I love garlic and “Armando” tomatoes from Mike Malone and Hungry Toad Farm- I see him every Saturday at the 2nd Street Market, outside near the main steps. Mike’s got the real deal farmer’s tan- and can tell you everything you need to know about growing vegetables organically.

This e-mail went out over the “liberal list” – and I’m posting it because I’m a big believer that organic, sustainable, local food is part of the answer for America- not just in cutting down on our foreign energy dependency, but as part of getting American’s health again- moving away from processed crap that we have come to call food. Those of you have known me- and noticed that I’m 20 pounds lighter- and have a new bounce in my step- have heard the story of how my significant other read an amazing book- “The 7 principles of  fat burning” by Dr. Berg. I’ve changed the way I eat- and it’s been amazing.

So- here is the e-mail from farmer Mike:

My main worker is off to the Army Reserves for 3 weeks, and my other full time worker has suddenly decided to cease farming work. It looks like the cheese stands alone, and I don’t think the cheese can do it all by himself – especially with a 40 member CSA. 689-5910

Farm Workers/Volunteers needed at Hungry Toad Farm

Hungry Toad Farm is an Organic farm in Washington Twp.

I need help harvesting and weeding and planting and preparing boxes for the CSA, and harvesting and preparing for two farmers markets.

Help for pay, or help for experience, or help in trade/part trade for housing in a 4 BR farmhouse.

The season lasts until early November. Continued housing through the winter and beyond is an option.

Write to me here and check out Hungry Toad Farm on facebook.

Michael Malone

We live in the “bread basket of America” (although after you read Dr. Berg’s book you won’t be eating much bread)- this is some of the most fertile growing land in the world. Instead of building more pop-up offices with parking lot seas on prime farm land (Austin Road) we should be looking to grow as much of our own food within a half-day’s drive or less.

With the latest egg recall- and other recent food scares, it’s reassuring to know where our food comes from- and who actually grew it. Farmer Mike isn’t a big agri-business, he’s a small guy in a tough business- with the best tomatoes and garlic you can buy.

This is good for all of us.

While we’re still convinced that building more highways and developing housing on prime farmland, we’re sort of forgetting about the smallest things that make a big difference: Bees.

Reading the comments on the Dayton Daily News site (I really have to stop doing that) makes me wonder if anyone who uses that site paid attention in junior high biology. Bees are critical to our survival- here is a quick take from the USDA Agricultural Research Service:

Why should the public care about honey bees?Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables. About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination. While there are native pollinators honey bees came from the Old World with European colonists, honey bees are more prolific and the easiest to manage for the large scale pollination that U.S. agriculture requires. In California, the almond crop alone uses 1.3 million colonies of bees, approximately one half of all honey bees in the United States, and this need is projected to grow to 1.5 million colonies by 2010.

via ARS : Questions and Answers: Colony Collapse Disorder.

In the same way that the stock market is connected to the financial health of our country- even though it only represents a tiny fraction of the businesses in this country- bees are critical to our entire ecosystem.

Here is the Dayton Grassroots Daily Shows discussion on the future of humankind- if we forget about the bees:

Students of advertising know that when one of the greatest ad agencies of all time got going, the question was posed “how big can we get before we get bad?” It was the early days of Chiat/Day- the ones who brought you the Energizer Bunny, the Absolut bottle campaign, the best Apple ads and the sock puppet for pets.com and the Taco Bell Chihuahua (Babe Ruth struck out a lot too).

In America, we’ve always been fans of “Bigger must be Better.” In fact, everything about this country, including our people comes in XXL- except our thinking about the consequences of being supersized.

Remember David and Goliath? The bigger they are, the harder they fall? We keep growing, building and expanding for the sake of it. Just because we can we do. We came over to America to get away from an empire- and are now making a new one- and it’s falling apart at the seams.

Greg Hunter and I attended a planning meeting for the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission last night. We did the sticky dots on a map and the ideas on the white paper thing that are the required activities for all groupthink™ exercises- leaving the session knowing that it was pointless.

If you know much about complex systems, chaos theory and entropy- you know that as things get bigger they eventually fall apart. Dayton is a small city trying to fill a pair of XXL dungarees and it’s not working.

Low and behold, David Brooks of the New York Times writes an OpEd piece today talking about this very problem. There aren’t that many times I find his Faux News perspective worthy of the electrons used to transmit it, but today, his words (or rather the ideas that he’s pushing from British think tank head Phillip Blond):

The free-market revolution didn’t create the pluralistic decentralized economy. It created a centralized financial monoculture, which requires a gigantic government to audit its activities. The effort to liberate individuals from repressive social constraints didn’t produce a flowering of freedom; it weakened families, increased out-of-wedlock births and turned neighbors into strangers…

Economically, Blond lays out three big areas of reform: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.

To create a civil state, Blond would reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants, the people actually working in neighborhoods. He would decentralize power, giving more budget authority to the smallest units of government. He would funnel more services through charities. He would increase investments in infrastructure, so that more places could be vibrant economic hubs. He would rebuild the “village college” so that universities would be more intertwined with the towns around them.

Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Broken Society – NYTimes.com.

I’m not sure how “out-of-wedlock births” enter into this (sex is still fun kids, just don’t do it) but- the ideas of limiting large to keep small viable and cut the risks of the fall of the giants from taking everyone with them may have some traction after what the Wall Street Casino managed to pull off.

Brooks nails it when he says: “This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action.”

And herein lies the struggle: at a point where we need true leadership most, our leaders are less likely to be trusted. If you are looking for a similar point in time- look to pre-WWII Germany and Italy- where the financial collapse set the stage for the rise of the dictators.

The writing is all over the walls- on a global, national and even the local, MVRPC level. We’ve gotten too big, it’s bad- and we need to look to move to smaller systems that won’t destroy us when they implode.

