is an homage
to some really cool vintage old logos
from the summer camp the school's off
camson and the bexley pool logos are
rolling out now
and you will be seeing them in use
starting this year
it's really great to see this
consistency and it really highlights the
fact that we have some exciting
coherent and cohesive programs that are
bringing a lot of new value to the
community
let's talk about jeffrey mansion i'm
going to talk a little bit about jeffrey
mansion but i think jeff walker after me
is going to talk a little bit more about
jeffrey mansion so i'm not going to
i'll try not to over talk about jeffrey
manchin but as you know we've been
talking about
adding on to jeffrey mansion
we've had a three-fold growth in
preschool enrollment in the past 10
years
we've seen a 250 percent increase
in summer campers in the past 10 years
we have 1200 more program participants
coming through jeffrey mansion alone
than we did 10 years ago because of this
we have more pressure on our
facility in park than we ever have
before and frankly it's a more exciting
facility than it's ever been before
so we've been working with architects at
schooly caldwell and we've been working
through a public process last year at
the jeffrey mansion master plan update
to plan a space that takes it takes you
advantage of some
pre-existing space at jeffrey mansion
and turns it into a really usable
multi-purpose space for the entire
community the space that we're talking
about
is what we call the the lower level
carriage court it's what you walk
through to get down to the playground
from the front of jeffrey mansion and we
plan to enclose it with a glass atrium
and open up the space that was formerly
what was
will will formally be a maintenance
garage and open up access to the lower
level of jeffrey mansion
this will actually more than double the
amount of programmable space that we
have at jeffrey mansion
i think maybe even more than triple the
amount of space but i start to make up
numbers when i get up here so i'm gonna
keep talking the entire project
is still under planning but has been
made possible by a very generous
commitment from the bexley community
foundation to raise 1.5 million dollars
in funding for the project
so thank you to the bexley community
foundation
have you guys done it yet are you are
you getting there we're still working
just like come on man come on
another really exciting gift that the
city has received
is a donor who's come forward with a
hundred thousand dollars to help us
provide pickleball courts to uh
to the jeffrey park uh area um the
pickleball courts
probably aren't drawn to scale because
your mayor just put them on boxes
up front and mike's actually laughing as
he looks at them but they will be
located
uh just to the east of the tennis courts
at jeffrey park
we're going through some planning
process for that and that will provide
four pickleball surfaces that probably
will look nothing like what you're
seeing right there
but will be located uh to the east of
those tennis courts
we've been working hard for several
years on schneider park
schneider park is the park located in
south bexley
to the west of sheridan on the east
bank of alum creek one really critical
component of schneider park
is the southern athletic fields these
athletic fields
are now in place are being watered not
right now but they're being watered
they're being greened up and they're
being prepared for use
this year we're adding to the schneider
park athletic fields the playground
that i referenced which i would love to
see you help build at the end of march
if you hadn't heard that yet um this was
not an easy project
the city took title to uh area that
turned out to be on a former landfill
we'll talk about that a little bit later
and we've added two feet of fill above
that landfill in order to
create provide a create provide a safe
environment for
users of the field but the fields will
be opened in 2019
we're also working on connecting
schneider park to main street
the main street connector will connect
from essentially the parking lot across
from rusty bucket
we'll have a staircase and a plaza
staircase will lead down to our natural
trail
that will go through schneider park and
will connect main street
to the schneider park athletic fields
just off of livingston avenue
we'll provide over a three-quarter mile
walking path it's
a beautiful it's a scenic park it's
slowly coming together
another component that we're trying to
add to schneider park
is a dog park we've had a dog park study
group that's been
we have a member over here has been
working for i believe over three years
on the concept of a bexley dog park
and we've identified schneider park as a
really great area for it
it's going to be a it's going to be
relatively small dog park as planned
it will provide amenity for small dogs
and large dogs fenced in
mulch floor environment it will be treed
so it'll be really nicely shaded
it will have water stations all of these
it wills are based upon some funding
requests that we have out there but
we're working on it so this is a
let's do this it's not a commitment yet
but we're working on it
development updates so we have a lot
going on
in development in bexley but i already
touched on one of the most
important development projects that we
have and it it's the area right next to
the schneider park athletic fields that
i was talking about
that area is ferndale mayfield just
north of livingston avenue
you might know it as the apartments
behind moomoo car wash
if you washed your car recently we've
learned a lot about that site as we've
started to learn how to develop the
athletic fields on the site that the
city
owns and we've studied them we've
learned that
there was a landfill underneath much of
those apartments as far as we can tell
and we're still learning more about it
we've learned that the development
occurred in the 1960s on top of that
former landfill and there was very
little
consideration taken in to account for
the landfill that was underneath it or
some of the structural conditions that
would result from that landfill
in fact the vendors that have been
working with us to identify the
