good evening
is that mike on can you hear me no you
can't hear me
okay
hello can you hear me now okay
there we go i can always use my
lifeguard voice
you can hear me without my mic good
evening i'm corelli
head of columbus school for girls and on
and on behalf of the csg community
i welcome you to our magnificent agnes
jed agnes jeffrey shed theater
and to the bexley's 2020 state of the
community round table
i'm noticing that just as with students
each of you has picked a particular
place
in the auditorium the a students are
down front
troublemakers are in the and the people
in the middle
i'm not sure about you but i'll uh we'll
figure that out by the end of the
evening
here at csg we help to ensure that every
student knows power
we know of course that having power
isn't particularly useful
useful unless you know how to use that
power effectively
one of the ways we empower csg girls is
by encouraging them and giving them many
opportunities to speak out
to make their our students do that in
many ways
through service service learning
lobbying and writing let representatives
researching problems and seeking
solutions to those problems
just to name a few being well informed
about your community
so that you can advocate for the issues
that you care about is yet another esg
students uses
and know their power it is in part for
this reason
that i am that csg is hosting bexley's
state of the community roundtable we are
so proud to be part of this wonderful
community
enjoy the evening it promises to be
formative
i would now like to introduce someone
who needs no introduction really
lori ann fibel not only is lorient
president of city council
let's see supreme ruler i think is
another title that she has
among among many i think her husband
just rolled his eyes but
um but she is also a csg parent
her daughters annie and adelaide are
proud csg
lifelong unicorns and two women
who know their power laurie anne will
moderate our discussion this evening so
welcome lorianne fowle
welcome bexley those in the audience
and those viewing via facebook live
to our annual state of the community
event
we are so glad you care enough to share
the next hours
of your evening with us first jennifer
thank you your amazing facilities
team i have worked with that amazing
facilities team
doing a lot of volunteer work and i know
just how amazing
they actually are thank you so much for
welcoming us
into this beautiful i know
very well how hard a csg community
worked to make this
auditorium happen and i
it was always csg's plan
to share it with the rest of the
community so thank you so for doing so
csg is just one of many special pieces
of the bexley puzzle that helps to
create
our community's big picture i see
members from all kinds of different
organizations out in the audience and
in particular i see two really in
educational institution um uh people
from st
charles from um bexley and city schools
so
um we know how important each piece is
uh
to the puzzle um bexley's big picture is
beautiful
because so many talented individuals who
stand up
lead and volunteer with a willingness to
work collaboratively
towards creating an even stronger
community
it reminds us that alone we can do so
little
together we can do so much
i recognize just some of the individuals
in bexley
that help make our community that help
our community
do so much uh there are i know there are
some elected officials
out there from the bexley um uh
uh city council some of my peers i'd
love for you guys to stand
i know you're there please stand i know
we've got
some school board miss
we've got we have actually school board
members if you could please stand and be
recognized
[Applause]
our fabulous auditor bill harvey is here
he's stan
so have some mission and board members
i'd love for
you to stand for this from the city of
bexley
i know you're there come on
[Applause]
and then i know there is a really
special group of people
that uh make lives so much easier
those people who are the directors and
staff
and people that work so hard if you all
could stand in the back
come on
[Applause]
caring communities come together as we
have tonight to celebrate
accomplishments
to evaluate opportunities to highlight
bold
ideas when thinking
along these lines robert kennedy would
caution it is not more
bigness that should be our goal we must
rather to pre to bring people back
to the warmth of community to the worth
of
individual effort and responsibility
and individuals working together as a
community
to better their lives and their
children's future
tonight we will hear from four
individuals who are
pros at working together to our lives
and to our for our community's future
benjamin heckman benjamin
heckman
[Laughter]
our favorite librarian jeffrey walker
from the bexley community foundation
elaine pells
from the bexley chamber of commerce
and our the honorable benjamin kessler
[Applause]
after our speakers finished tonight so
each one of them is going to
take time to share some thoughts with
you
after they finish we're going to have a
q a
now people on facebook viewing live
you can comment on the post and we will
get your comments
your questions and we'll be sure to make
sure to make those um
asked um all you uh should have seen
some
sheets that look like this whoops well
just last one
that look like this um and you could
fill those
out already perhaps you have um if not
um hallie and sam are gonna be coming
around
to um collect some of those and after
the four
we will uh we will answer all of those
um so without further ado what did
bexley do in 2019
and what are they going to do in 2020
let's hear first from
everyone's favorite librarian benjamin
heckman
can you hear me it might be immediate
just double check
[Laughter]
[Music]
you're doing great ben
how's that oh yeah all right
user error
uh thank you so much uh it's an honor to
be here
it's an honor to bookend with the other
ben
and uh to be here with these fine
partners chamber and the bexley
community foundation
uh so with that we're gonna do the
sitting down
you ready okay um
first off we we love being your library
on behalf of uh
the wonderful staff that we have the
library board
and myself um to be an idea that values
education so much that values engagement
and is heavy users of their library it's
a wonderful place to work
as i'm sure liv and so first and
foremost we love being here
with such a great community so thank you
for that that if that's all you're good
um all right we're going to do some
comparative statistics who's excited
about
like yeah so
uh 2019 we had uh almost 41 000 attend a
program or a meeting in the library
okay so that's like huntington park four
times
pretty good right look at him uh we had
180 000
people visit the library that's about 15
000 a month
and uh that would fill up nationwide
nine times
nine times elaine pals uh and then
645 000 items circulated that's nearly
54 000
a month anybody can guess what we're
going to use next
ohio stadium six times so if you think
about that building on me
you're getting a lot of activity coming
in and out of that building every year
uh so there we go some comparative
statistics
uh the highlights from 2019 jerry
pinckney was our first family author
visit
this is an extension of our bexley
community author series
we welcomed over 100 family members of
all ages to this event and it was really
wonderful
bird kits now you can check out cars
games
and kits to go catch all the cool birds
and identify them
that's really cool guys uh
the cosi science fest this was uh the
first time they did this is inaugural
actually partnered with this on multiple
levels we were
a big participant of that and so great
great photos of that
it was a great event our number one used
database in 2019 was the new york times
mayor did you know you can get free new
york times through the library
all right so you may be a user so if you
didn't know that you can get new york
times
our civics programs we continue to focus
on
complex things being in the world where
uh patrons can come and ask questions
find out what's going on understand for
themselves uh we had a human trafficking
event just the other night
uh jeering the new bill that just got
passed through the state house
uh i'm gonna ask question with your
neighbor what's going on
uh and then we had a really cool star
wars party uh we had lasers and a falcon
so that's like what's over your head
right now
uh and then exciting things are in store
for 2020 we have a brand new website in
the new app
so if you want to pull your phone out
right now and download it i will not be
offended
you are able to see the opening at the
library you can reserve books if you're
at a bookstore you can scan a book
and it'll search the system for you
that's pretty cool
so check that out uh circulating art
library
so this is very very cool we're very
excited
at the library we focus a lot on access
we want to make sure that people can get
information
we want to make sure if they need the
internet they can get to the internet
and art is such an important part to
being a human being
that we wanted to try to remove some
barriers to art so thanks to