Here’s the video:

When there is a lack of leadership- we look to building consensus. Nothing wrong with collective hand-holding- as long as it’s in church, but when it comes to politics and policy- generally, what you get when you get a crowd together is mediocrity.

In church- you have an ultimate leader. One who clearly states what’s wrong and what’s right. In urban planning- not only do we lack a clear leader, we’ve put an impotent committee together- Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission- who then wants to hold a popularity contest- to set our course.

I’ve resisted writing about this- because, I generally like the people who work at MVRPC now. They are bright, they know what’s wrong, but, in general are powerless to really make anyone do anything.

They even reached out to bloggers like me – asking to promote their community group think.

I am contacting you to ask for your assistance in publicizing a community-based workshop for Phase II of Going Places – An Integrated Land Use Vision for the Miami Valley Region (please visit www.mvrpc.org/rlu for more information). We are hoping for support and publicity from bloggers like you.

Since I’ve delayed talking about it- there are only 3 left- including one at Kettering Fairmount HS tonight (you can stay after and see Thurgood Marshall kick butt in basketball at 8pm).

a brief overview, the second phase of the Going Places Initiative will explore the future landscape options of the Region. More specifically, Phase II will build future land use scenarios and will evaluate land use scenario impacts. In order to identify and build collective regional land use scenarios, MVRPC will host 17 community-based workshops throughout the region to engage the general public in the future land use themes and scenarios development process. The workshop is designed to last approximately 90 minutes.

• Thursday, March 18, 2010 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Fairmont High School, commons area 3301 Shroyer Road Kettering OH 45429
• Wednesday, March 31, 2010 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Center for Regional Cooperation 1100 West 3rd Street Dayton OH 45407
• Wednesday, April 7, 2010 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Friendship Village, Convocation Room 5790 Denlinger Road Trotwood OH 45426-1898

A few posts ago, we covered Martin Kim of MVRPC analysis of the land use in the region. And it’s funny- we mentioned him in the post on committee forming as well (first link in this post).

After that- I got a follow up note from someone at MVRPC “Um, Thanks, I think. ”

I’m going to keep the contents of most of that note private- since if they wanted it public- they could have commented on the post itself. But here is the reason I’m pumping the last three meetings:

We’re hoping to go to each of the 78 jurisdictions at the conclusion and tell them, “X number of people — voters — attended these workshops.  Maybe you should listen to what your constituents say.”  If developers show up, then our results will reflect that.  If environmentalists show up, our results will reflect that.  All we can do as an agency is to beg folks to come and voice their opinion.

Heaven help us if the “developers” show up- we’re already over developed. The key thing to note- why the hell do we have 78 jurisdictions? Can we please move into the modern day- instead of sticking with a structure devised with the Northwest Ordinance of 1784 and the Land Ordinance of 1785.

And, oh, yeah- how about a leader? One whom we can hold accountable?

MVRPC has its “regional land use planning initiative” in full planning force. However it’s kinda like fixing the fence after the cows left the pasture.

The Kettering Oakwood Times has a really long (by DDN standards) article by Paul Collins about the changes the region has gone through and how we ended up in this mess. The numbers make it really clear: slight rise in population, spread over 1.5x the space, with a huge shift to commercial real estate and an infrastructure cost that’s skyrocketed. A lot of his info is from the director of planning at MVRPC, Martin H. Kim.

Take a look at the numbers:

…in 1970, Dayton’s urban population was 606,549 and the total amount of urbanized area was 185.9 square miles.

The total population density in that urbanized area was 3,263 population per square mile. In 2000, Dayton’s urban population was 723,955 and the total amount of urbanized area was 327.6 square miles.

The total population density in that urbanized area was 2,209 population per square mile, which represented a 1,054 decline from the year 1970. Kim explained that this decline has led to a disproportion between the region’s population and land usage.

“We are using more and more land per capita,” Kim said. “The population grew, but the rate of growth was lower than the physical expansion of the urban area. In other words, the land consumption per capita increased between 1970 and 2000.”

Kim stated that, if these urbanization trends hold sway, Dayton’s population density in 2030 will only amount to 1,291 population per square mile. Simultaneously, urbanized area will have grown to 531.1 square miles. According to Kim, commercial development will probably constitute a sizable portion of this larger urban area, as is evidenced by the 150 percent increase in commercial land use between 1970 and 2000. Thus, projected land use, particularly commercial development, will exceed the needs of the population.

According to Kim, Dayton’s demographic decline means a thinner tax base for larger areas. In turn, this thinner tax base will affect the quality of life and economic prosperity of the Dayton region. The effects include: Higher infrastructure and service delivery costs. Longer commutes. Less open space and farmland. Longer police, EMT, and fire runs. Spending more money on gas….

Land development has not been tied to population changes. Between 1970 and 2000, population in the region remained relatively stable while total developed land in the region increased by 44.6 percent.

“Geographically, development has been uneven and development has been shifting among land use types,” Kim said.

Indeed, land use has shifted within the region considerably between 1975 and 2000. Residential land use increased 36.3 percent. Industrial land use increased 22 percent. And, of course, commercial land use increased 148.1 percent. Meanwhile, agricultural/open space land use declined 9.3 percent.

via Population decline predicted in region.

If you think about it- we’re spending millions to eliminate interchanges downtown, where we have a 33%+ commercial vacancy rate, and spending millions more to build an interchange to what were cornfields at Austin Pike. The problem cited by businesses is that they don’t want to pay for parking for employees in those empty towers- so instead, they build asphalt fields around low, new, boring buildings and pat themselves on the back.

Thankfully, Mayor Leitzell seems to be the only one thinking about this – suggesting we provide free bus service in Montgomery County. It would be a competitive advantage- considering Greene and Warren County have no real public transit- and, it would decrease the cost of living in Dayton further. Owning a car is your second highest household expense after housing. Had we done this 25 year ago- maybe Downtown wouldn’t be on life support now. After all- aren’t we paying for RTA already with the .5% sales tax? Shouldn’t we get something for our money?