environmental issues there
have told us that there was absolutely
no capping of the landfill and that the
landfill is directly beneath the grass
at the areas of ferndale mayfield that
we studied and we have studied a lot of
them
we have drilled over 40 holes
in the soil around ferndale mayfield
each red dot that you see right there
represents a test
that the city has conducted we don't
have access to private property so we've
we've tested all along the streets we've
tested along alum creek
we've tested on two doubles that the
bexley community improvement corporation
purchased
and the reason the cic purchased it was
to test further and to really understand
where their indoor air quality issues
what was the full extent of
contamination under some of these
apartments
every single test that we conducted with
the exception of one site
was contaminated with lead and arsenic
some of them also were contaminated with
benzopyrenes which are known carcinogens
and cadmium among other toxic
chemicals the city of bexley and the
bexley community
improvement corporation is committed to
improving conditions at ferndale
mayfield
i've been talking about it in states of
the committee of the community for years
before this
i hope to not be talking about it for
many more years but i can tell you that
as we've worked on this
we're getting closer the community
improvement corporation issued a request
for interest from developers to help us
form a plan for how to create new
affordable housing so that we have
affordable housing options for the
residents of our city
and for plans to how to clean the site
and to bring together
all of the resources that we've gathered
over the years to create
clean safe affordable conditions
for the residents that we have at
ferndale mayfield i'm really happy to
announce today that
one of the biggest roadblocks to this
was the biggest property down there is a
72
unit apartment complex two buildings
three stories of each building also on
top we know for sure now
on top of that landfill the property
owner has been trying to sell that
property
has been very frustrated because every
person who's tried to buy the property
keeps on knocking on my door and saying
what do you know about this
i say well i don't know anything about
your property but i can tell you what i
know about every single site all around
you
and so they start asking questions about
environmental conditions the pressure
the city has placed
on property owners in the area has
resulted in some really concrete change
one of the changes is that in the coming
months the 72 unit apartment complex
is going to be cleaned and it's going to
be safe for the residents to live there
thanks to a grant actually not a grant a
loan to that property
owner from the ohio water development
authority so that's going to happen in
the next few months
and it will provide us with 72 units
that are safe and clean
but we have a lot further to go and
we're going to continue to be working on
ferndale and mayfield
as we work on development in bexley one
thing is really clear
property on main street is at a premium
there is almost no vacancy on main
street or north cassidy avenue
the market is incredibly incredibly
attracted to bexley
and it's because of the work that the
folks in this room have been doing
so as we work on development in main
street we need to continue to look at
new opportunities to put together
properties that are underperforming
or maybe you know houses that weren't
developed for retail in the first place
on main street
and you'll see a lot of innovative work
coming out of the bexley community
improvement corporation
and the city of bexley as we work on
that in the years to come
i want to talk about safety because none
of the efforts that we're talking about
tonight
are complete or meaningful without
safety
i'm i'm proud to announce that the new
police officer positions that we created
through bexley city council several
years ago at this point two or three
years ago
are now fully staffed and we have a full
complement of 32 sworn
police officers with the bexley police
force including
two mid-shifts
our police department is fully staffed
and it's humming
our citizens police academy has been an
incredibly successful program and one of
the things that we found is we have a
fully staffed department
is that we are able to dedicate time and
resources to community serving
curriculum such as the citizens police
academy
and curriculum that really enhances the
sense of community and connectedness to
the police department
the citizen police academy offers
activities such as
cpr training active shooter training
ride-alongs with officers
information on gangs and gang combating
participants get to stop do simulations
of
traffic stops and learn some of the real
complex
jobs that police officers get into as
they go through that they get to do a
beer goggle simulator where they
learn all about um what it's like to
drive under the influence
which it's better to learn that from
beer goggles any other way
and every now and then participants do
participate in a taser demonstration
and if you would like to sign up for
that i be my guest we'll take a video
and we'll share it with the rest of city
council whenever you're
recognized we have a cops and kids
activity that's included shop with a cop
where we've helped increase connectivity
between kids
who have who need shoes or need jackets
and our police department
they've helped with drug drop-off events
in the city
this year we're also launching body
cameras in the bexley police department
we've been studying how other
communities are doing this we've been
making sure that we're able to comply
with public records requests
we've been making sure that we're able
to do in a responsible way body cameras
help increase the transparency of our
police department they help us make sure
that we are providing
the level of service and the correct
type of service to the community
they keep us accountable and it's a
really good thing and it's something
that our officers have been requesting
and we're happy to partner with them in
providing
here are key stats uh i share these
every year
