<--This picture is Harriet McBryde Johnson, disability rights activist, who died this week.

Dear People--I always think of Garrison Keillor when I start writing these memos, "Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone..." But, well, this isn't Minnesota, there ain't no lake, and, as usual, it hasn't been all that quiet.

1) Antioch alive?  The Antioch saga has apparently taken another interesting, potentially positive turn. In their meeting in Keene, NH, the university trustees apparently voted to work with the Alumni to create an "independent and separate college", as soon as possible. . . .? . . . But I admit I want to read the fine print before I actually celebrate. (Color me a cool shade of "jaded," I guess.)

For more information about this latest head-scratching turn of events, see the Alumni website--and/or the text of the Antioch Alumni "breaking news" newsletter, below my signature (dated 6/7/2008). [As far as I can tell, the University has not yet issued a separate press release.] 

This comes at a time when:

* Faculty are being forced to move out of their offices this week--and would love your help moving at 10 AM tomorrow (6/9)! (Contact Amy Maruyama to help!)
* So far as I know, tomorrow evening (6/9) we're still planning to have a picnic and speakers (including me!) about the impact of the closing on the village, at the "U" drive in front of Main Building, 5:30 (potluck) / 6:30 speakers. I will speak first, and then race off to the Planning Commission meeting, see below.

2) Consulting Village Manager: Meanwhile, back at our little ranch, many of you probably read that we've hired John Weithofer to serve as a "consulting" manager to the village during these last two weeks of Eric's work with us. We hope that he will also agree to be our interim manager. He's a very experienced manager with long-term connections in the Dayton area, who has had the experience of helping Miamisburg successfully deal with the closing of a major employer, a crisis he describes as not dissimilar in scale and implications to the Antioch situation that we face. He's intrigued by the opportunity. I am impressed by him.

Also at our last meeting we also approved the Barr property plans, which I know is not what all of you wanted. I feel at peace with the decision, but am nevertheless aware of the burden of responsibility I bear for helping to make this project work as best as it possibly can for our village, and to make sure that the developers live up to their promises about minimizing negative impacts on the neighborhood, and possibly even improving the drainage situation. I pledge to do my very best on this.

3) Monday: 6/9, 7 pm: Planning Commission: We'll be discussing our Comprehensive Plan update, the Bike Committee's Management action list, our amended goals, and, finally, and most importantly: Historical Preservation. This is the crucial issue facing our village, long term, as we grapple with the potential for a closed or seriously down-sized Antioch College. We want to make sure that key historic buildings are preserved. Please consider coming to this meeting!

4) Next: Village Council Meeting: 6/16, 7 pm, Bryan Ctr: We will have many things to take up--including, we hope, addressing our concerns about the University's plans for temporary(?) closure of the college buildings, a few resolutions that we postponed from our last meeting--e.g., reappointing our village treasurer and signing up the village utility accounts for Green Pricing, and appointments to several commissions. We'll also approve the Tax Budget for the village, hear a Run-for-Life presentation, and discuss economic development concerns. I will have more details next week, however.

Death remains mysterious.  How can I imagine a world without me?  How can I have survived so many friends, so many family members, so many heroes?  Why can't Mel Brooks live forever?  Death is natural and necessary, but not just.  It is a random force of nature; survival is equally accidental.  Each loss is an occasion to remember that survival is a gift.  I owe it to others to make good use of my time.  When I die, I might as well die alive.  ~ Harriet McBryde Johnson,  8 July 1957-3 June 2008

Update: Antioch etc., Planning & Environmental Commission

Hi, all--It's been a busy week.

1) Village Council update: Our Village Council meeting, including a long executive session, on Monday went til midnight; we moved forward on three resolutions connected to the improvements to our waste-water treatment facilities, finalized our goals for the year (yes, in April!), briefly discussed the noise ordinance and concerns about Antioch College noise, had special reports on the King Street detention basin, our website & the visioning process, and, during Citizens' Concerns, heard from a lot of you on the Antioch College situation. (Exec. session focused on Village Manager employment agreement).

Re: Antioch crisis: We passed a resolution to write a letter urging the Antioch U Board of Trustees to meet with the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, face-to-face. It's now being reported to us that such a meeting will happen. Meanwhile, we're seeing plans move forward for a non-stop Antioch, regardless, which are intriguing and exciting, as reported by ACCC spokesperson Ellen Borgeson and student Jeanne Kay.

I am concerned about the College campus and what the University's plans are for securing it, given the announced layoffs. I am planning to ask our legal council to look into what rights we as a community have to expect that that campus be secured and maintained by the owners if it should be empty for any length of time. If others of you have thoughts about what our community interest is in regard to local consequences to this potential shuttering of the campus at the heart of our town, please let me know.

The Electric System Task Force will be making its Phase I report at our next meeting on the 21st, and we'll be reviewing our Sidewalk Policy.