This is today’s topic for the Dayton Grassroots Daily Show- watch and enjoy:

Bill Pote over at Dayton Most Metro has a long post and a small comment debate going on about how restrictive building codes and over-the-top requirements are making redevelopment severely expensive at the cost of much of our existing infrastructure- and empowering sprawl. He asks:

But have we made these codes so restrictive that we’ve destroyed any good chance of bringing our long-vacant downtown buildings back to life? Is there any room for some flexibility and compromises that still ensure proper safety AND make it cost-effective to redevelop and re-inhabit our downtown buildings?

via Restrooms, Elevators and Sprinklers – Oh My! | Dayton MostMetro.

I’ve asked the same question for a long time (search old posts).

There is no doubt in my mind that many of the codes have been pushed through legislation by the building trades. Other rules come from the Americans with Disabilities Act, fire safety, environmental rulings (no more incinerators in homes like the one I grew up in). Many are well intended and good. As Pote points out: “I suppose we could just say to hell with handicapped folks and just make downtown a handicapped-free zone, but that would ensure Dayton’s position on Forbes’ list of the Top Ten Asshole Cities.”

Some cities realized that redevelopment will never take place if there are unlimited growth opportunities through sprawl. These were forward thinkers. Portland, Oregon, said that the city wouldn’t keep extending services and infrastructure outside a boundary years ago. Imagine if Springboro was still farmland and all those school kids who can’t get a levy passed, were still living in Dayton or Kettering?

Is it too late to stop sprawl as we build the Austin Pike interchange? At what point will we draw the line? The population of the region hasn’t grown at the same rate as our consumption of space, and that’s why we’re being sucked dry to afford all this new “development” which just becomes more to support with taxes? Should we implement a zero square footage gain rule? You can’t build new, unless you take X square footage out of the inventory? It might stop the reckless overbuilding of retail we seem to have, and of office space. Call is a cap and trade system for real estate.

Getting back to our existing inventory downtown. How much vacant space do we have? If you believe the survey, it’s around 30%, however, I bet it’s higher because some space has been out of the inventory for so long it’s not even counted. We also still define “downtown” as a very small area, which also skews the numbers. Why is it so important to fill this space back up? Why shouldn’t it be OK to build your corporate HQ in a former cornfield like Reynolds & Reynolds or Terradata instead of being downtown?

As long as everyone is going to continue to be car dependent and drive to work anyway, why would it matter if their destination is Springboro or Downtown? On first glance it shouldn’t matter, in fact, by sending all these people in different directions should relieve congestion since we aren’t all trying to get to the same place at once, right? Wrong. The existing infrastructure was built to concentrate large numbers of people downtown. When I moved to Dayton, Fairfield Road was 2 lanes and there were cow pastures where hotels and office building sit across from Wright State. Now we have 6- and 8-lane roads, yet our population hasn’t increased at all. You and I paid for all that, and we’re also paying for the vacant buildings we left behind, since they still require police and fire protection, and all the other municipal services.

Think of it as having your family stay the same size, your income staying the same size, yet having to pay to maintain 3x the space and automobiles that you had 20 years ago. Hello.

So when it comes to all the additional costs to bring old buildings up to date, from sprinklers to ADA, the real question becomes, is a building more of a burden to society empty or gone? Unfortunately, we’ve been creating empties for so long, it’s become almost impossible with the glut of space, to make the numbers work even without relaxed building codes. The variable that ultimately will save Downtown is the price of gas. When it becomes so expensive to drive, we’ll be forced back to concentrate where our infrastructure was built to support. But only if we don’t make it so expensive to bring the old buildings back. We do have one ace in the hole long term- if global warming does indeed raise ocean levels, one day, Manhattan will be under water, and office space in Dayton will look really good. So keep driving and burning fossil fuels- in the long run, it may be our salvation.

From, let’s sneak a tax hike through the backdoor, to no, we can’t afford your dream Mr. Gunlock (of RG Properties) County Administrator Deb Feldman must have felt the heat after one public discussion on where to build an arena.

Montgomery County should not pursue a hockey arena and events center at the proposed Austin Landing on the county’s southern border, according to a recommendation that is expected to be made Tuesday, Feb. 24, by County Administrator Deborah Feldman.

via County administrator opposes arena for Austin Pike.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that there will be a downtown arena either, but, at least we won’t be paying for more sprawl with a tax hike.

Now, we have to wait for the previously non-existent “plan b” to surface, because we just heard from Joe Tuss that we need some kind of attraction at our new intersection.

When I started riding the scooter as my main form of transportation, I pretty much abandoned the suit for jeans and boots. When I saw “An inconvenient truth” I came to the conclusion that we need to figure out how to end our dependency on fossil fuel- and my walk to work tax credit idea was born.

This video from the EU, pretty much sums up my feelings:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There is also the question of what happens when the gap between the haves and the have nots gets too big. Typically, the sides collapse, and fall into the center. It’s not pretty- and we’re starting to see the result of years of unbridled greed. This video about Goldman Sachs and their kingdom of Burger flippers makes it pretty clear:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While neither item is the purview of a Dayton City Commissioner, I still believe that think globally, act locally is a pretty good mantra.

Both of these videos came to me through listening to you (thanks Tim and Teresa). I publish them to try to keep a dialog going, and to stimulate discussion on what we can do in Dayton to change the world.

That is Dayton’s heritage, and it should be our goal to keep it going.

What will you bring to the effort?

It seems the Montgomery County Development chief, Joe Tuss, and his boss, County Administrator Debbie Feldman, have a crush on Kevin Costner. They watch the movie “Field of Dreams” over and over and think if they keep saying “Build it and they will come,” they will have success.