and it's the charts getting a little
longer every year
we track thefts burglaries and robberies
every year
2018 saw a decrease in robberies a
decrease
in burglaries and we're pretty flat just
slightly lower on thefts
but as you can see our crime statistics
continue to be relatively level over the
20-year period that we study
we keep on working on being better and
the way that we're able to be
better is informing our residents
how to secure their properties
effectively and we've seen a really
really effective use of new technology
the ring doorbell cameras some of the
new
types of security that have been out
there have been helpful in reducing
property theft statistics in bexley
i've already been given my time limit so
this is bad so i apologize to all of you
but i want to talk about the streets
that we're going to be working on in
2019 with the street levy dollars we're
going to be
we're going to be opening up a lot of
street projects this year
for one thing we're going on roosevelt
south of main street we're continuing
water line work and repaving
and we're going to be trying to repave
charles street between roosevelt
and our west or eastern boundary we'll
also be adding curbs to charles
and we plan to add curbs to charles
further to the west in the next phase of
that project
powell avenue from drexel to columbia
caroline avenue where we will also be
adding curbs we are trying to add curbs
to all of our streets that do not have
them
north columbia from carolina del mar
dawson from broad to fair
ardmore from dale to fair and north
remington from maryland to denver
these projects are based upon the
payment rating that we do every year
we have several other streets that we
want to get to but we're trying to make
sure that we're building up a reserve
and our street levy to make it last as
long as we can
so these are the the priority projects
that we're working on in 2019
another one that has been a project that
seems like has taken forever
is getting a walk don't walk signal at
almond cassingham right outside
of this area it's a really important
safety infrastructure that was
recommended in our safe routes to school
program
back in 2012 we've been trying to get
grants for it for years and years and
years
and finally we have leveraged a federal
grant which if you've ever worked with a
federal grant takes about four years to
actually
put in place and this summer we will see
a new
signal at elman castingham with a walk
don't walk signal
it's very exciting so i thought i'd give
that its own slide
another project that we've been working
on for years with whitehall and gahanna
is coming to bexley uh this year which
is bexley municipal fiber that's a fiber
that's
being brought to our businesses and
institutions it's a way to connect
capital university the bexley school
district the city of bexley and
businesses who want to use it
to data centers throughout central ohio
providing us with
first mile incredibly fast incredibly
robust internet
service and data center activity that's
all i know about so don't ask me any
technical questions
but it's really good as you know we care
deeply about our beautification efforts
in bexley and we have citizens who do
great
work every year raising money for
beautification we have a historic
input of trees and flowers in the city
of bexley
bexley in my opinion has never looked
any better than it has today and it's
thankful
thanks to many of the people in this
room who helped to raise funds and plan
projects around beautification
this year we're bringing flower pots to
north cassidy
we're updating our main street flower
pots this is thanks to bexley
beautification funding
we're planting more trees and we're
going to work on installing the first
phase of the arboretum
component of the commonwealth park
master plan
and that will be occurring at the south
west portion
of commonwealth park
you've been using the bexley base for
many years and it's been showing
we fielded over two thousand requests
through the base and closed over two
thousand requests
so if you don't have this app download
it now
base we'll tell you how to get it it's
on the iphone and android
and it's a great way for you to connect
with us about service issues that you
have
in the city the bexley diversity
inclusion initiative has continued to
grow
this year we're going into a strategic
planning process where we're looking at
the next phase of what we're doing
to date the bexley diversity inclusion
initiative has been helping program
activities around diversity and
inclusion in the city
it's been partnering with the school
district with the library with capitol
university with csg
and with other people that i'm probably
leaving out of this but
one of the more successful events that
we've had is the new resident event we
had one of those last week
all of you are invited to our new
resident cookout that's happening this
summer keep an eye out for the dates
it's it's great to have community
leaders participants
and old hats at hand to meet new
residents and welcome them warmly
to the community finances in bexley
2018 our income tax came in softer than
we expected it to be
so 2019 is a year of hanging tight we
don't have any capital expenditures in
our budget other than our street program
in 2019 but we have accrued new money
into our capital budget
so what we're doing is we're taking a
watchful wait and see attitude we do
have a balanced budget in 2019 and we're
optimistic
about what next year holds we have three
new planning initiatives we're working
on this year
the first is historic preservation plan
initiative
bexley has historic preservation
controls for residential property
but not for commercial property so in
theory
if somebody wanted to purchase the
bexley library from the library
is it for sale that's the right answer
[Laughter]
there's no nothing to say that a
historic structure that's a commercial
structure couldn't be torn down
there's no zoning control around it so
we've kind of been trying to find the
right time between contentious
demolitions in bexley and we keep on
like trying to dodge him
maybe now's the right time but we're
working on modernizing our historic
preservation code