2) Planning Commission: The proposed planned unit development of the Barr property (321 Xenia Ave) will again dominate our meeting tomorrow night (Mon. 4/14, 7 pm; Council Chambers). Our PC packet is thus thick this week again with letters and thoughts, positive and negative, about the FCC's plans for this property that lies in a key residential area adjacent to our downtown. Our village manager, Eric Swanson included a note in our packet that the PUD process is a two-step process: we are at this point looking at the "concept" stage, not the final plan: we will vote either that we like the concept (go forward with hammering out the details) or we say that the differences are too great to be worked out. But in either case, the plan will then go to the Village Council.

I have already stated that it is my intention to support this effort, although I recognize the plan is not perfect and that many of my supporters oppose the plan--my stance is posted in the previous entry on this blog. I respect all of you who disagree with my position on this issue. Please know that I am still listening to all the voices and reading the letters of folks on all sides of this public debate. In general, I believe that it's been a healthy debate and that people have engaged in it in good faith. I genuinely thank everyone for making me feel the complexities raised by this plan, which are not trivial.

3) No office hours tomorrow: I have to be at Wittenberg for an interview during my normal office hours, and also have to meet with students who are working on end-of-term projects. So I will be at Wittenberg all day.

4) Environmental Commission: We are also a busy group with several important events planned ahead of Earth Day. First, I hope you all received the notice about "green pricing" in your utility bill this month, which allows you--if you wish--to pay a little extra as a support for building and investing in greener energy resources. We need 10% of us to sign on for the project to fly, so let's do it.

Corrected costs: It costs only $0.015 (1 1/2 cents) per kilowatt hour to add this optional plan to your bill. So, if you use 500 kilowatts of energy, it would only cost you an extra $7.50 that month (that's 500 multiplied by .015--there is a typo on our original flyer). This is a great way to start on a path of greater energy efficiency, to put pressure on yourself to reduce your family's usage--and reduced, more efficient usage is the best source of energy we have. Given that our Council voted against coal, we need to move in this direction, right now.

"Spring Fling" Earth Day Events this coming weekend:

Friday night 7-9: Death to the Incandescent! That's our rallying cry. We'll be stationed at a table on Xenia Ave, in front of Living Green, with information about green pricing, the value of switching your regular bulbs to compact fluorescents (CFL), and how to recycle CFLs responsibly.
Saturday early afternoon 12-2:30: More death to the incandescent! Same as above.
Sat. late afternoon 3:30-5:
FREE Film Screening: "Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home!" Little Art Theatre! Co-sponsored with other good people/groups. Bring friends! Bring family! Bring people you don't even really like! Here's the film's website: http://www.garbagerevolution.com/
Immediately following: SHORT Panel discussion of the issues raised by the film, with local experts Bob Brecha, Donna Haller, and others, centering on the plan of starting with the concrete, practical step of turning entirely to the CFL.

Letter from Council to Ohio Board of Regents

At our meeting last week, the Village Council unanimously voted to send this letter, which I drafted, to the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents and other state, local, and regional officials:


To the Honorable Eric Fingerhut, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents:

We, the Village Council of Yellow Springs, in one of our first Resolutions of the new year, Resolution 2008-04, have expressed our support for the combined efforts of Antioch University and the Antioch College Continuation Corporation to come to an agreement that will keep Antioch College operating. Specifically, we expressed our support for Antioch College Continuation Corporation’s efforts to seek clarification on the issue of maintaining the Certificate of Authorization with the Ohio Board of Regents, as long as the standards outlined in Administrative Code 3333 continue to be met in the future.

We have therefore directed our Village Manager, Eric Swansen, to write a letter to you and to state and local officials expressing our concerns about this important decision, particularly focusing on the likely economic impact of even a temporary closure of the college on our village.

With this letter, we not only underscore Eric’s careful analysis of the gravity of this decision for our village’s economic sustainability, but also wish to emphasize the importance of Antioch College as the key institution in our village’s 155-year history, and its importance our current social, cultural, and artistic liveliness, which is key to our village’s attractiveness to so many people.

As Eric notes, Antioch College has been, historically, the powerful engine behind many industries that have made their home in Yellow Springs and the region during the twentieth century. YSI, the Antioch Company, Morris Bean & Company, Anthrotech, and others, all got their start at Antioch and today remain vital employers in our village. They have, with Antioch College and University, continued to help draw in a highly educated, democratically engaged, and artistic demographic that uniquely characterizes Yellow Springs as a village in Southwest Ohio.

Perhaps less tangibly, the ideals and philosophy of Arthur Morgan, who revitalized the College in the first half of the 20th century, have helped create a community that sustains successful non-profit ventures that comport with his vision of the small community, rich with green spaces and human-scale endeavors, as vital to democratic life and a sustainable civilization—including, most directly, groups as Community Service, Inc., the Glen Helen Ecology Institute, but also many others that provide valuable educational and other services to the region, attracting significant numbers of visitors to conferences, camps, and other events.