The meeting was well attended, with a lot of interest about the location of the new “ice arena” that no one has made a strong case for- yet. In fact, the very idea that building a sports arena, even a successful one, brings other investment needs to be evaluated closely. Look at the “success of 5th/3rd Field” (which Sandy Mendelson called the 7th wonder of the United States) and realize that in terms of net jobs: Brixx opened, an architect redid a factory into apartments and office space, and 10 years later another business is revamping space nearby (Real Art), and in  Woolpert, a major employer of white-collar jobs left for Greene County. Sum total of new jobs- a net loss.

The need for the intersection was justified by current employers in the area of the interchange: Lexis Nexis, New Page and Terradata. To which I responded: all started out in Downtown as Mead or NCR. They talked about future jobs at newer businesses- and I pointed out that there are companies they already gave tax breaks to for new jobs that have not only not produced new jobs- but lost jobs. They said that we need to compete with other intersections by offering more of the same plus an ice rink- to be the “Northern anchor” of I-75 to which others said- “Isn’t that supposed to be downtown?”

We’ve been following the same strategy for years. It hasn’t been working well for us. Government and tax breaks don’t make for sound business foundations- ever. When I pointed to the shell game of moving businesses based on incentives- they belittled my point claiming they offered Terradata and New Page all kinds of deals- and they wouldn’t stay, yet, moving from a high income tax location like Dayton at 2.25% to a zero % tax rate like Washington Township sure is a pretty big carrot to a CEO making an easy two-comma income.

As long as we’re going to make a concession on tax breaks- maybe it’s time to cap the amount of income that can be charged income tax on in any community in Montgomery county to the first $250,000, but have all of them pay 3% on that first $250,000 to try to level the playing field a bit. (btw- pick a number- could be $400,000, same as the US President as well).

Feldman agreed with me about ideas like smart growth, UniGov and more equitable tax plans- but placed the blame on State government. I place it on our local leaders for not pushing the issue harder- instead of talking about pie in the sky ice arenas while basic services go lacking.

There were a lot of interesting people in the crowd- but, I’ve started to see a trend at these meetings: the kings are in the back of the room, and the pawns up front. Mike Ervin doesn’t need a crown and sceptre, but, he’s sure being made out to have both.

Also- when asked about doing these deals in back rooms- and having your talking points leaked that disparaged the Dayton Bombers, Feldman got really defensive. Never a good move- admit your mistake in ignoring the existing business in the chase for the ever elusive silver bullet that a true lack of vision demands.

But, the last and most important observation: when asked what impact would happen to Austin Road if the Arena didn’t end up making sense- or being built- if they had a plan B? Answering that you don’t have a plan B- grants you an instant FAIL.

True leadership always has a plan B. Hail Marys only work in Football and in church, growing our community demands more.

When Randy Gunlock pulled the trigger on his dream of building an ice arena at Austin Road, the Montgomery County Commissioners scrambled to try to boost the hotel tax to the max, without any public discussion. He didn’t even have to have a team, show drawings, provide proformas- nothing.

Now that Dayton Bombers owner, Costa Papista throws an alternate vision that makes a lot more sense and costs less, all of a sudden, all the negatives come out.

The big piece is money. The cost is estimated at under $30 million for a downtown arena housing the Dayton Bombers, and $60 million to $100 million for a hockey arena and events center at the Austin Pike interchange slated for Interstate 75.

“People should dream. They should have big ideas. But it has to be sustainable and you have to be able to pay for it,” said state Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering. “But we can’t afford two arenas. That I’m pretty sure of.”

He and state Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton, said the financially strapped state has no money to offer. The city and Montgomery County are also in difficult financial straits.

“Under any scenario this would not be a predominantly publicly funded facility,” said City Manager Rashad Young, admitting he is excited about the prospect of a downtown arena but cautions that a market study must prove there is demand for it.

“If you build this thing for people will they actually come?” Young said. “And you have to build that into the financial framework.”

Both arena projects require feasibility studies, financing plans, guaranteed tenants and solid revenue streams, experts say.

The Bombers would be a tenant for the downtown arena, an undetermined American Hockey League team is envisioned for Austin Landing, and both hope to draw youth hockey leagues hungry for ice time and willing to pay.

“Ice facilities are among the most expensive to build and the most expensive to operate. It’s hard to make money off them,” said Julie Skolnicki, the Columbus-based regional vice president of Brailsford and Dunlavey, a Washington, D.C., facilities planning and program management firm.

via Hockey arena dreams need cold cash.

Note that now, we’re actually requiring “experts” to weigh in, when it was just Randy Gunlock and Mandalay Entertainment(maybe) it was full steam ahead.

Dayton is still a good-ole-boy network town. Maybe that’s why we were bigger than Atlanta in 1950, but a small dot on the map today? Who picks these idiots we allow to run for office? Why did the County have their secret talking points memo for the Austin Road Arena, and two days after the Papista plan surfaces we’re seeing sabotage in the press? And, remember, Jon Husted just got hired by the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce on the side from his Senate seat. Did Papista not pay his Dayton Chamber dues and Gunlock did?

If this doesn’t stink to you, you aren’t paying attention.

Right now, I’d venture that Dayton has an ample supply of affordable homes. Right now, the economy is tanking and people can’t get credit. Out of work, under-employed, trying to get by.

When this country was going through its industrial boom at the turn of the twentieth century, immigrants and rural Americans flocked to the city centers, where there were jobs, and quickly- there was a housing shortage. Rooming houses were often the solution. Sharing a bathroom, kitchen and common area, with a furnished private bedroom was an accepted practice. Young single people, would rent week-to-week or month-to-month to follow jobs, opportunities and their dreams- without having to tie themselves to a lease, the inter-dependency of a “housemate” situation. Moving from city to city wasn’t as difficult.