looking at how we treat historic
residences in the city
but also historic commercial property
for a comprehensive
overhaul of that we're also looking at a
havenwood park landscape plan we've
solicited bids
from vendors we're going to choose a
vendor and work on a steering committee
comprised of
residents who live around the park and
users of the park and
city commission members to improve the
landscaping
uh on the outer edges of havelinwood
park
and a bike infrastructure plan has been
financed by council actually last year
we were doing so many plans last year
that we just didn't think we had the
bandwidth for it
we will be launching our bike
infrastructure plan group
this summer trying to find the best bike
routes the best type of signage for
those bike routes
to bring to the city of bexley
we have a lot of fun planned for you
this year bexley and i want to thank
the bexley celebration events team led
by lorianne fiable
but lots of other subcommittees led by
lots of other people
they plan the fourth of july evening
activities they play in the main event
they play in jazz at havenwood park they
plan
the labor day block party the harvest
festival the egg dash
the tree lighting what am i forgetting
the menorah lighting
lots of more things maybe main event
date night
lots of fun happening bexy celebrations
events team is
100 private funded for the first time
last year
and they are doing a fantastic job of
raising funding funding and raising the
level of excitement in the community
so let's keep in touch we're going to
have a new community update out here in
a few months to you
we keep on sending new resident info
packets out to our residents
the best part of your water bill is not
paying your water bill but reading your
water bill newsletter that comes out
every quarter
we're on facebook we're on instagram i'm
on twitter
and the bexley blast email is the most
critical communications piece that comes
out from the city
every week if you don't have it sign up
at bexley.org
bexley.org slash blast i can't talk or
go see sam he's right here and he will
sign you up he'll make sure
that you get your bexley blast that
is all i have to tell you about but you
can reach me anytime you want
uh give me a call we'll have coffee
we'll have coffee with the mayor updates
it'll be good
it is now my honor to introduce
i believe jeff walker from the bexley
community foundation
jeff is an officer and a gentleman thank
you
[Applause]
thank you sir you know you don't
you don't want to go after any of these
great speakers tonight but you
definitely don't want to go after the
mayor
because he's the only guy that doesn't
give himself a time limit so
he's he's got all the time to give that
detailed presentation i'm back on to
five minutes now so this will be
very much of a back to the vein of a
broad overview we were talking earlier
that we think maybe next year we should
have the uh
bexley orchestra here in front and it'd
be like the academy awards when you run
out of time everybody just play the
music and
and we'll have to uh to go off um
so i am jeff walker the chair of the
bexley community foundation
um a lot of what we you've already heard
about tonight
really involves the foundation and so
i'm not going gonna be repetitive to a
lot of the things that are going on in
the city
but i would like to update you a little
bit about what's happening at the
foundation
and our perspective on on what's
happening in the in the city
i hope i'm not boring everybody with the
details but i want to make sure
everybody's comfortable with kind of
what we are and who we are
mexican community foundation was just
started nine years ago
we used to call ourselves a little baby
organization you know for the first few
years
we're coming up on 10 years next year i
guess we probably won't be able we're
almost a teenage organization i guess
but we're still young we're still just
getting started
but we've really i think made some
tremendous progress in
in just that nine years we now have 12
funds altogether i think a lot of people
think of the community foundation as the
general community fund which is our our
largest fund but we have an 11
additional funds that really
specialize on different targeted areas
that people
uh might have interested in uh the
newest fund which uh
the mayor just kind of referenced is the
bexley celebrations and events
organization uh is a separate entity but
we started the
bexley celebration and events fund so we
are the funding arm
for all of those activities that uh
mayor kessler just went through all
those
wonderful activities so we are the
funding
arm for that and in the first year as i
said it was just started in 2018 and
just the
first year we had 200 donations into
that
into that fund alone so i think we we
got off to a fun start on that
and uh and as as the mayor said
uh now those events are are fully
privately funded and we're really happy
to be a part of that
but i think what happened with that
fund is really emblematic of what we are
trying to do and what we want to be for
this community
you know we say we are um a fund a
foundation
that wants to improve the way bestly
lives learns works and plays and that's
really our
motivation we're all aware as
the mayor reference to tight budgets and
and there's only so much municipalities
that can do
there's so much that only so much that
you and other organizations can do alone
and i believe more than ever that a
community
is so much stronger if you can unite
private funding private donations with
the missions
of a broader community whether that be
the city or the organizations within
that city
and that's what we want to do these 12
funds represent that how do we work
with different sub organizations and
worth work with the city
to to move forward and make bexley a
better place to do all of that live
learn work and play i bring that up
because the celebrations events fund
i don't have to tell you you know that
started in 18 but
2018 wasn't the first year bexley had
fireworks right
i mean it's been going on a long time we
started a couple years ago the
bexley community author series fund in
cooperation with the library
that event had been happening before and
