Cleve Ricksecker

Tim Fulton 0:13Ladies 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, on the occasion of his recent retirement, I spoke with former executive director of the two downtown special improvement districts, Cleve Ricksecker. We talked about what a special improvement district is, the state of downtown, why he's retiring, and why Columbus needs a screamer. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. This episode of the Confluence Cast is sponsored by Gateway Film Center, a nonprofit cinema committed to storytellers and amplifying the impact of their work in our community. A story told by an authentic voice can inspire new ideas and has the power to entertain, push boundaries, spark new levels of empathy, and advance social change. To learn more about their programs and plan your next visit, please visit gatewayfilmcenter.org. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Cleve Ricksecker, most recently the executive director of the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District and the Discovery Special Improvement District. Cleve, how are you?

Cleve Ricksecker 1:50Doing great.

Tim Fulton 1:51Good. We're talking here, you're immediately past executive director because you just recently retired, and we're talking on the occasion of that retirement. So first of all, congratulations, and how has retirement been?

Cleve Ricksecker 2:05Well, I, I planned my retirement for a year and a half before June 1st of, uh, 2020.

Tim Fulton 2:10Uh-huh.

Cleve Ricksecker 2:11And so the first thing that happened, of course, was COVID-19, and then my last day at work was the day after the first night of protests over George Floyd's death.

Tim Fulton 2:22Oh, my.

Cleve Ricksecker 2:23So I, I walk out of my job with, with two emotions. One was guilt, but the stronger one was relief.

Tim Fulton 2:33Well, and it's totally understandable. And it's good to... I was actually a little curious, like, did... Was everything that's sort of happening in the world at all an impetus? But you're saying no, it was indeed, you had been planning this for a year and a half.

Cleve Ricksecker 2:45Yeah. Yeah. It was a long process, and it was purely coincidental that, uh, I left when I did. Although quite honestly, it's been so painful seeing what's happened, um, to downtown-

Tim Fulton 2:56Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 2:56... since I left that I'm, I am, uh... It would have been emotionally very difficult for me to, to see 21 years of work, um, you know, threatened.

Tim Fulton 3:06No, absolutely. And for those that don't know, let's sort of talk through at a high level. We, you and I did an interview a couple of years back and there's an episode talking about, uh, both s- both districts, but just at a high level, what is a special improvement district? How's it funded and structured? Just, you know, what's the elevator pitch?

Cleve Ricksecker 3:26Yeah. So the, the special improvement dist- districts were created in 1994, and the state legislature wanted to put downtown areas that had fractured ownership on a more competitive footing with a place like Easton that has one owner, and that one owner can require all their tenants to pay for marketing, security, um, cleaning, landscaping. But when you have fractured ownership, y- y- downtown areas have not been able to provide that sort of centralized management. And so under Ohio law, if owners representing most of the property sign a petition for the city to levy an assessment, then all the property owners have to pay into a fund, and the organization functions like an Easton.

Tim Fulton 4:11Mm-hmm. I think the interesting thing to note there is that it is based on sort of a willful participation of the property owners.

Cleve Ricksecker 4:19It is. And, and when they sign a petition, the petition actually specifies what types of services the owners want, which is what's so remarkable about downtown CPASS, in the downtown s- owners representing 60% of, uh, more than 60% of the property, for the first time in the history of North America, and I think second time in the history of any country, um, just asked council to levy an assessment to pay for transit services. I mean, that was a remarkable thing.

Tim Fulton 4:48Mm.

Cleve Ricksecker 4:48And so the, the downtown property owners, um, are interesting because downtown is not the easiest place to make money. And so the people that own and manage property in downtown tend to be more into aesthetics and more into, uh, the value of urban space, and more dedicated than, than somebody who manages a Walmart shopping center.

Tim Fulton 5:09Mm-hmm. Well, and that was a big part of what at least the, the Capital Crossroads District did, right? Was a lot of sort of basic litter pickup, uh, maintaining planters in the area, a large amount of sort of safety which gets perceived a lot of interacting with folks who may be interacting with people in a way that they don't want.

Cleve Ricksecker 5:34Right.

Tim Fulton 5:34And that was sort of, correct me if I'm wrong, that was the initial goal of the Special Improvement District, was basically make this a more pleasant place to be.