Come to think of it, I lived that way when I was in the army. My possessions all fit in a footlocker, a duffel bag and one suitcase.

Somehow, our society has twisted to a material world- where ownership of things; houses, cars, furniture, kitchen gadgets, TVs and all the other things that supposedly are required to be “established” and a full-time, card-carrying part of “modern society” have become more important than what’s in our heads and in our hearts.

To become “homeless” is to be a drop-out from civilization- when in fact, civilization may just need some reality-field adjustments. Not all of us need or want a MacMansion in suburbia with 1.7 children and 2 cars in a 2.5-car attached garage. Maybe the person with no mortgage and no moving truck required, is really living the true American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness- and the rest of us are just tied to paying the man for the privilege of property ownership?

Rooming houses, the regulated and inspected type, aren’t that much different from hotels that rent by the week or month, they just don’t have corporate branding attached. We find no problem with an “extended stay hotel”- but a rooming house is considered one step above a drug den.

Maybe as a strategy to bringing people back to Dayton and spark urban revitalization, we need to look at bringing back the rooming house as an accepted form of residential housing. Tough times, require some new looks at old ideas.

This post is dedicated to F. B. who better make it out of the hospital.

Yes, I know gas is at $2 a gallon right now, and we all feel a sigh of relief- but, instead of looking forward using the lesson we just learned with $4 a gallon gas, we’re still planning a $50 million interchange- and now adding yet another “events center” which will compete with the Dayton Convention Center, Hara Arena, The Nutter Center, the Mandalay etc.

All while people are driving less.

We could be putting the money into improving what we have- including our public transportation system, instead of encouraging a whole new ring neighborhood- outside of the current ring neighborhoods.

As usual, the people in government have no clue at the long tern impact of a facility being built in a cornfield- without other amenities nearby:

Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, raised the possibility of shifting $2 million in state capital budget funding now allocated for Dayton’s Ballpark District to Austin Pike. Husted, who becomes an Ohio senator in January, said if Dayton’s project can’t use the money in the near term, “we probably would be better off transferring that money to Austin Road.” He said a decision to shift that money would be made in conjunction with the city, Montgomery County, Gov. Ted Strickland and area legislators.

Dayton City Manager Rashad Young said he was surprised to hear talk of shifting the money away from downtown Dayton.

“I would hate to see us lose that capital bill allocation to any other project, because that remains a priority for us,” said Young. He said the city supports Austin Pike development, but downtown must remain a Dayton priority.

Funding is in place for construction of the $48.8 million interchange at Austin Pike starting next year. A single developer, RG Properties, owns or controls all four corners, said Steve Stanley, executive director of the Montgomery County Transportation Improvement District.

The events center would anchor a high-tech mixed-use development that officials say could bring 21,000 jobs.

“This is definitely not a pipe dream. This is a very, very strong and solid concept,” said Montgomery County Assistant Administrator Joe Tuss. “Do we have a significant amount of work to do? And are there a lot of hurdles to overcome? Certainly.”

He anticipates funding would come from RG Properties and private sources along with some public money. With local, state and federal governments all struggling with financial issues, Tuss and Husted acknowledge that finding public funding will be tough.

Tuss said a 7,000-seat events center would fill a need for a mid-sized venue on the southern portion of Ohio’s stretch of I-75. Officials and developers are discussing trying to attract an American Hockey League team to the arena, and making it available to youth hockey leagues in communities stretching to Cincinnati. Fees for use of the center and arena would be used to cover operating costs.

“Ice time is a premium and quality ice time is even more of a priority,” said Tuss. “Having an anchor like a sports team makes sense. But you have to appeal to as broad a segment as you can.”

Austin Pike project not easy to fund.

Please note, if we built this facility downtown, near the Oregon district- we would help exisiting businesses, hotels, and be close to potential employees for the facility- many who could walk to work, or commute by public transport. Putting it in a cornfield is just plain nuts.

I’ve got the “talking points” from Montgomery County communications director Cathy Peterson attached as a pdf- have to love the inclusion of this statement:

9.  What about the Bombers?  They are barely making it – How will another team be successful?  Why don’t you just move the Bombers here?

The keys to a successful sports team are:  1, location, location, location, and 2, a great facility.  We will have both at Austin.    As to the Bombers, we don’t want to get the cart before the horse, and the first step is the development and financing plan for the Event Center.  Right now we are focused on an AHL level team, but we still have lots of work to do.

When local government starts talking about the viability of private companies as part of the public record- you have to start to wonder who the government is really working for.

If government really was working for all of us, instead of just the wealthy- we wouldn’t have to pay some PR flack to make up this crap.

Austin Road interchange should be scrapped- and $50 million ought to be redirected to supporting infrastructure for businesses that help support walkable communities- so we can end our dependence on foreign oil and a car-centric lifestyle.

A friend just got divorced and had to move in with her sister in Springboro with her kids. She was a “Dayton lifer/City girl” through and through.

The big new house isn’t her style, the commute sucks, but here is the key: her kids, 5 and 9, can run down the street to play without worries. There is a pool for the plat-not a “spray park” where we can wash the great unwashed- but can’t teach them a life skill of swimming. The schools aren’t great- and are almost broke from supporting the huge influx of escapees from Dayton and the first ring suburbs.

How do we solve our population drain?

First- build on strengths: Neighborhoods like South Park are 8/10ths of the way there. Make sure people don’t speed through the community with constant ticketing. Guarantee the whole neighborhood will go to a quality school- k-12. Enforce yard and trash standards- provide assistance for exterior repairs through low interest loans and utilizing neighborhood resources for work crews (including job retraining).

Look at building “neighborhood pools” not supported by the city- but by community ownership. Same things with daycare centers, senior daycare and after school student enrichment programming. The city would provide neighborhood organizing assistance- things like setting up the 501c3’s for taxing purposes (this whole area of tax law needs to be simplified) and neighborhood organization leadership training. Empowerment of communities is the first step to re-populating them.