obviously we all know the
library is exponentially older than the
community foundation is
but we were able to create those kind of
partnerships to really take things to
the next level
and and to grow things for the community
so i ask you
as you look at these 12 funds to
think about if you're interested in
getting invo involved
we need involvement from the community
in every way
i know probably most of you in the room
have been asked for donations
and please i'm not trying to underplay
that we we want the donations
and and we are very very blessed for the
support that we have gotten
but we also need volunteers to help us
do what we're trying to do and progress
in all of these different missions and
believe it or not this is probably the
point i want to emphasize
i'm running out of time that i want to
emphasize we need ideas for spending
money we need grants
i'm very happy to say in our first
funding series this year and we have two
general funding
uh series we had 16 letters of intents
requests for grants from the community
foundation
that was the highest amount we had ever
received in a funding series so we're
starting to get more and more requests
and that means we can do more and more
for the city um
where are we so far uh we last year we
hit the one million
dollar mark in terms of grants that
we've given in the then eight years
so far already just shortly into 2019
we've hit a million 250 in grants that
we've given back and granted
actually to the city of bexley
and i know i'm out of time but i i have
to uh
to just give a little bit about what is
clearly the biggest project that we've
tried to to bite off
and that is the uh the commitment to uh
fund a major portion of the jeffrey
mansion expansion and renovation
uh that the mayor has talked about um so
i'll make this very very quick
uh but it was with a lot of uh churning
of the teeth and
uh you know uh arm
twisting that that we the board
undertook the idea to do a capital
campaign our first ever capital campaign
to support this project we originally
tossed around the idea of making a six
hundred thousand dollar commitment
we moved that to eight hundred thousand
and somehow through some
crazy um thoughts at the end of that
meeting we decided to make it around
million dollars and
there was quite a bit of angst about
that um we have an annual meeting every
year i'm sure some of you uh i know some
of you have
been to that we decided to kick off the
campaign this last september at that
annual meeting
and kick off the what was going to be
the million dollar campaign
thanks to a lot of members of the team
and gary giller who headed up our
capital campaign um we uh we asked for
some early
lead gifts to try to kind of get the
excitement started
and the the lead gift phase was so
overwhelming that by the time
we went to announce the start of our
million dollar campaign we had raised
right around 940 000
um so it was uh it was an interesting
meeting
uh to kick off that campaign and that
night we decided
and announced that we were going to
raise the goal to a million five
um we originally thought the
million-dollar campaign was going to be
a two-year campaign
as i said in september we announced it
was a million five and i'm not
prepared to give you totals yet because
we're making big announcements in april
but i can tell you that we have now
reached the million five goal uh
for that uh jeffrey uh jeffrey mansion
capital campaign
uh we're not done we're going to
continue to take donations and
and this september uh we're going to
have some events we want to make sure
that
this was not a campaign that just
reached out to or simply reached out
to the large uh donor base we want to
make sure everybody in the community
uh feels involved in this so we're
having an additional fundraising phase
before we completely wrap
up um but uh we're we're certainly
very happy we've achieved the goal i
know i'm out of time so uh
just a little bit uh to wrap up about
where we're headed stop by our office
from 3 to 5 p.m on april 10th that is
the week that we're kind of celebrating
and
i wouldn't say pop champagne but we're
gonna have some ice cream uh to
celebrate uh
hitting the goal for the uh major uh
capital campaign gift
portion um of our our campaign
september 15th we're going to have our
first ever uh art auction
um more details to come on that um but
that's going to be a community event
where we
uh uh sell uh art items and it'll be
some exposure for some local as well
some other artists
um it is all going to gener uh the the
capital campaign at jeffrey manchin
it'll be a community event as well more
to come on that
uh but that's going to be exciting and i
mentioned before
that you know we've had massive
donations in this wonderfully generous
community that's allowed us to do what
we've done
but we want to make sure that everybody
feels that they're involved we've
started what's called the 1908 society
it's a way to say yes i'm a donor to the
community foundation i'm part i want to
be part of everything that's going on at
the community
and the the entry into the 1908 society
which gets its name from the
year that bexley was was founded is a
donation of 19.8 cents
and we just want to make it very clear
we welcome everyone's support we welcome
everyone's volunteer efforts
we welcome your ideas and we're very
very grateful to be
a part of this very very generous
community so thank you very much
[Applause]
and now it's my honor to introduce the
president of capitol university
beth paul
[Applause]
good evening wonderful to be here with
you all and wonderful to be part of a
community that
clearly understands the power and
possibility that is created by education
it's a hard time to be an educational
institution right now in our society we
face a society that is
questioning the value of higher
education
really at all levels you know we we are
facing this throughout
and we make a strong statement here
that education is a central part of what
we are as a community and i'm really
very proud to be part of that
so at capital you'll remember last year
i talked a little bit about
our four areas of strategic focus these
are areas that are meant to