some generous funding from the ohio arts
council
the state library of ohio and the bexley
community foundation
we've put out an artist call for 12 to
15 pieces of art
this will be a juried selection these
pieces of art
uh the artist will receive four hundred
dollars from this
grant money so we're supporting local
artists in our community
uh we'll have an art reception at the
library uh and then after that you will
be able to check
out these works of art and hang them up
in your home for up to a month
so that you can have local artists in
your home and you can explore the
different art going on
it's really really cool um 2020 census
open house
uh on thursday march 19th from two to
four
and on uh april first which is national
since says uh which is a wednesday from
four to six if you have any questions
about the census you can come
and learn we'll get you geared up to
fill that out
uh and we're doing a story time all
about counting
oh yeah there's a picture of ben
franklin forgot about that
uh hot spot lending we currently lending
five hot spots to the community uh
there's a tremendous need for this we
never have them
uh we are expanding that to 20 wi-fi
hotspots to help people that need
internet
get internet wherever they are so we'll
be expanding that program
and lastly coming up uh our strategic
plan ends in 2020 so we'll be reaching
out to the community
asking you what you want from the
library for the next
10 15 years what we can do we're not
providing
what you'd like us to see us to change
and do so we're input as the year
goes on
on tuesday april 21st is our bexley
community author series we're having
susan orlean come
uh her most recent book the library book
is a very non-book talking about the
fire
happening los angeles public library
many didn't hear about this because it
was the same week
as chernobyl uh it's a wonderful love
letter to libraries as she explores the
history
so it happens to be during national
library week
it's pretty that's smart it's like it
happened no it's like it was geared up
so join us for that uh and then to our
summer community read program
uh imagine your story it's a fairy tale
themed uh
season this year so we'll have more
details as the program guides come out
um and uh we
love being part of the community
and we very much are the connective
tissue to a lot of the things that go on
in this community and that's a privilege
and i want to thank a lot of the local
people that make this happen
for us and allow us to partner with them
and do some of our best work
and even outside of the community we
have some great partnerships
so we want to thank everyone for all
that and so lastly
thank you for your time and everything
tonight bexley you guys are the best
oh and now it's my pleasure to introduce
the executive director of the bexley
area chamber
of commerce thank you elaine pelz so is
this on can you hear me all right thank
you
thank you ben that's fabulous um
hard act to follow but first i wanna
we're so thrilled to be here tonight and
we're grateful that you're all here too
so thank you for joining us
and for those of you who are on five
please remember to
post your comments so that we can
collect those
so a way way back
in the year 20 the bexley
chamber board decided that 2019 was
going to be our best year yet
and indeed indeed it really was
we added 61 new members keeping our
total
at over 300 and we
put together 30 events to engage
promote and educate those members
excuse me
so
so those included the fabulous taste of
bexley
another great role for mr ben heckman
[Laughter]
this was our most fun taste of bexley
yet it also included a holiday hop that
engaged more people than ever before
we launched everyone start somewhere our
programming
dedicated to educating and promoting
area entrepreneurs
and we welcomed new office staff
all in all it was a very successful year
yes if you can figure out who those two
people are in the back of that photo
you win a prize so
2019 was so great what's 2020 going to
be like
well for 2020 we coined the phrase that
we have a clear vic now i know there's a
pun in here but it really fits
because the chamber uh in keeping with
our mission
which is to support a vibrant business
environment that
in itself supports the gritty of bexley
our focus continues to be on
connectivity
connecting businesses to businesses
businesses to consumers
and consumers back to those businesses
so how do we do that in 2020
we start off with a new member benefit
and that
is a brand new internship mentorship
program that we've developed
working with area high schools and
capital university
to connect students and our members
the benefit to the students obviously is
experiential learning as well as dipping
their toes
into that pool of hey is this a career
path i might be interested in
on the reverse side the benefit to the
businesses is
fresh ideas extra hands
and the possibility hiring someone who
could be a potential employee
this is not upset yet but we have all
the literature in the back of the house
so we'll see it there soon
and feel free to contact us if you're
interested to learn more
we're looking out a brand new directory
this is our
member directory um the last
this one is two years old so the next
one will be coming out this spring
hot off hot off the printing press we're
going to print 3500 copies like we did
last year
last time which we ran through and it
will also be online
the not only does the directory
highlight our members
alphabetically as well as categorically
but it will also contain information
about how
many of those members are engaged in our
community so
your eye out for that soon
we also are adding another event because
we always need more right
um this is going to be our golf outing
first time for the city for the chamber
so if you play golf if you have friends
that play golf we hope you'll come join
the dates june 8th monday
even if you're not very good even if
you're not
a chamber member we hope you'll come
join us again information start to
appear very soon so we're excited about
that
the other thing we want to make sure you
know about it are our two new board
members this year
dawn freeze continues our stellar
partnership with capitol university and
laura dennis
is the co-owner of newfangled kitchen
and she helps
keep that small business appetite and
that small business voice on the chamber
board
besides that we're continuing with all
of our
signature chamber events we hope that
you will attend as many as you can
these are all community focused and
out in the lobby there are little half
sheets that have our calendar of events
for 2020 so we hope you'll pick one up
and put all those dates on your calendar
we'd love to have you participate
so all in all for us
we've got had great times last year even
this year
and we're planning for some more in the
future and what we really want you to do
is stop by our
our office at 544 south drexel we're
right next door to the
community foundation we're right across
from greg frame
and come by and learn about all the
resources that are available
to help you and with that i thank you
and i will pass the baton on to jeff
from the bexa community foundation
[Applause]
well thank you uh for the opportunity to
be here and thank you all for uh
attending tonight and
and for your time uh i only have a
couple minutes to talk tonight i could
talk about the community foundation for
an hour but i
i promise i won't um there's a lot of
exciting things that have happened and a
lot uh
that are going on so we'll just try to
highlight a couple things over the next
uh four or five minutes um first of all
to give you a idea of the structure
really what is the community file about
for those of you that may not know
we say our mission is to make bexley a
better place to live learn work and play
if so that we can connect reasons in the
community
uh to uh a program or
a an improvement in the city of bexley
that's really our idea that's really our
purpose is to
is to join and be a conduit to happen to
make
uh bexley a better place how do we do
that we actually have 12 different
funds so when you think about the
community foundation you may think of
our general fund
which in that has aggression to do a
wide variety of things to improve bexley
but we also have
11 different specialty funds and you can
see
examples of those up there everything
from creative
arts to the farmers markets to the uh to
the author series fund
that ben spoke with earlier so we really
fulfill our mission
uh through the main fund as well as
those uh
those community funds uh a big thank you
uh to and here and everyone in the
because as i said before
it's really not the foundation doing all
of this
we are the bexley community foundation
so we are your foundation we are the
community's foundation uh and it's uh
it's it's your foundation uh as as
citizens as as members of this community
um
so a big thank you to you all you're the
ones that have really made this all
happen
we're gonna be 10 years old this year so
we're still a relatively
young organization uh and we
granted our first million dollars in
grants in 2017.
