Candidate Shannon Hardin

Tim Fulton 00:17Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, in anticipation of this fall's election, the Confluence Cast is endeavoring to introduce Columbus voters to the 12 council and two mayoral candidates in their own words. In this first interview, Council President Shannon Hardin sat down to discuss the state of council today, what successes and regrets he is reflecting on, and his vision for what's next in Columbus. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theConfluenceCast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin. Shannon, how are you?

Shannon Hardin 01:12I'm good. How are you, sir?

Tim Fulton 01:13Good. I should also note that you are the unopposed Columbus City Council candidate for District 9. Yes. So you and I spoke last year — I will link in the show notes that interview where you get into your background, heavily talked about some of your philosophies about leading, and I think we're going to talk about some of that stuff again today. But I guess what I want to hear about first is your time on council. How long — and I apologize for not knowing — how long have you been seated?

Shannon Hardin 01:42So I've been on council nine years in October. Appointed October 6th, I believe, 2014. And I've been council president now for six years, became council president January of 2018.

Tim Fulton 01:55How's your time been?

Shannon Hardin 01:57Depends on the day. You know, I've been very grateful that the residents of Columbus have entrusted me with the responsibility. And I really do believe it's an awesome responsibility to help lead this community, and lead it in the mundane way of making sure our streets are paved, making sure that folks are picking up trash, making sure that we are working to be the safest city that we can be. But also in the larger way of providing vision and helping us get to where we all know we are going. I think about the different types of leaders. Mayor Coleman was that mayor that got us away from calling ourselves Cowtown, and injected this idea that we should have swagger. And swagger is such an old word now, but it worked for us as a community. It gave us a bit of confidence. And to see current leadership who has gotten us through probably, I hope, the most challenging historical moment of our generation's life, the 2020 — we hope that's not going to reoccur. Very necessary, but also very painful. But we are still here. And so I start to think about the next. Like, where then does Columbus go from here? And what does it need in terms of leadership? And those are the things that get me excited, truly, about my role now, about the work that I do each and every day, and about the city and its future.

Tim Fulton 03:36Talk about successes you're proud of. You know, the other side of this coin is coming. What successes over the past nine years are you proud of?

Shannon Hardin 03:44You know, truthfully, it happened in the last year and a half. So a couple of years ago, one of my former aides, David Tsang, brought to me this idea around doing something that was demonstrably for everybody. We had been on the heels of — well, long ago, we literally dug up a river and created a vibrant riverfront, created all this park space, millions and millions of dollars that we did that. Then, fast forward, and we saved the Crew and built out an arena, millions and millions of dollars, we did that. And folks are excited about these things. But the truth is, that does not granularly touch everybody individually, and especially not the folks who need something out of their government, need to be connected, need to feel like the successes that they are seeing have real impact on their individual lives. And so he brought this idea that we have to do something for everybody. He had seen Promise programs around the country. A Promise program is a simple commitment that if you do X, you get Y — you get to go to college for free. In our situation, we realized that Columbus was under-credentialing, under-graduating a historic amount of folks. We were not keeping up with pace. I think the stat was that we needed 60% of our population credentialed by 2025.

Tim Fulton 05:14And when you say credentialed, are you talking about just a high school diploma, or more than that?

Shannon Hardin 05:19More than that. Some type of specialty degree, apprenticeship, trade — some type of credential that will allow them to go a step further into the job market. We were not hitting the mark by a lot. The pandemic hit, and then we fell even further behind. We started working on this idea of a Columbus Promise program pre-pandemic, and truthfully, when the pandemic hit, we dropped it. Everything became more important, just keeping people fed and a roof over their head. Halfway through the pandemic, the president of Columbus State, who had talked about this idea, called me and said, if you thought we needed a Columbus Promise before the pandemic, you should see what our numbers are doing right now. Folks are not going to school, they're not applying for the FAFSA. And if we thought we had a workforce issue in 2019, in 2022 or '23, when we come out of this, we will be in much worse shape. And so we rallied in 2020 and 2021. Worked with Columbus State, worked with Columbus City Schools, worked with the private sector, and worked with I Know I Can, who really was the secret sauce because they were already in our schools. We created a program — probably about eight months of real work — that invested $5 million from the city of Columbus, raised another five-ish from the private sector, Columbus State put in $1.5 million. And we were able to say that anybody that was graduating from Columbus City Schools would go to Columbus State for free. And they wouldn't just go to Columbus State for free, we would give them a $1,000 stipend so that they could stay in school, because we know that the number one reason that folks fall out of school is not tuition, it's because their car breaks down or they fall behind in rent. And so we got that program off the ground. The first year, there were 700 or so students that participated — a small number. We just sent through the second cohort that will start in August, and we're about 700 again. So to this point, 1,400 young people from Columbus City Schools that live in Columbus have an opportunity, who are taking advantage of free college in the degrees that they want, and they're staying in school. And the thing that knocks me off my feet right now — and it does happen once a week — is either a grandma in Kroger's or a young person will stop me and say, hey, I'm going to the Columbus Promise and I'm going to school for free. And it makes me instantly emotional, because it's real impact, singularly granular, for everybody.