Thoughts?

Reading an article in the Dayton Business Journal about school districts thinking of 4 day school weeks to save on gas, it became really obvious that the idea of busing students to school is obsolete. Dayton Public Schools use 40,000 gallons of diesel per month. At $4.50 a gallon, that’s $180,000 being spent just on gas, instead of instruction. Compare that with Oakwood where almost all students walk to school, where that money can be spent on education instead of transportation.

Walkable communities aren’t going to be optional. Instead of worrying about how big the parking lot is going to be at the new Krogers, they should be looking at building more smaller stores, closer to customers.

Instead of building “communities” like “Village of North Clayton” in corn fields far from employers and schools we should be rewarding employers for having their employees in walking distance.

Same song, different reason.

Population loss isn’t the same as weight loss. Putting people back in your community isn’t easy. And, believe it or not- just like love- you can’t buy them either.

This is our fundamental problem in Dayton (the big D- not just the city proper). Since our politicians are so focused on income (both the tax kind and the political donation kind)- they fail to understand that everything they do must be evaluated by what is right for the “Greater Good.”

Using “The Greene” as an example- how did the $15+ million in incentives that Greene County and Beavercreek forked over work out? Sure, they got a bump in jobs- that pay income tax, and there are more property taxes coming in thanks to the improvements, and last but not least- sales tax collections went up. Great, fantastic, amazing.

Until you realize that since the population hasn’t grown one iota in the area in the last 10 years, what we just did was subsidize one developer while leaving the last one (that would be the Mall at Fairfield Commons) with less. Now, we’re just talking about the big boys here. Let’s look at what this does to the small fry.

We’ve had many local independent restaurants close up shop. We’ve had higher vacancy rates in other retail locations. Kettering has had to stretch it’s police and fire to deal with problems that it didn’t have before, and Dayton has lost some more office tenants to the new buildings (Robbins & Meyers HQ for one).

This is an example of government redistributing wealth- instead of building it. We need more people in the region, we need more interest in the creation of jobs, not the moving of them. We need to find a competitive advantage and maximize it, or we’ll just continue rearranging deck chairs on a ship that’s not just sinking- it’s shrinking at the same time.

Sportsplex is a big idea. Cheap, bountiful water is a big advantage. Low cost of doing business is a draw. Walkable communities are a big plus as gas prices rise. Simplified business requirements makes things easier to start and run a business. Fair tax systems (and not the “Fair Tax” plan) help keep things moving (subsidizing the Cheesecake factory while ignoring Dominics etc.).

Somehow, we have to start evaluating every tax expenditure based on the idea of what will it do to make the area so attractive to business and people so that they won’t want tax breaks- but will be thinking they are getting a great deal?

Why would people want to live in LA and fight traffic, live in NYC and pay crazy rent for a closet to live in, when they could be in Dayton? Figure that out, focus on it, and before long- you won’t be handing out money with every building permit- and we’ll be getting real net growth, not redistributed wealth.

Thoughts?

The DDN doesn’t have both of its articles on the rumor of Reynolds and Reynolds pulling out of Downtown- so I can only link to the short one. The doozy quote comes from the print edition. Here is what the Government thought of its taxpayer-financed propping up of Reynolds and Reynolds by building out the former downtown Elder Beerman building to bring workers who had been in the city, moved to Kettering for a tax break- and then were being moved back to Dayton with taxpayer support:

Reynolds and Reynolds considers move
Reynolds broke ground for its Research Park campus in 1997. In 2003, CityWide Development Corp. named Reynolds and Reynolds the “best economic development project” of the year for remodeling the former Elder-Beerman building.

What happened with Reynolds and Reynolds is a textbook case of why government incentives for relocation in the name of “economic development” only make the CEO rich, and the taxpayers left holding the bag. I’ve talked about it at length on this site over the years (because I’m not a pop-up candidate like Jane Mitakides)- to see them go to this search: http://esrati.com/?s=Reynolds

The great quote comes from the print edition:

“We’ve attempted to reach out to the new ownership. They have refused to meet with us,” Shelley Dickstein, Dayton’s assistant city manager for strategic development, said. “To us, that is indicative that we have no ability to influence a business decision. This is an economic decision that government can’t influence.”

Sure government can influence a business decision Shelley, when it gives large handouts to corporations. What you are really saying is that you can’t afford to buy anymore jobs after years of chasing the carrot by pushing the cart, instead of letting the horse do its job.

The reality is, Mead stayed downtown for the length of its handout- and then left. Reynolds left Dayton when a sweetheart deal was done in the backroom to give them a deal on land in Kettering at Research Park, construction was handled by other big campaign donors, and the Dayton School Board agreed to buy all the old Reynolds real estate in Dayton for crazy high prices, so that the jobs would “stay in the area” instead of being whisked off to whatever other place was offering a better incentive package. The net result: Jobs left Dayton with its 2.25% income tax for Kettering which then had a 1.75% tax rate (great if you are CEO and pulling down several million a year)- and then Dayton begged Reynolds to come back to put jobs in the old Elder Beerman building.

The company was then sold, and the new CEO, who was only here a few years, pocketed over $9.1 million- some of that, could be considered our tax dollars, and now the City is about to lose 400 jobs.

I first talked about a different type of business location incentive back in 2006, with a walk to work tax credit system, that would encourage companies to locate close to employees to reduce our need for imported oil.

Couple that with a return to sanity in public company finance, by stopping what I call the Wall Street Casino, and we may start seeing a return of long-term business strategy, based on true financial growth instead of the pillage while we can business model.

Just imagine if cities spent more time providing public services to citizens, instead of trying to meddle in private business, maybe we’d have less government, more service and companies would actually want to locate here without a handout.