so we were very happy about that that we
had a million dollars in that in that
in that time period but in 2019 only two
years later
we don't we granted our next half a
million so we hit a million five
last year and with everything that is
coming up this year
some of our our our biggest uh jeffrey
mansion grant that will be happening
this year
we actually anticipate that we'll
surpass three million dollars in total
grants by the end of this year
so uh
we'll we'll touch on on jeffrey mansion
in in a minute and i know
the mayor will be talking a lot about
jeffrey mansion uh and it's obviously a
big capital campaign that we're
in the process of wrapping up but one
thing that's important to realize is
our that that will be has not happened
yet but that will be our largest grant
but to date the grants have been the the
highest grant to date was eighty one
dollars
this grant hundred dollars uh and so we
have done 200 grants in the
so far nine years plus that we've been
in existence and they have had that
tremendous range so
we really support small intimate
projects
and we uh we support the larger projects
so we uh we like to think on a lot of
different levels
um we have two grant cycles a year we
may be increasing that
we're in discussions about that but
right now we have two grand cycles
um and the first grant cycle just uh
started
so we accepted letters of intent uh from
interested parties that wanted to
request money
that grand cycle we had ceased for funds
that's a record we've that's the most uh
risk that we have had
so we're excited not only that we're
giving away more money but we're getting
more requests and more
in and we really need both of those to
make everything happen so
we're excited about that even though the
grand cycle is just starting we do have
a process
if there's a short i don't want to say
emergency but a short term
time critical need we can put that grant
on an
expedited process so even though it's
only february 10th
with a couple grants that i can announce
tonight that we just decided in the last
few days
and we just told the grant recipients uh
today
we actually were thinking about doing
this as a surprise until here
but uh there may not have enough time to
do that so
uh the first um and by the way that's 16
grants total 150 thousand dollars in
in requests um the first is the best
knows the home of the house and garden
tour
it's been going on since 1937 so uh
certainly something's been going on long
before the
community foundation but they requested
a grant and we provided a grant for
three thousand divide
uh tents uh so there will now be uh
more tents new tents to purchase for
musicians and artists and so forth um so
it'll be a way of uh
uh helping the uh the women's club to
improve that
long time uh event um
we mentioned the census earlier and
another uh tie-in we granted capital
university
uh three thousand dollars for a subject
and without getting into a lot of d
um some uh there's some thought
that some portions of the population are
under counted in the census
um and having an accurate census is very
beneficial the city because some of the
funniest and so forth so it's in our
interest as a community to make sure
everyone is
counted um and so the capitol university
is undertaking a census
uh uh program where they are going to be
going door-to-door in phase one
knocking on doors it's particularly
geared towards the uh
community around capital as well as
capitals who might be living off campus
and would be kept as living
uh in capital and make sure all those
are are
uh are counted phase two of that will be
april first
on the census day and there will be ipad
patients and so forth for students
again just an effort to reach out it
benefits a program for the census
but it really does benefit bexley as uh
as well uh also to capital university
we're going to be
sponsoring the uh active aging
symponiaism this will be the fourth year
we've had this uh symposium and and
we're happy to sponsor that again to
uh assure that that happens 200 people
attended that last year
uh successful popular event uh benny uh
kozai science uh
festival in the beginning of may
we are uh sponsoring that uh as well
this year
and then finally going back to those uh
smaller ponch uh projects
the montrose fourth grade requested a
hundred dollars uh for
uh rocks for kindness where they're
going to be we're going to be supporting
their efforts to
uh teach make sure they're supporting
empathy
and uh kindness uh among the student pop
going to be
painting rocks that will be in the rock
garden uh
at the uh next drexel theater but by the
way that's coming from the uh
um barry and denise blank fund and some
of you know denise blank passed away
uh recently uh very very supportive um
of our community foundation and we're
happy to be in that event with the
students
um so going from kind of the smallest
project
in terms of a grant dollars to one of
the largest of course
we are just wrapping up the jeffrey
mansion capital improvement campaign
i know the mayor will be telling you
more about the logistics of that
but from a fundraising effort we
announced in 2017 that we were going to
be a first
capital campaign in the history of the
of the foundation
we decided with some angst
and stress that we would commit to a
million dollars uh in 2000
uh in 2018 we
officially kicked that off at our annual
event and
due to the fine efforts of uh gary
gilliver
giller as well as a lot of others that
worked tirelessly
um by the time we announced the kickoff
of the campaign
we had already raised a little over nine
hundred thousand dollars
uh so we were almost all the way so in
2018
incredible to a million five and i'm
happy to say that we
wrapped up the major phase of our
fundraising at this year
with roughly a million seven uh raised
for the uh for the jeffrey capital
campaign
we're very uh very happy about that
what's uh what's coming up in 20 uh
2020 well we're uh looking forward to
both a
uh a groundbreaking and a ribbon cutting
ceremony in 2020. we're looking forward
to
uh working with the city on that and uh
celebrating
all the success with the jeffrey mansion
campaign uh if you
can put this on your calendar i think
this is a really cool event april 2nd
we're going to be doing our bus tour and
this is where
uh the beast uh works with us and you
start at foundation right on
drexel you hop on the bus and we go
around and we take a look at all the
proj not all of the projects but a
sampling of projects
that the community foundation has funded
over the years so it gets
gives a real good sense to see face to
face what community foundation is doing
what's happening in the community
so mark your calendars on that more to
come on that
uh october 1st is going to be our annual
gathering
uh so again put that on your calendars
we'd love to have uh great attendance we
had our largest attendance ever at the
last uh annual gathering we
looking forward to continuing uh to grow