Cleve Ricksecker 5:43Yes. And that's the, uh, their typical services for these organizations: cleaning, landscaping, um, safety patrols. We had specialty police officers early on. We were one of the earlier downtowns to actually employ two, um, social workers to reach out-

Tim Fulton 6:00Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 6:00... to homeless people and people on the streets. Um, and so, uh, it was, um, uh, it's always done in response to a need. And so the... I always said the, the SID was the lint trap for issues in downtown. When, when there wasn't an obvious solution, it would end up on our desk, our desks. Um, and, and more often than not, the, the Special Improvement District would, would respond by doing whatever it was the owners wanted the SID to do.

Tim Fulton 6:24What sort of annual budget was the, the SID functioning under?

Cleve Ricksecker 6:27Uh, let's see. When I left, the two SIDs were, um, functioning at somewhere, uh, between four and four and a half million dollars a year.

Tim Fulton 6:36Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 6:36Um, but, uh, that was about to go up because both Special Improvement Districts were reauthorized, um, beyond, uh, 2020, and the, the amount of, uh, assessment was gonna go up for both.

Tim Fulton 6:49Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 6:50So-

Tim Fulton 6:50And so that assess- that assessment is voluntary as well. It's determined-

Cleve Ricksecker 6:54No, it's, it's... What's great about Special Improvement Districts is the assessment is mandatory.

Tim Fulton 6:58Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 6:59And, uh, you know, Special Improvement Districts could in theory, if somebody didn't pay their assessment, foreclose on the property at a sheriff's auction. But what most, what all but one of the Special Improvement Districts in Ohio do is they ask the county auditor to place the assessment on the property tax bills.

Tim Fulton 7:15Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 7:15And the county treasurer won't accept tax payments unless the special assess- assessments are included. And what's so great about that then is that, you know, if somebody wants to pick a fight with the SID, you have to pick a fight through the county treasurer.

Tim Fulton 7:28There you go. A- and I'm sorry, what, uh, what I meant was sort of the amount of the assessment. While it may not... If they didn't sign off on the reaffirming of the district, that's not necessarily it, but the amount that everybo- that those that do sign on to it, they all sort of agree, "Yeah, we're gonna pay roughly this much," and it's based on the value of the property.

Cleve Ricksecker 7:50Yeah, and the trick to running a Special Improvement District if you're a staff person is to make the rounds and talk with the property owners first of all.

Tim Fulton 7:57Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 7:57Figure out what it is they wanna do, and then figure out how much they're, they wanna spend. And so, uh, we've never done a petition drive at either Capital Crossroads or Discovery without knowing in advance, A, uh, what the owners wanted, and B, uh, we knew we'd be successful if we did a petition drive-

Tim Fulton 8:15Gotcha

Cleve Ricksecker 8:15... having talked to the owners first.

Tim Fulton 8:17Right. And so nobody's getting basically surprised. Like, they know whether-

Cleve Ricksecker 8:21Right

Tim Fulton 8:21... they're gonna buy in ahead of time.

Cleve Ricksecker 8:23Yeah, yeah.

Tim Fulton 8:23And is Ohio unique at all in this, in this structure, or is this pretty, is this replicated across a lot of different states?

Cleve Ricksecker 8:31Um, each state varies a little bit. Um, I think Ohio's, um, Special Improvement District, uh, statute is, is a good one. Um, it really, um, w- it was, uh, written by the Building Owners and Managers Association, BOMA. And so it's really set up to protect property owners to make the, um, the work of the SID, uh, predictable, um, s- avoid surprises-

Tim Fulton 8:56Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 8:56... and avoid changes. And so it's, um, it's a cookbook that is, you know, fairly easy to follow, and it's one, uh, that people have some faith in on, uh, uh, as, as a property owner.

Tim Fulton 9:07Gotcha. Talk sort of about your background. How did you get to... 'Cause were you the initial-

Cleve Ricksecker 9:14Mm

Tim Fulton 9:14... executive director of, of the Discovery District?

Cleve Ricksecker 9:17Yeah.

Tim Fulton 9:17Excuse me, of the Capital Crossroads District?

Cleve Ricksecker 9:20I was, um, uh, head of the Short North Businesses As- Association back in the 1990s.

Tim Fulton 9:25Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 9:25And every year, I would put my knee pads on and I'd go out and get down on my hands and knees or get down on my knees and beg merchants for their two cents a square foot, uh, voluntary membership fees.