That’s an Esrati idea, which can only come from a candidate free of special interest money, PAC money or corporate lobbyist support.

The other candidates in the OH-3 race, Jane Mitakides and Mike Turner, can’t propose new ways to solve problems, because they rely on the old money to keep them in office.

Something more to think about from the candidate money can’t buy (but, it still means I need donations- so think about sending what you can afford to keep this campaign moving).

Thank you.

As of today, I’m officially the underdog, since Jane Mitakides got the endorsement of the Montgomery County Democratic party last night. I’d like to know what the other 3 Democratic Parties in the district think, but, apparently, there isn’t much interest in this race from their party Chairmen.

In her last outing for Congress, she answered some questions for the league of Women Voters- (I’m stuck with her old stuff, since she still doesn’t have a site up).

Her answers are pedestrian at best- and you can compare to mine (which have been collected over the years- not just for this election)

Jane Mitakides Answers Questions
What plans do you have to promote a more balanced transportation system?

I believe modernizing our transportation system is an integral part of real energy independence, as well as ensuring the mobility of an aging population. We should invest in making our current highway and surface-street transportation system more efficient, cut waste in our current public transportation system, and begin to look ahead to light rail and other means of efficiently moving people from point to point. In this central hub area, I will make it a priority that our projects–like the suggested US-35 improvements through eastern Montgomery County–see fruition. Business relies on good transportation options, so a strong transportation system isn’t just good policy–it’s smart business, too.

I believe a modern transportation system includes high speed rail in SW Ohio, connecting Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton. See this search: High Speed Rail

I am not a favor of sprawl, which increases our dependence on not only foreign oil, but has huge costs in the upkeep of roads. I’ve been talking about reeling in sprawl quite a bit- and had a category dedicated to it: Sprawl

But, my major policy game changer, is the end of corporate relocation welfare- where municipalities, states, compete for businesses to move to their jurisdiction by giving away tax abatements. My proposal is to make these illegal, and instead, only offering a tax credit for employees that can walk to work- and offer a tax credit for companies buying public transportation passes for employees- making it good business for public transit to be used. I spoke of this first here: August 1, 2006. Note, I wasn’t running for office then- so I wrote this without any ulterior motives: Go see “An Inconvenient Truth”

So, if you are still wondering why Jane Mitakides should be your pick for Congress, take a look at her tired answers, and the new fangled Esrati Platform, delivered in full Web 2.0 for your election pleasure.

Ideas are my currency in this campaign. Jane, well, she wants to buy her own seat in Congress: Jane’s donations to herself in 2004

$61,538 is more than a lot of people in this district make in a year. Maybe Jane should just mail checks to voters (It’s all the rage these days- it’s our Federal Governments short sighted solution to the economic crisis- you can see my ideas here Economic Stimulus the Esrati way) and buy their votes?

I want to earn yours.

This isn’t news to those in the know- but, it’s something the Dayton Daily News won’t dare dig into. Austin Road Interchange is just one more key to destabilizing what is left of our urban core in Dayton. Ever wonder how a little interchange becomes a BIG INTERCHANGE? Take a look at what Jeffrey over at Daytonology has revealed through good research:

Daytonology: Mike Turner and the Real Estate/Development Interests
Mike Turner has received significant contributions from a cluster of donors best described as the real estate/development special interest community. This includes PAC and individual donors from real estate, contracting, construction, engineering and architecture, and building trades unions.
In fact some of the largest individual contributors are associated with this special interest donor base.

My campaign treasurer, Mike Robinette, was head of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission before his retirement before the hatchet fell. He was opposed to the Austin Road Interchange boondoggle, and was being targeted for asking the right questions. Unfortunately, the developers and construction community are counting on our tax dollars supporting their incomes for the next 10 years and beyond through this overpriced, unnecessary project.

Read Jeffrey’s whole post- and you will better understand why I feel so committed to running for Turners seat. Enough is enough already. It’s time to return our government to the people, instead of the campaign donors.

No one will disagree that the beginning of the downfall of Dayton began with busing in the Seventies. It was called “white flight”- but in reality- it was the beginning of the economic divide in Dayton. The ‘burbs grew, the city shrank, and the seeds were sewn for the mess we’re in now. The health of the region depends on the health of the core- and the core has been rotting as pointed out in today’s Dayton Daily News:

‘A quiet disaster’ menaces Dayton
Thirteen-year-old Brittany Jones walks one short block to the school bus stop, but her dad won’t let her make the trip alone.

Every building Brittany passes on the 1600 block of Home Avenue, except one, is boarded, vacant. Eight of the buildings have earned the dubious city designation of nuisance. The eerie rattling of decaying wood and the muffled footsteps of vagrants inside the buildings provide a backdrop for the neighborhood that on the very next block rings with the laughter of children.

“To me, as a parent, it’s scary,” said Marvin Jones, Brittany’s father. “I don’t even like walking past them in the daytime.”

The buildings are part of a tide of blight creeping across many Dayton neighborhoods, an analysis of the city’s nuisance data shows. Driven by poverty, aging housing, an overbuilt market, migration out of the city and a still rising wave of foreclosures, the affected neighborhoods are losing occupants, value and market viability.

The number of properties on the city’s nuisance list has nearly tripled in the last three years, the data show, reaching 636 in October. The city has moved away from its past policy of trying to preserve vacant properties rather than tear them down.

However, tearing down buildings isn’t a solution. There are very few bad buildings, there are bad economics to the buildings- but that’s a matter of the area. At one time, NYC could have torn down SoHo, but then, it wouldn’t have the character it has now- same goes for my neighborhood, South Park. The problem is in the value of the area- and this is where Dayton needs to fix it’s problems- and here are the answers:

It started with the schools, so that’s where we have to start too.