that um i think i'm probably over my
time here so i will
uh wrap up just by saying i said before
a lot of times people
will think of community foundations in
general and say well it's all about
asking for money that par do
but we really also want your ideas if
you have ideas of things that
of uh of things that could make better
bexley a better place to live learn work
and play
we want to hear from you call halle
myself
um we want to hear your ideas and and
we'll try to see if we can get them
connected
and uh continue to move forward uh thank
you again for the opportunity uh to be
here
and thank you for your time
before i turn it over to the mayor i
have been asked to remind everyone if
you have questions
uh please write them down i think there
are cards and so forth test them to the
sides
and uh uh hal sam i believe we'll be
collecting those if you're watching on
facebook live
out there streaming you can also write
questions in your comments
uh during this time and when the mayor's
finished speaking
uh we'll be gathering those questions
and address them thanks again thanks sir
thanks man thanks for that scene for me
hear me okay oh there we go
oh my goodness
oh still hot one sec
we're all good i'm just going to speak
loudly uh in the meantime
thank you all for coming out to our
ninth annual state of the community
address this is the ninth year that
we've done before we've brought
partnering institutions to the table
just to talk about what's going on
in bexley i'm going to do something a
little bit different this year
i am going to be as brief as possible
and what that means is
i'm going to be going from topic to
topic to topic in
in fairly light detail and we can ask uh
some questions and provide context as
we go on um if i
need to do anything to change this mic
let me know do i need to do that are we
okay okay for now
it feels kind of feedbacky um this
uh though is one that really didn't fall
into any of the topics that i was going
to cover this evening but i really
wanted to show it
this is a photo that was taken last
summer at our jazz at the park
series at havenwood park and it captures
such a beautiful image
that i think is so emblematic of what
bexley is it's
a community gathered under underneath an
american beech tree
celebrating live jazz music having some
ice cream
and what it shows is young folks it
shows some of our older community
it shows community from surrounding
communities
it is community um it's
uh quintessential bexley and uh
this is bexley 2020 this is a community
that's changing
that's evolving that's welcoming more
and more people to our community we have
a
growth in our community that we haven't
seen in many years and it's a community
that is slowly going from being others
to being collectively us this is bexley
2020. i want to talk to you about what
else is going on
in bexley in 2020
this is a quote uh from dr scott king
owen who's a historian at the bexley
school district and has been doing some
work
uh actually history in general but one
of the questions i asked him about was
what's going on what happened at the at
the
many years at ferndale mayfield what
sort of a landfill was it do we know
anything about it
and he provided some really interesting
background information
that fills in a lot of the blanks as
we've tried to figure out what is going
on at ferndale mayfield what are the
environmental issues and how do we cure
them
well i have some really good news 72 of
the units
at ferndale mayfield are at mayfield
place apartments
they have been environmentally
remediated in the past year so now we
have 72 units majority
of the living units that have been
remediated
the remaining doubles there on ferndale
and on
mayfield have not been and the more that
we've learned about them the more that
we've learned that there is a consistent
level of toxicity
among all of those properties the bexar
community improvement corporation
has engaged with an affordable housing
developer to master plan that area
as well as potentially some other
decisively and try to make sure that
we're not displacing affordable housing
units
but we think in the next year start to
see continued progress at ferndale
mayfield
and all this information comes together
and we learn how to provide a safer
cleaner affordable housing environment
residence i think you're going to see
bexley really putting
our values uh to work in rehabilitating
the ferndale mayfield area
so we'll be talking a lot more this year
these are the scales of justice we don't
talk much about mayor's court
bexley operates a mayor's court as do
many other
cities throughout ohio the term mayor's
court is a little bit of a misnomer we
have a professional magistrate that
oversees a court
uh and missile cases are right before
mayor's court
we've made a lot of reforms in mayor's
court in the past year
we have a new prosecuting attorney in
mayor's court
um we have
uh hired a public defender we are now
the second mayor's court in central ohio
that has a public defender
the distinction being that bexy's public
defender is on site all the time
for defendants who are indigent and pass
a simple income test the same income
test
that is administered at the county level
i have announcement tonight
we have been working on another concept
for mayor's court
and this concept is to create a system
that is
free of fees for indigent defendants
so if someone comes to mayor's court and
they don't have the financial ability to
pay
instead of strapping on more and more
fines we're creating a system that
allows defendants to be
to take volunteer hours and use those
volunteer hours against mayor's courts
fees and fines and costs i always use
the wrong terms but they're all a bundle
of mayor's court we're using a rate of
15 per hour
as our calculated wage for that for
indigent defendants
and that will be coming to bexley
mayor's court in the next few months
and i want to thank becky guzman i see
her right over here she was one of the
residents who's been talking with me
about a while as we've kind of
brainstormed this and tried
this out and i think we're going to be
the first mayor's court in central ohio
that has this sort of format
jeffrey mansion jeff walker has promised
that i'm going to tell you all about it
but i think many of us already know a
lot about what we're doing at jeffrey
mansion
the expansion is going to bring more
classroom space to the mansion
more event space to the mansion and it's
going to bring for the first time ever
accessibility to the mansion we'll be
able to go from this new lower level
up to the third floor uh to the rec
offices
for those of us who have experienced
that hike before on the stairs
that's going to become a very
appreciated change
we opened bids on this project last week
and we're still checking through those
bids but things are looking very that
we'll be able to accept
a winning bid tomorrow night at our
council board of control meeting the
process from there