Antioch College is vital to our current identity as an arts community, which is both a source of economic revenue for our village, and, we believe, vital to the broader human need to craft creative responses to the problems we face in our world. Not only do many resident artists in town—not to mention many internationally-known artists, actors, and musicians—have Antioch ties, but many key events vital to our town’s cultural life are held on the campus.

The annual African American Cross-Cultural Works Blues Fest is held in the Amphitheatre on campus each September, attracting business vendors throughout the region to the festival area and emphasizing to the thousands who attend for the wonderful food and music the value of diversity in our world. The Yellow Springs Kids’ Playhouse—which provides children from the entire region with the opportunity to learn vital skills and perform and produce original theatrical works, at almost no cost to themselves or their families—uses Antioch College theatre facilities for all its efforts. These are just two annual arts events of many others held in Antioch facilities during the year. They not only draw in vital revenue and attract regional tourists, but help build and sustain community life.

Moreover, campus facilities are a part of our daily life as a community: many residents use the swimming pool and physical education facilities as part of their daily exercise regime. Many families regularly walk in the Glen. Students and residents alike use the Antioch College library. Most recently, in collaboration with Antioch Alumna Coretta Scott King and the Martin Luther King, Jr., family, the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom was established on the campus with a key goal of helping both Antioch and Yellow Springs imagine and work towards socially-just local, national and global communities. The center brings artists and speakers to the area, and many local groups now use their facilities to try to carry forth the King family vision in Southwest Ohio.

We are therefore gravely concerned not only about the practical problems that may come with prospect of a vacated campus in the heart of our village for at least several years into the future, but also about the loss of this historical grounding for our cultural and artistic life, and our very identity as a village. We urge you to carefully consider the importance of the continued existence of both Antioch University and Antioch College to our village life as you evaluate their request for continued accreditation.


Sincerely,

The Yellow Springs Village Council

Candidates' Forum This Thursday Evening, 7 pm, Mills Lawn

Each of the candidates for local offices--school board and village council--will be giving a short statement and then we'll all be open for questions from villagers at the Candidates' Forum (sponsored by the Men's Group) this Thursday, October 25th, 7 pm, Mills Lawn School. (Unfortunately, right now this runs at exactly the same time as the Antioch College Celebration Dinner, which I am very sad to miss. I will try to stop by afterwards if it is not too late!)

Here are my answers to the questions asked by the Men's Group, which will be published in their program:

1. Why have you decided to be a candidate for the office you seek? Yellow Springs is a living community. I love its feistiness and messiness, its quirkiness. I am running for Village Council for the same reason I have invested in a key downtown business site: I believe our village offers an attractive alternative to the homogenized, strip-mall world around us. The world needs our individual skills, our beautiful setting, our historical institutions, our vision.

2. What relevant experience do you have to fulfill the duties of this office? I grew up on a farm outside a tiny town in Iowa; with only 35 people in my public high school class, everyone had to be active in just about everything! As a professor of English and Director of the Women’s Studies program at Wittenberg University, I’ve brought that small-town, 4-H sense of responsibility to my leadership in University and departmental governance—while remaining a dedicated mom, teacher, scholar, writer. I recently edited and contributed key essays to a well-received reference book on the history of public policies for adoption and foster care. Over the years, I’ve sung in the Community Chorus and contributed to a variety of community groups in the village. This summer I was a leader in the ad-hoc group of residents seeking to keep Antioch College alive.

3. How will you balance the needs of your constituency with those of the entire community? Village Council seats are “at large”; each member’s constituency is the entire community. Council members must actively welcome the democratic participation of all citizens, regardless of politics.

4. What is your vision for the community you will serve if elected? What are the most important issues facing the community, how are they related to the office you seek, and how do you propose to address them? I envision a lively, diverse, arts-oriented, bike-friendly, walkable college town, embraced by a protected greenbelt. A place that is attractive to visit and affordable for a diverse array of residents. Challenges? The uncertain future of our largest employer, Antioch College; a lack of affordable housing for young families and persons on fixed incomes; and concerns about energy/environment. There’s no “silver bullet” for these problems. Democratic processes allow us to tap our collective wisdom and draw out the specialized skills of our residents for creative problem-solving. Council must facilitate this process; it’s our best hope.

5. In the face of declining population, declining jobs, declining revenues and increasing costs, how would you either reverse these trends and/or strike a balance between the ‘human’ and the ‘physical’ (infrastructure) services that bind us together? At our 10/1 Council meeting, Dan Young asserted that, realistically, 80% of economic development must come from local resources. To increase jobs / revenues we must build from what we have: I’d start with 1) our arts community and 2) the potential of a revitalized Antioch College. I’d look at Berea College’s development of sustainable entrepreneuriship in cooperation with the community. We have the resources and can do more to attract / develop smart, ecofriendly, local production within our village.