It doesn’t matter if Stivers and Horace Mann and DECA (no longer a DPS school) are doing a great job, the perception is that the Dayton Public Schools are a school of last resort. I’ve proposed a whole set of ideas in the Dayton Public Schools category, but here is the latest:

Turn the Dayton Public Schools over to Sinclair Community College and fund both with a Countywide property tax. First rationale is the brand- Sinclair has the perceived quality and competence to undo the tarnish faster. Second part is that the rest of the County benefited from the economic divide when they siphoned off the higher income families from Dayton, so for a period of 12 years (one complete cycle of students) they will bear the costs of righting the wrongs of the last 30 years. Of course, if the kids in the core district aren’t becoming the future hoods and crooks that the suburbs fear- we’ll all save money in lower costs of jails, retraining, and a dying center city.

An economics lesson

The reason buildings fall into disrepair isn’t because of the type of building- the problem is that the reasons to invest in the area have disapeared.

A while back, I posted an idea of creating a new kind of investment incentive for Dayton- which has large areas designated by the SBA as HUBzone. My plan wasn’t a shy one- the idea wasn’t to boost investment in HUBzones- it was to eliminate them. Read about it here: Crazy Economic Development Idea? In brief, allow unlimited H1-B visas for companies willing to locate offices in a HUBzone- and have the visa holders live within the HUBzone for 10 years.

Incentives for Green Development

Looking forward, there is no doubt that commuting costs will skyrocket. There is another article in todays Dayton Daily News that points out that the highway repair fund is going to dry up. A sustainable future is a return to walkable communities- what Dayton was pre-1950s- when the Eisenhower administration pushed our network of autobahns for “National Security.” Instead of rewarding companies for jobs created with tax breaks, TIF plans, SID taxes (don’t worry- they’re all evil in the long run)- let’s reward companies for only one index in the entire State of Ohio- the walk to work tax credit. I wrote about it here: Go see “An Inconvenient Truth”and I still think it’s a good way to refocus Ohio as a forward thinking green state, to go hand in hand with Governor Stricklands green energy program.

And then- our strengths can shine

I wrote this post long ago-When our “leaders” and “economists” don’t understand what drives jobs and Dan Foley said he had printed it out and carried it in his pocket on the campaign trail (at his swearing in- in front of every powerful person in town). It’s why we shouldn’t have to beg for business to come here. And once Global Warming™ puts the coasts underwater, Dayton is going to look like nirvana.

But until Mother Nature spanks the glow off places like San Francisco, Las Vegas and Miami- we have to do some radical things to insure our future.

What do you think of the above ideas?

This week, the tide turned ever so slightly, in the eventual transformation of Dayton via the Web 2.0 experience. I’ll explain.

Last week I did a post on DaytonOS about some screw-ups at the Montgomery County Jail. Monday morning when I get in my office I have a voice mail from Sheriff Vore. After connecting, the following happens:

• The prison program director/chaplain comes out to my office in the rain to pick up a print-out of some educational material for an inmate.
• The Warden, a Major, calls and leaves a message on Tuesday, and calls again on Wednesday to make sure that the chaplain had taken care of me- and to go over some of the issues I brought up with Sheriff Vore to improve procedures.
• Sheriff Vore responds to my post with a comment. Changes are in process on visitation instruction sheets, the prisoner information website and how future upgrades will be done.

Responsiveness in government? I’ll say.

I also got a call from Dayton City Commissioner Joey Williams to discuss his reasons for abstaining from the vote on the civil rights ordinance. This was at home, on a Sunday night. Now, granted, Joey and I have had a friendship going back to our first runs for office so many years back (I think it was 1989) when I was running against Clay Dixon for Mayor and he was running for School Board for the first time. We can have a conversation about issues- and agree to disagree, and still respect each other. I’m still not swayed by his arguments, but the conversation reminded me of my responsibility to carefully walk the line between critic and cynic.

On Friday, I had coffee/hot chocolate with County Commissioner Dan Foley and his aide de camp, Paul Woodie. The premise was an update on the Sports Tourism initiative, but it took a few other detours. A few things that I’ll share:

Paul agreed with me that our efforts at economic development by government aren’t giving us real long term results. His example of the deal the city did with Mead to do Courthouse Square was a 20 year deal, and on the 21st- they bailed. Dan was happy with four projects that the county sees as pluses- like 350 jobs in Brookville for a distribution center- I look at that as small potatoes because we are “investing” tax dollars into things we don’t own. I pushed the idea once again of a massive Sportsplex on the Parkside homes location- showing off something the whole region would own with pride- on our front door to the world on I-75 vs. a pop-up McBox development like BallPark Village- that would be owned by carpet baggers.

The second issue was the regionalism moves. They consider the 911 consolidation to be a successful first step in moving forward- I agree, but think that we are extremely short on strong leadership and focus on a unified direction. Paul pointed out, that as long as we have different tax bases- things like Wolpert moving to the Beavercreek side of County Line Road instead of into Research Park is a chance to avoid income tax on employees. This kind of hodge podge tax collection is divisive and detrimental. It’s also a pain in the ass for small businesses.

On top of all this, I was interviewed by Yvan Melinkoff who writes opinion for the Dayton City Paper about my views on development. He was making the rounds- talking to me, Bill Pote of Dayton Most Metro, Teresa Gasper who is part of the group looking to bring in Richard Florida as a consultant etc. He’d found my site and was interested in my take on the issues.

Last but not least, a friend who has a keen interest in politics ran into me in the gym this morning- and shared with me that a friend of his saw my take on how to solve some of the problems in the Dayton Public Schools- and wanted to find out more about me, and discuss the ideas. Both of them work for DPS. The consensus was that my ideas had merit- but apparently I need to cut back on the hyperbole. So we’re still battling the style vs substance issue in Dayton afterall.

This was a long post. Kudos to you who managed to read it all.

Comments?