goes with a beginning in the next month
or two and we hope to wrap up the
project by the end of this year
early next year in fact i'd like to
announce tonight
everything goes well our net community
will be
at jeffrey mansion so this is our
project and it's coming along well
[Applause]
i'm going to talk a lot about projects
this evening that were not only possible
because of the
mexican community foundation uh jeffrey
mansion is a project that we never would
have really been able to dream about
without the
condition in there so we'll also receive
state capital fund
dollars and are very appreciative of
that
over the past year or two we've been
putting a lot of thought into how to
encourage
uh healthy and active aging in bexley
and allowing residents to age in place
we have several initiatives we're
rolling out this year they include a
senior navigators program
where senior citizens or their
caretakers are
uh coupled up with social services that
can be helpful to them
that's being administered by jewish
services and that pilot program starts
at the end of this month you'll see more
information on that
we're also on out our volunteer system
so that we're hooking up
community volunteers with our actively
aging population that needs assistance
in the home
or maybe to go to a doctor's appointment
or maybe to go shopping
um so that will be coming out this year
as well
additionally we have put funds towards
studying a
dedicated space for senior citizens to
meet gather and to call their own in the
city of bexley we think we have a pretty
good location for it
we think we have a funding model that
might make some sense and we'll be
looking
into that here we're also working on a
combined
community senior calendar all of the
different organizations that are
providing programming and educational
opportunities
for seniors have one home uh in which to
put all that information
we are knee-deep literally
in the construction work of the south
community garden so
as many of you know the north community
garden came online a couple years ago
the south community garden's been in
place and snake it's part of the area
that
is environmentally and although there
was work in 2008 done to remediate that
we're up to epa wasting and
and we've taken it up to those standards
so if you go down today next to
schneider park the new playground
you'll see an elevated south community
garden
we're going to have new plots new raised
beds uh many of the amenities that came
to the north community garden and more
so we're going to have two twin
community gardens that look and feel
a lot like each other we're really
excited about that
commonwealth park we started master plan
process several years ago
the first phases of the master plan are
going to be implemented
in 2020 they include arboretum features
which will be occurring
over in the uh in this area over on the
western
end of the park and also the athletic
field the practice field on the west end
of the park
is going to receive a new irrigation and
all sorts of amazing
uh accoutrements that will enhance
the playability of that field and make
it a really a safer
more usable field for our future
generations
pickleball anyone who ever played
pickleball before yeah
well we have a very active pickleball
constituency in bexley
thanks to generous gift from a donor
um are we allowed to say who the donor
is thanks to a generous gift from scott
solomon which is
scott solman's dad sandy solomon which
is being uh
administered through the bexley
community foundation we will be seeing
new pickleball courts at jeffrey park
right next to the tennis courts which
will also be resurfaced
we will be connecting schneider park
trail to main street i've been talking
about this quite a while
it's going to happen this year well i'm
going to put it on record right now
we've done all the requisite work
necessary one of the things that has
been
holding up this project is it turns out
it's a fairly difficult engineering
problem and secondly
we have been making sure to get the
details right
because we expect that this may be the
year that we see some substantial
development plans coming to that empty
lot
at gateway south we wanted to make sure
that what we're doing to tie in
schneider park to main street
is future development and we'll really
be enhancing
of that a community address
is not complete without talking about
sustainability so let's talk about
sustainability
2019 was the first year of our full
community
food waste recycling initiative we have
over 1200 household up for this service
we have diverted over 131 toys for the
landfill
that's a really big deal that's food
waste that would otherwise be converted
to methane and instead it's being
captured in compost that can be used for
gardens and farms in central ohio
in doing that if any of you have used
this in your household you'll find that
the volume of your solid waste is
precipitously dropping
i'm finding that this week i had one bag
of trash i had a huge recycling
container and i had a full five gallon
bucket
and the type of waste change that's
happening in conjunction with our zero
waste plan is pretty dramatic
so we're getting one step closer to that
zero waste plan and we're serving as a
really valuable test bed for other
communities in central ohio we talk a
lot among other cities about how well
this is going
it's important to me that we get this
right and we continue to do it well
we've had a month and a half almost of a
single-use plastics
bag ban on um we have
created take back leap bag boxes we're
trying to get one of those cvs but our
merchants have really stepped up to the
plate
and if you look in this photo you'll see
the cardboard boxes in the corner that
are offered to the giant eagle we've had
really good feedback for merchants
incidents some residents don't like it
we've had some really active social
media conversations
but one of the things that's been very
encouraging throughout this seeing how
residents are really passionate
about this policy and how they stand
behind it and they back it up
um it's going to get a little more fun
in january of 2021 and that's when the
single use
like plastic straws and some of the
utensils
hits as a phase two of this man
you'll also notice this year that every
community event that you go to
um at the mint the fourth of july at a
labor day block party we'll be using
compostable cutlery we'll
we're gonna strive as much as we can to
have food waste on site so that's part
of that whole plan
solar on rooftops and backseat is going
to be easier in the next coming months
with lower interest rates longer terms
of financing through residential pace in
ohio
very detailed so that's as much as i'm
going to give you right now
you'll hear a lot more about it this is
our big moon shot
i'm sorry this is one of our two big
moonshots this is our little moon shot
compared to the next one i'm going to
talk about
for sustainability in bexley in 2020.