be defining of what sets capital apart
it's
they're meant to define the value of
capital university they're also meant to
move us so i want to give you some
examples of how they've been moving us
this year
first and foremost we offered a new
scholarship program
at the beginning of the year i hope many
of you heard about it and if you know
if you're on the board of a non-profit
organization or you know
families who are in the nonprofit
community or in government
you know the public sector please let
them know that there is a scholarship
opportunity just for them
uh that makes sure that they do not pay
more than fifty percent tuition
at capital university the reason we did
this was a recognition that there is a
slice of our population that doesn't
think
of private higher education independent
schools
as an opportunity for their education
yet we know
that oftentimes for those students an
independent school like capital
is the best kind of education for them
it is the place where they thrive
so this targets that population to say
no we value you
you are welcome here and this is
accessible to you
it's also a way to to state to you to
state to the broader
community that this is what we believe
in we are an institution that
uh stands for good we are an institution
that
commits ourselves to community that
commits ourselves to a better world
through the kind of transformative
education that we provide
and through an incredible student body
that we attract to capital and then send
out into the world
thanks to our provost long-time bexley
resident jody fournier
he doesn't think he drew this but he
really did um he's been doing
exceptional work working with our
faculty and staff to lead
a definition of learning that is very
contemporary uh looking at the future
of our society and the kinds of skills
the kinds of
abilities that our employers are saying
we need for
that future to thrive and he is making
sure that the areas of our curriculum
are
definitively connecting with those
future skills so that our students are
ready to go out
and take on the world and create the
better world that we all so much
want he is also very involved in helping
us
to expand our graduate programs
this is particularly in the area of
health and well-being
you know that we've had a nursing
program for a very long time it's one of
our stronger programs
we have we have several areas of
strength of course but nursing has been
a very important one
and we recognize that part of the good
we need to foster in our community
is through supporting health and
well-being we know that
looking at the population trends we know
that we have a swiftly
increasing population of older adults we
know that there are a number of other
health and well-being issues
kim talked earlier about the the
well-being issues that are
critical and they are staggering in
terms of their rates
we're looking at rates now of about a
third of students in higher education
uh presenting with various forms of
mental health
challenge this is huge in our society
and so how can we be a proactive part in
that
so you can see some of the programs that
we're bringing on board or developing
right now
we have a new program called the doctor
of nursing practice that is starting
in the fall we also have a master of
legal studies
this is a program that does not
culminate in the juris doctor
so in other words the graduates can't
practice law
but it is a program to help them be
expert in the law
and we're finding that with our
employers in a number of sectors all
throughout our city and region
they're looking for people who are
knowledgeable about law it is
an advantage for their area of business
but they don't necessarily
have to practice law so in this program
a first area of concentration will be
compliance and a second area of a
concentration will be cyber law
we just approved the board just approved
a master of clinical counseling
this is a critically important program
for us we
have a wonderful partnership in the
works with nationwide children's
hospital
who also has a deep commitment to
behavioral health and mental health
in our youth population so this program
has been approved by our board
needs to go through all the hoops for
accreditation but it will be launched
soon
in development is a master of social
work program also a master in management
program a leadership program
redesigning our master of business
administration and
trinity lutheran seminary now a year
into again being part of capital
university
and we're so happy to have our
university all together
again one of the most interesting things
we're seeing there
is that we have people who are
interested in attaining the degrees that
we offer
but we have an increase in adults who
are simply interested in taking a course
or two here and there and what we're
hearing from these adults is
they want a place where they can they
can think
and they can reflect and they can find
meaning and they can find a sense of
community
and so we are finding that as a
wonderful increase in our
uh seminary we have been so
pleased to connect with our community
more and more and more
so a fourth area of strategy for us is
our multi-layered community when you
think about capital university
we start in this wonderful community of
bexley we progress
all through the near east side and to
downtown columbus which is where the law
school exists
and we have a commitment to that entire
community that whole ecosystem is a
learning environment for our students
that truly is unmatched
so how can we make more and more of that
well first of all it is being a better
neighbor in
bexley and being a better citizen here
so that we open our doors and make sure
that you know all of what's contained in
this incredible university that you have
in this wonderful city so we were
thrilled to host the
the drexel theater gala this year i was
um
i was a little dismayed but also really
excited by walking around that gala and
having so many people say to me you know
what i've never actually
been on the capitol campus before these
are
long time residents well it's time if
you have not been to the to the capitol
campus please come