Tim Fulton 08:01Let's flip the coin. Talk about things you're maybe not so proud of, or things that you haven't been able to accomplish yet.

Shannon Hardin 08:08Yeah. I mean, when you've been in office for nine years, for almost a decade, it's crazy.

Tim Fulton 08:12Yeah, you...

Shannon Hardin 08:15You learn. And I've learned one of the things — and it was early on in my career as an elected official, actually I think it was under the former mayor, my mentor. There was a Somali young lady who was going through our police department, our police academy, and she got all the way through, and towards the end, they told her that she would not be able to serve with her hijab on. And when I heard that, I knew instantly that that was wrong. I knew how wrong it was, like sickeningly wrong. And because I was a newer council member, I didn't say anything, and didn't say anything really to anyone about how sickening it made me.

Tim Fulton 09:06You may have discussed it with friends, but you certainly didn't make a policy or a public statement.

Shannon Hardin 09:10The action of it. And it was that that really haunted me for so long. Not the act that we as an institution or as a government would get something wrong, but that me, as the elected individual, felt something for someone who needed people to stand up and speak up, and did not stand up and speak up. That haunted me for a long time. And so I was proud and happy several years later, when — actually it was under this new police chief, so it was much later, last year — where we officially changed policy to allow folks to wear their traditional attire and be an active police officer.

Tim Fulton 10:02Okay. Any other failures you want to...?

Shannon Hardin 10:05Oh, I have several.

Tim Fulton 10:07I've seen the pivot that you've made in terms of speaking out. "A statement from Council President Hardin" is a common email subject line I get. And that is the bully pulpit that you have, right? These are statements you can put out as an individual. These are also statements that you can elicit or solicit from your fellow council members. Pivot a little bit and talk about what change you've seen. Obviously there's a different mayor than when you first came in — it was Coleman and now Ginther. Do you see the dynamics changed a little bit now between everyone in City Hall? How are things different, maybe not necessarily under different administrations, but externally? I've certainly seen the relationship between council and the mayor's office change.

Shannon Hardin 11:08Yeah, I think that we are elected to do a job. So one of the things that I try to protect now as leader of this body is the ability to have different opinions come from different places, but but viscerally, like in our bones, still like and respect and care for one another. It is something that I put over individual policy every day, that need to have some camaraderie, or to be a unit, to care together, to be a Columbus thing that in general believes in the same thing. I would rather have a unified council, big picture, in terms of values — not in beliefs, maybe not in action. Not in action at all — I have more split votes than any council president.

Tim Fulton 12:09Well, some historical context, right? First of all, we're recording this the day after a three-four vote, yes, on some additional monies to go toward the buildout of the North Market. And I think the folks voting in favor may have been interviewed, but the quotes were from the folks who were voting against, right? And so the historical context there is, in the old days things would not be brought up to a vote if they weren't going to get a unanimous vote.

Shannon Hardin 12:47Before I was council president — it was only three years — I took one "no" vote. And we have a "no" vote probably about once a week now, like every council meeting.

Tim Fulton 13:01It literally just wasn't done.

Shannon Hardin 13:02It was purposeful for me. When I became council president, I think that people should see the government in action. I want them to see myself and Lourdes and Remy being friends, but also having deep policy debates on the council floor. I think that that is healthy for our community. I think that the idea of bringing forward only unanimous-support things — and this was, they were doing that back in the day where I think it was even more okay to do — but now there's so much distrust in institutions in general that if that were the case, it doesn't pass the sniff test. And so I don't mind the democratic process. I just don't mind it, it's what we're supposed to do, is to have the debate. And now, I want to win my arguments, and I want to win the votes. And we did.

Tim Fulton 13:01And you did.