we've been working for years
on the concept of what we call universal
recycling it's that every business
and every apartment unit in bexley will
have access to
recycling we've looked at best case best
what's the word i'm looking for best
practices in other communities
and how this might work we have an osu
group of students studying this
and we'll be talking about this at the
green bexley group and also
at city council 2020 i'm confident this
is something we're going to crack
this year an even bigger one is not
going to breed
a wind farm in baxley although that i
just thought that was a beautiful year
so i put that up there so don't worry
we're not putting windmills up in baxley
but for two or three years we have been
buying all of our mutual overall
municipal power supply from wind in
indiana
um communities have started taking some
wind
type power wind wreck credits is what
they're called and aggregating it
to their entire community so basically
creating a system where
the whole community can purchase power
from renewable energy which is great
but we've been working on over the past
couple years is taking that a step
in identifying solar development in ohio
that we can participate in and be a
meaningful piece
of the demand chain and so we have some
really good progress thanks in part to a
bexley resident who does utilities
scale solar development and it looks
like we're going to potential product to
bring forward
with the concept of what is called
community aggregation
or creating an electric product that the
entire into
at similar as we would pay right now
on the face value of our anal but for
renewable energy that's been generated
in ohio
and i'm not talking like like a little
global energy i'm talking about
enough renewable energy to meaningfully
power the city of bexley with solar
energy when it's sunny
uh and with other types of renewable
energy when it's not because guess what
it's not always sunny in ohio except for
backseat we have this one pocket
the drexel's up here not because it's
the best theater in columbus but it is
but because another thing we're working
on bridges sustainability with
community architecture and preservation
and that is our historic preservation
law
we've been working for about a year now
with the group to
look at bexy's historic preservation law
and
make changes to it to protect properties
that aren't currently protected
such as the drexel theater all
commercial property
is not currently zoned with any sort of
historic preservation
controls in it we also don't really have
fantastic
preservation controls for residential
properties so you'll be hearing more
about that this year
that's a scary looking photo of a police
interceptor but what's really cool about
this police interceptor
the blue lights are supposed to kind of
show you underneath is that this is a
hybrid
police interceptor and this year is
going to be three of those online
we've been waiting for years to get
better hybrid and fuel efficient
vehicles in our police fleet and this is
the first year that ford is offering
this in their interceptor line
we're also purchasing a used nissan leaf
for our code enforcement officer
and continuing to expand our electric
vehicle fleet as it makes sense
and this isn't really by the way this
isn't like a very costly change
the cruisers save us money at 8 000
nissan leaf substantial amounts of money
and we're using electric vehicles not
just to be more efficient not just to be
green
but also to make a good financial
footprint in our community
we're also bringing body cams online
this year they are active right now with
some of our shifts
and we're expanding them out all of our
infrastructure is in place so you'll
start to see body cameras
on our police officers this was a
request from our police department
some cities have seen this be a top down
this was a down
top whatever the opposite of that is
initiative where officers
um receiving certain complaints or
concerns about service
really wanted to higher level
transparency and assert with our vision
of having complete transparency when it
comes to policing
we have an amazing police force in
bexley we have an amazing
community-minded police force in bexley
it's important for that amazing
community-minded police force
to also be able to level transparency
and accountability
body camera and other technology give us
so you'll see that
rolling out here this year we're doing a
lot in infrastructure and planning
typically focused on bikes
and pedestrians so our bike plan has
kicked off
our first public workshop is on february
24th
and we will have workshops for our bike
plan aimed at
providing a healthier safer bike
environment for bexley
here's a project that was funded by the
bexley community foundation along lines
this is called tactical urbanism
bringing certain improvements to certain
areas where we really want to
enhance our infrastructure we're adding
more pedestrian enhancements to bexley
and this month we're making sure that
every traffic signal intersection has
what's called a pedestrian lead time
we've been trying certain high
pedestrian volume areas we're bringing
all of our intersections
this month what that does is all red
signal for pedestrians when they press
the button
we're also changing our signals so that
if you don't push the button you still
get the walk sign
but heads up if you push the button it
will it will trigger and it will
actually change so make sure to pay
attention to that
but uh so enhanced pedestrian um
environments are also coming to bexley
a lot of work has been done over the
past year to diversity inclusion
collaborative which was a partnership
among
vaccinations in the city try to identify
ways that we can become the welcoming
community
through programming through welcome to
bexley events
um through way of uh overcoming tools
when it comes welcome
community so you'll be seeing more
programming focused around bexley being
a welcoming community
in 2019
the charter review committee this is a
good one but it's important
every 10 years bexley's charter kind of
looks under the hood
determines are there changes made
fantastic group of i think 15 residents
that have signed up to be part of the
charter review committee
they're working over the coming year at
looking at suggestions for changes
they want input from you the bexley.org
slash
crc charter review committee if you
didn't get that
um and fill out a form with any
recommended changes or you can come to a
meeting
they would love to hear from you
back in 2012 this was the most edge
government website that
you would ever see and actually it's
still pretty good in 2020
but we're ready for a new bexley.org so
this year we'll be bringing you a
newbexy.org
it will be much friendlier on your cell
phone it will provide better access to
documents and events
we're working with a local company
called wonderjam with a name like
that we're guaranteed success so keep
your eye out
for bexley.org 2.0 and you've all heard
about the census 2020
i'm not sure you've all seen the cookies
but census 2020 is happening april 1st
both april fool's day and census day
you're going to hear a lot about how to
sign up and make sure you're counted
here's why it matters government funding
models are based upon the census counts
that's one reason it matters but it
helps us a lot to understand who's in
our community we get data about
socioeconomic backgrounds we understand
how we compare our residents
we understand where density of housing
units occurs it's really helpful data
and metrics for us so it matters that we
count everyone in our community
i end all of these with this if you want
to know what's going on in the city of
bexley
sign up for the bexley blast and then
every week
sam metcalf and his crack team of social
media experts
puts together a fantastically
entertaining bexley blast for you
it has every piece of information that
you would need for the city of
bexley or at least we aspire for it to
have that so if you don't read it
read it and now i want to hear from you
guys
so our illustrious council president
laurie ann fiable is going to come up
and we're going to answer some questions
[Applause]
yeah
handing them to me
did i promise they would have some
amazing things to share
these guys work so hard they're always
working and the really cool thing is