and please let us know how we can
introduce you to the to the marvels that
is
that are capital um oops back again
okay uh we also had some other um very
important events on campus this year
that welcomed all different kinds of
people to our community
the most recent one you might have
noticed uh on last friday we had about
800 rising educators
high school students interested in
education interested in teaching
from all over the country and they were
at the
capitol campus and experiencing their
future
at capital which was very exciting
uh we are continuing our older but
bolder initiative and you will see this
continue to grow
in the years to come quite significantly
this year the event is coming up on
march 25th and 26th we have a whole
array
of programming on active aging and
it really is a favorite event in our
community and we very much appreciate
the many partners that help
us to make this a reality we have a new
documentary that was produced
by a set of students in two courses
working with a media and film professor
and also a history professor
drawing on documentary films skills but
also our
archive and it is a study of capital in
the 60s i
i urge you to come and see this
documentary it is
fascinating and it is fascinating about
capital of course but it is
capital in the bexley community so i
urge you to come
and and uh enjoy that the next showing
will be
on march 20th actually the next showing
i think is coming up like
tomorrow something like that but anyway
um
or maybe it was today uh but march 20th
there is a showing at seven o'clock at
the bexley public library and we hope
that you can come and be part of that
um our music programs you might know
have been celebrating 100 years of music
at capital
can you imagine we have had 100 years of
celebrating music
and the importance of music in our in
our society
we have a new exciting partnership
coming out with opera
columbus we have a wonderful opera and
music theater program
we had a an exceptional performance in
january
and it makes me quite optimistic about
what we're going to see in mid-april
with kiss me kate
it is extraordinary the talent that is
in this conservatory
if you have not experienced that please
call my office tell me how you would
like to explore
what's happening in our conservatory and
we'll make sure to include you
it is extraordinary the talent that we
attract to
capital and put out into the world
coming up
uh soon in april is the trout
lecture this is a celebration of african
american theology
and we attract leaders from all around
the world to this event every year
it's one of been been one of the most
inspiring events that i have experienced
at capital in my time there and i
welcome you
on april 25th and 26th to enjoy that
event
you know the schumacher gallery which is
hidden way up in the
you know sky in in the library
it is an extraordinary art collection
we're interested in
building on the front of the blackmore
library
in the years to come so that we can pull
that down out and out so that it can be
much more of a
wonderful treat for our bexley community
and a welcoming space for our bexley
community but please come and
visit us there i've told you about the
celebration of 100 years of music
our gala concert this would be a
wonderful opportunity for you to enjoy
the
conservatory march 29th and 30th
and then our jazz and world music
festival which is a national class event
and that is april 11th and in particular
you might be
interested in knowing that the airmen of
note will be performing at that event
we have a day that celebrates the
special kind of learning that happens at
capitol university you will be awed by
the quality of work that our students
that our students produce come on over
and walk through
especially on wednesday april 17th you
can see at the bottom we have a
lunch and a student poster session it's
open it's in the capital center
field house all you have to do is walk
in and you'll be welcome and you can
walk around and you'll be awed by the
work that is happening there
and then finally we have a lot of
excitement at capital right now because
of the good guarantee the good guarantee
has given us
local regional and national press about
capital university and the commitment
that we're making and as a result
right now we're running between 20 and
30 ahead
in our enrollment numbers for the fall
so on april
14th
i've trained myself to always knock
every time i say that knock on wood
but it's very exciting for this
community so on april 14th we have a
special event
every year in the middle of april where
we welcome the students that we have
admitted
they're making their final decision
about whether to come to capital
so this is a day where we open our whole
community
and so many of you are part of that day
and i'm very grateful for that
i'm i have the honor and privilege of
introducing elaine pells and before i
introduce her i will say
the chamber is a wonderful partner in
helping businesses to collaborate with
capital
to welcome the newest families to
welcome the newest students to our
community and it is a very special
commitment it's a very special
expression
of what community means here and
the part that capital is part is
plays in that so i welcome you to come
on by and welcome our newest students on
april 14th
and with that i will introduce to you
elaine pells and i will say
thank you
[Music]
thank you
okay hi everyone
[Applause]
for those of you who don't know me
that's not me sam
for those of you who don't know me i've
been a bexley resident a proud bexley
resident for over 20 years
and i'm proud to be the chamber of the
bexley area chamber of commerce
2018 was a great year for the bexley
chamber
we but we've also known for a while that
2019 was going to be even better
in fact we've coined 2019 the best year
yet
here's how we know this although i'm not
sure this is the right slide
that is not there it is
our mission as a chamber is to serve our
constituents
as you can see here and with that we
have goals
to enable and ensure a strong healthy
and vibrant business community
which naturally serves the residents as
well
in 2018
or not oh dear
in 2018 we grew our membership by 75.