Shannon Hardin 13:02But it literally was a margin, it was on the margin. But that's okay, because even the members that voted against it, we still have the same values of making sure that everything that we do goes back to the benefit of the resident, making sure that the big things still impact everybody, all the little folks throughout the community. We all believe that if we invest in something, that people that work there from Columbus should be paid and paid a living wage that can support themselves and their family, so they not only can work there, but they can come in and fraternize there as well. These are general beliefs that this council gets to now. Does every piece of legislation get to the threshold for any individual council member? That's up to the individual council member. But I have leaned in over my time as council president in allowing the process to be seen, so that folks can understand us as individual elected officials, but also so they can understand the values of my collective council, which is about bringing voice to the table. I run basically the gathering spot for Columbus, where we all come together as a community, hash things out, talk about the big stuff, and then figure it out together. That is my job. That is City Council. It's supposed to be messy. It will. It's democracy. We're the legislative branch, we're the place where you can literally come to the microphone and say whatever crazy thing that you want. And they do. But that is their protected, and our protected — that is the space to do it. And so I enjoy it. I think what has changed over my nine years in office is I've had different roles. As a council member, I had a council president, and I was brand new. And so there was leadership given to Mayor Coleman at that point, who really was a mentor at that point, even though I was on council. Then we had a new mayor, and I still had a council president. And I played my role as a council member very focused on the issues that I was working on. I was a public service chair. I love everything to do with mobility and transportation and those issues. So I was very focused on that, and I kind of played that role. When I became council president, then I had a different role. I had to then think not just about myself as an individual elected and the things that I personally cared about, I had to think about a body of seven individually elected officials, and to make sure that our collective goals and our collective visions were met. And then I think, truthfully, 2020 changed me again, where I realized that, especially being the highest ranking African American in city government at the time when we were talking about historic injustice against Black people, I couldn't just be even the second person in voice in leadership. At that moment, I had to be the first, because I was the most visible. And it was a space that not necessarily that I wasn't comfortable in, but I had a new responsibility to be fully...

Tim Fulton 17:26There. And vocal.

Shannon Hardin 17:28And vocal, yeah. I had a responsibility, and I did my best to meet that. And now I think that as we are transitioning, as we continue to deal with the fallout of the pandemic — and what does our economy look like, what does our city look like, what do our downtowns look like, what does education look like, what is the future of our city look like — I still feel a heightened responsibility now. I'm not a brand new council member. I'm not even a brand new council president any longer. I'm actually getting up there in the realm of longer-serving council presidents. And so I also now feel like I have a greater responsibility to speak when I feel like things need to be said. There's no checking in with — well, I do check in with six other people, which are my colleagues, because I also want to make sure that I am speaking in at least broad enough values that encompass all of us.

Tim Fulton 18:28Right. Well, and they are your constituents too. They remain your constituents.

Shannon Hardin 18:32They elect you. They are my direct constituents, right.

Tim Fulton 18:36Let's pivot to the new districting system. You keep saying your six colleagues — you're about to have eight. How do you feel about the structure of the new districting system?

Shannon Hardin 18:49Well, I think that doing the same thing would be easier. Having no change would be much more fun. We know how to run a seven-person caucus. We know how to all be at large, we kind of like being able to live anywhere we want. But we've been doing that for 120 years, man. And rightfully so, folks in our community were asking for change. And this change, it's actually a pretty big change. And it's funny, because a lot of folks were thinking, oh, it doesn't go far enough, it's not X, Y, and Z. But you know, this is an ever-evolving thing, a city, and we have to find the best way that we can, that Columbus can operate itself. And so I think that this is a fair next step in Columbus's evolution. Those folks who are arguing for a ward system, and true ward systems — I am not a believer in ward systems. I will go to the tops of the mountains and the depths of the valleys and say all-ward system, some council, I don't believe in, and I don't think that is healthy for getting the larger things done, for advocating and being able to collectively come together in a unified way and say, this is the direction we need to go into the community. What I do believe in is proximity to people. Because I believe when people ask for, we want wards like they have in Cleveland, I actually think what they want to know is who in the hell represents, who in the hell sees this street that has not been paved for three years, who sees Bob's carryout that had been here for 40 years but because of kids robbing them had to shut down last month. They want to know that somebody downtown has a personal, real, day-to-day connection to their lives.

Tim Fulton 20:45And do you think constituent services will change much? I've had variable answers to this from current sitting council members.