they work so hard together
to make this place so special so we've
got some questions
i know we were all keeping track of who
was in us live
um so
you know what ben i didn't see this you
know how much we all
love our puppies yes
and i saw some pictures of dogs but you
didn't mention to us
um an update on the dog park
yes so the dog park uh is planned for
schneider park
um we have built the boardwalk and we're
still in the boardwalk walk that's going
to access the dog park from the aster
uh interface with schneider park um we
came up upon a little issue
when we went to finalize all of our uh
documents for the dog park which is that
an easement
uh for the use of part of the land that
we thought we had we did not have
um it was uh it was committed though to
the city good shape we're just getting
all the basically getting the processes
through
for uh for that and i know that's kind
of a boring answer but
we're working on finalizing the easement
and then we have received
from the amazing bexar community
foundation
and feel pretty good about that project
moving forward
wonderful this this question is for you
elaine
um and i know you there's so much you
could go on and on about this one
but what does the chamber of commerce do
for bexley
what does it do for the community
scholarship sponsorship at events
etc how does it support businesses
it goes for beer crawl i mean that's
something right how can i go on how can
i
one of the one of the things we were
supposed to be doing here is like
helping
answer our questions so if you hear us
like kind of bouncing stuff off of each
other we're going to try to make that
happen
please um thank you for the question
the chamber supports and
promotes area businesses and
by doing that we we promote
opportunities for them
business owners and people who work in
those businesses
to promote themselves to you to educate
themselves as well as to network with
themselves and with you
and
[Music]
we do that in a lot of ways by putting
on events
that help them connect with each other
network by helping get them in front of
you
the taste of bexley the beer crawl the
holiday hop
um and we provide opportunities
for them to gain education i'll give you
one another example
um this coming at the end of february i
believe it's on february 25th
we are hosting a business breakfast that
everyone's invited but it's geared
towards the business
community and it's going to be on social
media and how
those in businesses can really fine-tune
their social media messages and focus on
what will be most advantageous to them
social media as we all know there's 45
different ways that you can go at it but
what's the most
logical way for you to do it for your
business so that's what we're going to
focus on
we try to promote we
help with the quality of growing those
businesses
and they in turn help with the
sustainable growth
in the community itself anybody want to
add anything
when you spend dollars locally we just
talked about this
yeah um 86.
it's 86 or 68 it's one of the two stay
in the community when you spend that
money if you go to a national chain
only 46 dollars stays local in the
community
i have gone on to the chamber website
and said hey i'm looking for this
service and i have found locally
because it's important to support local
we have a lot of entrepreneurs in bexley
it's a
entrepreneur heavy community which is
fabulous
and that fits on what ben
is saying is those individuals
in those small businesses help keep
those dollars here in the community and
i think also you help
organize businesses in terms of advocacy
so like when we talked about our
single-use plastics ban you guys were at
the table
yeah making sure businesses knew about
what was going on
yeah and their voices are heard right
plus there's cool people on the board
chamber of commerce
and those super cool people people super
cool help
make really great events like for
example the main event
happen um elaine sits with us
on um on the
um on the celebrations team
she helps us and then she brings them
every time we have a main event
for example a table and all kinds of
local businesses come and
share information with the individuals
who are
who are on the lawn enjoying themselves
and don't forget that they give us all
kinds of
fun um they do this big truck fest full
of good
food the food truck fest at the at the
jazz in the park
so i hope i answered the ques i hope we
answered the question if whoever
asked it didn't feel that they got it
answered please
afterwards i'm happy to talk forever
more about
it i think that this could be a
anybody question with the expansion of
jeffrey mansion
will that promote opportunity for arts
programming
create creative jobs and access to a
variety of arts
visual music performance etc
not sure ben would you like to answer
that one
you know ben yes i would um
i think that's key because it's going to
provide another venue
so we uh are holding this event here
um there's a number of places we could
hold things in town so if the library
were
having an event that would be really
great in that space then
uh we'd have first dibs i'm sure
for all those events second divs so i
see it as another event space
to uh invite the community into the
mansion
and partner with other you know
community groups offer things for the
public
yeah if you want to think about it in
times of terms of space it's
a little bit larger i think the library
auditorium
but it's it's less it's less in the
basement it's also that it's a more
sunlight
it's a different ambiance it's going to
be actually the largest kind of
gathering space that's generally
accessible in bexley
which while not huge is going to be a
really great improvement and
i do want to uh acknowledge bob lover
sage and tim velasco from uh
schooly caldwell who helped us with the
project here in the audience thank you
for being with us gentlemen
yeah and bexley i'd love to get together
so and the more the merrier
so mike price has also promised me a
grand piano so i think that
uh music music opportunities will be
there somebody fancies himself
excellence piano man we'll let him have
and and one thing that because the city
has done such
i can say this since the city has done
just such a great job expanding and
promoting
programming is that the existing space
is really at capacity
significant periods of the time so uh
it's it's
not not just an issue that we have
another option
i mean that's true it's that's true it
was it's
needed it was incredibly tight
mayor kessler is there a development for
the vacant
old gas station at maine and chelsea
um yes and no
uh the that property has been tied up in
an estate
uh so it went through a probate court
process that was very prolonged it was
only a month or two ago that it finally
transferred out of that estate
the property owner just applied for a
grant to clean up the
underground storage tanks which is a
very good development cities have
supplied a letter in support of that and
we i know that because the community
improvement corporation has also been
active in trying to find ways to help
nudge and encourage we have a really
innovative
uh law in backsleep which you should
know about if you
plan on owning a vacant gas station
which is that if your vegan gas station
is contaminated potentially the soil
you are charged a monthly impact fee of
two thousand dollars per month
which is not an expense not a cheap
proposition so
certainly that property owner has been
hopefully uh
stimulated by that fee and uh we'll see
some action there pretty soon
but i believe it's a really important
piece of property it's a gateway
uh to bexley on our western end and
fortifying
that's not the right word not fortifying
but enhancing the western gateway
uh as all this energy is also happening
on sorry the eastern gateway oh my god
so you guys were like
use a map eastern gate has all this
energy that's happening on
the west side of baxter i think it's
very important to us
um we are making lots of efforts to go
green i'd love to hear what each one of
you
are doing how are your organizations
hopefully to go
green and then maybe maybe mayor kessler
you could
suggest to some of the individuals in
the room what they could do
to go green this may or may not have
been a question from our
favorite green girl in the second row