think of that we are currently just
under
300 members of the chamber
we did that by providing value through
over 30
programs 30 networking promotional
and educational opportunities
we built a if there was a slide up here
that showed all this you would see that
i'm not sure what's coming next so i'm
wait i'm pausing
we built a flourishing women in business
group
we hosted in conjunction with the bexley
celebrations committee
we hosted a tremendous memorial day food
truck festival
and jazz in the park series kickoff we
held our fabulous 10th anniversary to
the taste of bexley which included
almost 30 food vendors we held
the best attended holiday hop to date
and if you kind of creep into 2019
in 2019 in january on the second coldest
day of the year we hosted
a very successful beer crawl to get
people out in the middle of winter
i know we did it by also moving our
location
to a more centralized and accessible
place you can tell this was
taken before the beer crawl
but right when we got our sign put up so
yay come visit knock on our door we did
it by building a new website
that is full of information about our
members and our services
and we did it by publishing a directory
that is also full of information about
our members
and our services
our consistent increase in event
attendance
in partnerships and in volunteers tells
us that we're doing something right
so what's ahead for 2019 that was 2018.
oh man this is
what's ahead for 2019
um get out your cell phones because
you're going to want to put this in your
calendars
on may 2nd look it i see people doing
this that's good
on may 2nd we're going to be hosting a
brand new event
to kick off spring and that event is
geared towards educating
and promoting the entrepreneurs in our
community
we're calling it everyone starts
somewhere
the event will include a panel of
successful entrepreneurs
followed by an expo of many of our
community entrepreneurs
consultants freelancers and startups who
don't
have a brick and mortar presence
part of that evening our panelists
they're a stellar and diverse group and
here's who they are
james clear is a new york times
best-selling author
photographer and blogger colin castore
is the founder of seven sun brewing
company
and madison mikhail bush happens to be a
capital university 200 2014 alum
and she founded an app called point that
is to connect
volunteers and non-profits as easy as
you can hail
your uber so we're pretty excited about
all that
um if that's not enough for you
following this this is may 2nd at
jeffrey mansion
later on in may we're going to continue
with more of the
programs that we've already hosted
we're going to be partnering again with
the bexley library on our second startup
series it follows
more information for entrepreneurs the
theme of it is food trucks
coincidentally or not later in may is
the food truck festival how did we do
that
um in conjunction again with the bexy
celebrations committee and their jazz in
the park
we're going to have a wine walk in june
following our
successful beer crawl date to be
determined
um my husband keeps telling me we should
have a bourbon brawl
i'm not doing that not going there
but we're rounding out the year with our
11th annual taste of excellent
and another successful holiday hop
so in closing our goal let's see where
it is on here
okay that okay there in closing
sort of um our goal is to keep moving
and keep busy for the businesses in the
community and of course
for the for the community residents as a
whole
we are an independent non-profit
organization funded by sponsorships
and membership learn more about us
come get involved with us you can come
talk to me or any of our board members
and remember that 2019 is the best year
yet
with that mr mayor
[Applause]
elaine pals
you don't need slides elaine you did
fantastically
all right i want to close with two
thoughts first off three thoughts
first off i want to thank kim miller and
the bexley city schools for hosting
thank you very much
[Music]
this is a fantastic and vibrant facility
as i listen to all the presenters this
evening i'm reminded of what
a a beautiful and complicated and
wonderful community we have and
and the thought that popped into my head
was that of a of a clock tower
and how it takes all of these cogs to
move the community together and we have
some really
really cool cogs so good job guys
at any self-respecting state of the
community i'm supposed to say this
the state of the bexley community is
strong
or insert whatever you want there but i
don't think that's good enough
i think the state of our community is
bold
it's adventurous it's innovative
it's exciting it's groundbreaking
and it's leading it's leading by
inspiring
by trying and by succeeding and this is
all because of you
and all of the member organizations here
tonight and even those who were not here
tonight
this is a community that i love and i
know we all love and that we're proud of
thank you for being a part of it
have a fantastic 2019. go get him bexley
be bold thank you