Shannon Hardin 20:53Yeah, I think that it naturally changes. I used to talk about — and I still do — I don't rely as much on polls as I do on my Kroger caucus, because I am invariably stopped and people tell me how I'm doing, they're asking for things. Well, that actually was a construct of a very specific Kroger's on East Main Street. That was my Kroger's. And those folks are very vocal, and they knew me as an individual, but they also knew what I did downtown. And so they used that opportunity — I go to Kroger every other day, literally, my husband hates it — so they used that opportunity. It was a thing. Well, now I live in District 9. I am far east. It's actually still Main Street Kroger's, but the farthest Kroger's in our city. It's a very different experience, very different conversation, very different people. And so already, what I respond to in terms of my day-to-day life as an individual when I'm in the community is different than it was when I lived on the Near East Side, because the issues are different, the people are different in terms of the specifics of what they are fighting for or need in that moment. And I think that that will happen all around. There are things that are happening on the far northeast side that are very specific to a couple of streets over there, that they will bump into their representative, Chris Wyche, up there. He doesn't have an opponent, so I'm very confident he will be their representative. He will hear things that are specific to that neighborhood that he can and will bring downtown. And I think that's healthy.

Tim Fulton 22:39Just so that we address it. You were living, before, when the districts were drawn, you and two other council members were living in the same district. One of them has decided to go take another job. One of them is currently running in that district. You moved. Did you move for that?

Shannon Hardin 22:56I think that I assessed who had the — I still wanted to serve on city council. That was the first question I had to ask myself. If I answered that question, which was yes, I needed to still serve on council, then how are we going to make this work, and who had the ability to move? My husband and I had just had our child, and truthfully, we loved our house. We loved living on the Near East Side. It felt like we were planning to leave when all the cool things were happening — the Trolley Barn had just opened up, a little bourbon bar down there, it was just amazing. And yet we were new parents, and we were living on Long Street, which was a fast street. And so we were already thinking about what is a better home for an infant.

Tim Fulton 23:46Is it fair to say it informed your mind?

Shannon Hardin 23:50100%. Would I have chosen the farthest east of our city? Maybe not. But we were needing to find a house that was more suitable for a young person.

Tim Fulton 23:58Can you talk me through the process for how those — it was apparent from a social media perspective that a choice had been made about who was going to fill those remaining two seats — sorry, three — who is going, certainly these are the non-incumbent folks running, but that are basically being supported by what I think of, just to myself and frankly here at Columbus Underground, we call them the slate. How were those folks chosen?

Shannon Hardin 24:33So the political side of us as candidates — the folks that were running for election for city council, the council members — we decided as a group that we weren't gonna just leave it up to chance. So much of governing is about having folks with like-minded interests, belief in the big things about who we are as a city and where we should be going, understanding of the housing crisis, what it will take to build more housing, understanding around transportation and transit, understanding about workforce and development, understanding about diversity. And we weren't just gonna let that happen by chance. And so in terms of who we wanted to run with — and that's the big thing that I think is really important. Some folks think, oh, that's really heavy-handed of you guys to pick. But I mean, when a president runs, no one says, oh, can't believe he picked a vice...

Tim Fulton 25:28He picked a vice president without discussing.

Shannon Hardin 25:31I'm like, what are you guys talking about, democracy? What I said is, this is the team that I want to run with. And we worked hard as a council of candidates, and as an official body, to talk to anybody that we knew that was interested. And we started and looked through the Democratic Party — we are Democrats.

Tim Fulton 25:52Do you think it's fair to point — in the past, for the most part, but it still does sometimes happen, that folks would get reelected, then resign, then there would be an appointment process?

Shannon Hardin 26:04You know who stopped that?

Tim Fulton 26:06I literally fell...

Shannon Hardin 26:11Under my leadership. I hate the appointment process.

Tim Fulton 26:14I know. There's a reason why Mitchell Brown is back on council, right? Because he knew he wasn't going to run.

Shannon Hardin 26:20And we, as a caucus, made that decision that we are not going to put somebody in that has just a cakewalk into being. It's not that it's unfair — it really is. I tried to fundamentally change the process. And you look around the country at how people fill vacancies, and you find out they all kind of suck.

Tim Fulton 26:42Yeah. So you didn't want to spend too much money.

Shannon Hardin 26:46No, it didn't make sense. And so, but I don't believe in long-term appointments. If we have to do them in the future, and I'm still here, I will always advocate for what's called placeholders, where you put someone in who's a trusted person who can just govern until there's a next election, less than having somebody run. I think that where democracy is in full effect is when folks have options and choice, and are able to kick the tires and then make a vote. And us picking who we wanted to run with still allows everyone to do all of that, to ask the questions, to compare them with whoever they're running with, and then to vote for that person or not.

Tim Fulton 27:28And just to be clear — and I'm assuming this — do you plan on running for council president again?

Shannon Hardin 27:43Yes.

Tim Fulton 27:43Got it. And that happens after every election, every two years?

Shannon Hardin 27:43Yep.

Tim Fulton 27:43Got it. And you hope to draw the longest lot?

Shannon Hardin 27:43I have, sir. I wish we would have written that in, some seniority.