what's up elizabeth who would like to
start what are you doing to make us
green guys
surely though please i know that uh one
of the things you mentioned
we have worked or been in conversations
with a number of the area restaurants
who want to really reduce and minimize
drastic amount
of waste that they have in terms of
bottles and cans etc
and so that is something that we're
trying to move forward in conversations
um i was going to say something else and
it completely escaped me
it'll come back to you it was possibly
supporting universal recycling i think
yes that was one of the things i would
say yes exactly
we are supporting it okay sure
you should look you know in our efforts
to promote the community foundation we
we oftentimes think about
something we can provide for the
community and over the last uh year and
a half we've been providing usable bags
uh that we hand out at main event
events and other events around town um
so in addition to trying to
do our best a word out about the
foundation and what the foundation's
doing we're
we're hoping that that is a product that
people can take and use and
and help with this transition towards
the band and just a
more green environment and you also
funded a grant for the bexley bag which
is going to be dropping in the next few
months
uh in partnership with giant eagle and
some other area organizations we're
going to be bringing
a bexley bag reasonable bag to the
community
i would say in addition to our ongoing
years ongoing of recycling
we serve as a wonderful education
gathering spot for esac which is the
environmental sustainability
action advisory action's cooler we'll go
with action council
uh committee and uh so we've had a
number of uh
green events green educational
opportunities that we've offered at the
library
so um my my biggest tips today
households give us a few tips um you
know what so it's
great that we have a single plastics bag
man that's you're gonna start to become
trained to bring your bag with you into
a backseat business
take that training and use it at target
and use it at costco and use it at other
places
that you think
look at while we're still looking at the
green rack
green electricity options go online to
apples
to apples is the ohio public utilities
commission website
buy energy that comes from green
resources you'd be surprised at how
affordable it is
um think about an electric car think
about maybe only having one car
think about having no car i can't say
that because i have more than one car
but uh
when you can walk when you can walk when
you can bike some more and we're working
on
all these things are very synergistic in
our community
okay i think we have time for one more
question
and it is um
[Music]
it was directed to you ben but i think
that it would be appropriate
sorry i'll just leave it at that
what what new project in 2020
are you most looking forward to i think
you each have projects going on
and bonus points if the project
somehow works in collaboration with
one two or three other on the stage
go
ben please i mean i might i feel like my
answer is kind of obvious
um i don't have first off i don't really
have a topic but
i think what's great about the jeffrey
project is what's kind of interesting
for me is it's not just the jeffree
project for us it's also a parks garage
project
and you know trying to figure out all
the logistics of that and so i just
love those details and i find it to be a
fascinating and fun project but
it's an incredibly collaborative project
too you know it's a project that was
really inspired by the community
foundation coming forward and saying
let's do something big and we kind of
had it as an idea but it helped really
distill as we talked through that so
that's a that's an exciting project so
mine is not as
large or maybe as exciting because it's
a directory which sounds maybe humdrum
but that would be the one that i would
pick because it gets gives us the chance
to promote all of our members and
promote the greatness of that
connectivity and that
interchange that happens between
business to business
business to consumer and back from
consumer to business again
that's our vehicle that we get to talk
about talk to
all sorts of people outside of bexley
about how great bexley is
and all of these assets and features
that we have so
that would be mine
and it comes in a paper and a green
version
online sorry
i i have to say for the for the from my
perspective and the community
foundation's perspective
we're excited about an awful lot of
things that are uh abroad from small
projects to our projects but i have to
jump on and say i think it's it's
jeffrey and it's not just because
uh it's those by far capital dollar
uh uh fund funding that we have done
um really i think the the new jeffrey
the expanded the improved jeffrey
is gonna be a place where memories
happen for generations to come for
bexley residents
they're you know both from the processes
on programming i want to say that
both from the expanded programming that
can be happened there the classes that
can happen there
with that expansion to celebrations and
party events that would have to happen
outside of vex
that can now happen inside bexley and
really uh tie
people and it's gonna sound corny but
people's life memories can be
now better tied to those symbols that
really make this home
um i think it's going to be a dramatic
change i'm very much looking forward to
it
so it's my turn the cool the cool ben
yeah um
i have to say our our strategic plan
it comes to an end this year and so it's
a wonderful opportunity to
engage all parts of the community to
find out
what we can do as a library how we can
change and best meet the future of
bexley and the individuals
in bexley i mean i love talking about
libraries
we have a dynamic forward thinking
library with a lot of innovative things
and we want to continue to do that and
hear from the community about what more
we
could be doing and so at the author
series
uh the library book april 21st um
i think i'm hopefully going to kind of
announce
you know kind of a feedback listening to
her to get everyone's inputs on what
they'd like from their library
we've got one more thing that the benz
want to tell you about which is we've
got a big project this year
which is we're working on a cookout
trailer the grill wagon the grill we're
talking are we telling them about the
grill
well i figured what better time to tell
people about it again i'm so excited for
the group the mobile community cookout
trailer is going to be
off the charts and you guys will see
that rolling we're going to well
near you inspired by the franklin county
department of health
rolling to an event near you sometime
this year it's going to be 100
safe before we wrap up laurie and say
that you know this room is full of folks
they're city directors here commission
members there are elected officials
you guys are like you guys are doing it
you know when we talk about
all that we're doing here tonight it's
kind of exhausting
but it's less exhausting knowing that
it's a whole community pulling together
so i want to thank everybody here
for all you do i literally like i'm
seeing all these folks like inspiring a
lot of the concepts that we're talking
about tonight working behind the scenes
for them it's a very glorious job i know
and i appreciate everything that you
guys do so so thank you for that
and also know that on february 26 is the
bexley state of the schools
so i know that you're missing here about
the schools but we've got a whole
another fun party on the 26th so i hope
that
i'll be there and i hope i'll see you
guys there as well we all will gather
again and we will learn about what great
things our schools are doing
um it was amazing to these four
individuals and
hopefully you can see how our leadership
spends a lot of time collaborating
working together and making special
things happen
in the city some of the things are hard
and we knock heads to make sure that we
get it just right
but um the the the the brains
backed by the enthusiasm um that these
individuals have
really have have made bexley with what
it is
special today and i am very confident
that it's
going to even be better and better for
for our babies
in the future so thank you so much for
caring enough
to be here tonight
[Music]
[Applause]