Tim Fulton 27:47Right. Bankston would have been very happy.

Shannon Hardin 27:50Do you have to explain to them how that will work?

Tim Fulton 27:53Yeah. Just, we discussed in a couple of different episodes, that after you guys are elected, the city clerk — not auditor, the city clerk — will draw lots. That is an incredibly vague term. And I don't think that's even been properly defined. It's not going to be straws in a hand, it's not going to be a random number generator. But a certain amount of you will have a six-year term for the first four; two so half; and it'll be four will have a four-year term, four will have a two-year term. And so those four will be running again in '25. So I want to be fair about your time in respect to the other folks. Talk about one big goal that you have for the next term, and then I'm going to ask you the same question I ask you every time.

Shannon Hardin 28:46Yeah. So my big goal for next term is LinkUS. It's transit. It's transportation. I talk about this often, the big issue of our time for the rest of our professional careers, and what we will watch our children and grandchildren experience, is the growth of our city. We will go from what we are, which is a 1 million person city, 2 million person MSA, to a two-and-a-half million person city, 3 million person MSA, in our lifetime. That will happen. And the reason I think it's so important to focus on this now — I've been talking about this metaphor of a tsunami. We have a tsunami of people that are coming. And my concern is right now we're kind of all on the beach frolicking, doing the thing that folks do, and there's a tsunami, like, oh, the water is actually not even that bad, it's like going out, not realizing that right past our vision point is a wall. And every day that we don't prepare, every day that we don't get on that boat or build that boat that will allow the wave to lift us all, is a day closer to the day when we all get wiped out, when our quality of life changes. And so what does that mean? That means that we have to build a transit system that serves everybody. Now, we talk about this all the time, 80% of our community drives single-occupancy vehicles to and from work. A million people, 100,000 cars. If we're going to add another million people, there's no way that we can add 800,000 more cars to our community doing the same thing the same way, without drastically changing the quality of life. We are growing at a pace where every night, 44 people will come to our community. Every year we are creating 15 or so thousand jobs in our community, but building seven to 8,000 units, which means that on supply and demand, we are accessing ourselves into failure around our housing issue, because we're bringing more people than we are preparing the housing to incorporate. So we have this amazing opportunity next year to invest in our future in LinkUS, which is our community's investment in mass transit. We get to do what no other community has done. I call it the great experiment. Can we do all of these things and do it in a way that really lifts up everybody? Other communities have said, all right, we need to do transit, we'll do one line, we'll do a light rail. And they will go to their voters and ask them for $4 billion to build one line of light rail. Their voters are kind of excited who are getting a light rail. And then they realize it's one line down their business corridor, and all the other folks in different parts of the town are like, what does this mean for me, how does this help me get from home to daycare to work? We don't have the luxury or the time to build one line of light rail. What we are endeavoring on is building five corridors at the same time. Five corridors. It will not be light rail, but it will be something that I can't do — I believe better. It'll be bus rapid transit, something that we've never seen here in Columbus. It will have raised platforms, it will have center loading, it will be reliable as light rail. At 2:32 p.m., if at the Broad Street terminal, it will be there, because it will have a dedicated lane for only that thing to be on. And so, again, we don't have time to build one, we're going to build five at the same time. And that's what we were funding. The cool thing about it is it's not just about the transit, it's about the housing and the density that will come along it. It's about the life and the energy that will happen around those five corridors. We have three of those corridors identified now, but hopefully around the time that this airs, or our election or whatever, we should have the other two — we're working on having another two by the end of the year identified. This will be on the ballot next year, next election, presidential election. We will, as a community, have a chance to vote for our future. And I will be out talking about this any chance I get.

Tim Fulton 32:53Got it. You've answered this before. What do you think Columbus is doing well, and what do you think Columbus is not doing so well? I guess I would encourage you to have the least political answer that you could.

Shannon Hardin 33:05I think Columbus is starting to feel itself in a new way, in a good way. There's a pride that is authentic. I mean, I was at the Crew game last weekend, and it was just like, kind of blown away just by how cool we are. We like ourselves. And that is so important. It's dope.

Tim Fulton 33:28What are we doing not so well?

Shannon Hardin 33:30I still think that we don't know yet how much we're about to change. And so we're not preparing for the change as earnestly, as boldly as we need to. And that is scary to me. It is about to happen to us. If we don't, it's going to happen regardless. We can either shape it or not. And I feel like we still are kind of going along.

Tim Fulton 33:58Shannon, thanks for your time.

Shannon Hardin 34:00It's a pleasure.

Tim Fulton 34:13Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theConfluenceCast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite politician. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theConfluenceCast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.