Tim Fulton 9:37Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 9:37And if I did 20 things right and one thing wrong, uh, oftentimes the merchants would say, "Forget about it. I'm not gonna pay my dues this year." And, and so I spent, you know, 80% of my time hustling money-

Tim Fulton 9:50Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 9:50... and 20% of my time delivering services. Well, 19, uh, '94 is when the state passed this, uh, statute allowing for Special Improvement Districts. Um, the first in the state was Dayton, downtown Dayton, and so I talked with the guy there. Um, I then, um, had to clandestinely talk to property owners because people at the Short North didn't, didn't want... It was mainly a merchant organization. They didn't want the owners really to organize. They wanted it to remain a-

Tim Fulton 10:15I see

Cleve Ricksecker 10:16... merchant-driven organization.

Tim Fulton 10:18Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 10:18And so I was for- forbidden to work on this, and so I had to sort of sneak around, um, and talk with owners on the side. And what really drove, uh, the Special Improvement District was the idea of the, of the arches and-

Tim Fulton 10:30Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 10:30... along High Street. Um, Jack Lux, uh, uh, I had talked with Jack Lux, so who was a developer, owns Continental Real Estate.

Tim Fulton 10:37Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 10:38Uh, and I talked to Jack about, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have an arch at each, at each end of the Short North?" And Jack said, "Forget that. Do an arch every 300 feet."

Tim Fulton 10:48Right.

Cleve Ricksecker 10:48And so I thought, "Okay, why not?" And so we talked to the owners and they were really kinda jazzed about that. Um, so it included, uh, money for the arches, uh, with a match from the city, and then some money also for some basic cleaning and safety services as well. And so I, I didn't follow all that all the way through. I, I went to Riverfront Commons Corporation, um, before I finished that work, but I got the first petition done. Um-

Tim Fulton 11:11Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 11:11... and then I really liked the idea of that. Um, and so eventually, uh, John Rosenberger at Capital South asked if I would do the same thing in downtown. This was back in 1999.

Tim Fulton 11:21Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 11:21And it was a dream job. It was a dream job. I love downtowns. I love cities. And so, and you know, I'm, I'm kinda pissed off over the years about what's happened to American cities and American towns since I grew up in the 1950s and '60s-

Tim Fulton 11:34Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 11:34... where things were walkable, and things were locally owned, and there was good public transit, and, you know, you knew the people that had the stores, and they, they supported your local, uh, charities. And so much of that went away that, um, really my work has been driven by, uh, anger, and my choice is, like, blowing up Walmarts or channeling my anger towards something more productive. And so I've decided to chan- to channel my anger, and it's worked.

Tim Fulton 12:00That's, that's good. And so I... So y- you then, by my math, you have three Special Improvement Districts forming under your belt, right?

Cleve Ricksecker 12:10Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 12:11So what are the sort of successes of those, in addition to the arches, and we don't have to get into the, the lighting debacle of them, but what, uh, what do you hang your hat on as the individual successes of those districts?

Cleve Ricksecker 12:26Sure. So, um, the Short North, uh, really the arches were the big, the big thing in the Short North because it really identified what is the Short North.

Tim Fulton 12:34Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 12:34And, um, it was an iconic, um, feature and, and I think it's really fueled investment in that area. I mean, I'm sure it's fueled investment in that area.

Tim Fulton 12:44Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 12:44In Downtown, um, Downtown was a much more difficult place to work than the Short North because there was no sense of, uh, cohesion among the property owners. In fact, there was, they, they didn't know each other, they didn't work together.

Tim Fulton 12:57Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 12:58Um, and, um, the, uh, you know, it was really Downtown was very much, you know, a bunch of old white men in three-piece suits working for banks and insurance companies and, you know, stuffy law firms. And, um, it wasn't really receptive to, uh, new ideas, uh, so much. But what's interesting about a, a special improvement district is that when you talk to owners, they, they typically will come up with a series of things they wanna do that are not political. And, and so-

Tim Fulton 13:31Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 13:32... the, what's so interesting is that the range of owners in Downtown, uh, are Tea Party to, you know, um, leftist.

Tim Fulton 13:41Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 13:42And, and they could all agree on things. That was always amazing to watch, including CPass, Downtown CPass.

Tim Fulton 13:47Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 13:48And so, uh, uh, stripped of political labels, it was so great to, first of all, get the owners in Downtown to work together, to know each other, to come up with common objectives in Downtown, and to then do things that they might not agree to in a ballot box. So for example, um, the idea that they, Downtown hires two social workers-

Tim Fulton 14:14Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 14:15... is kind of amazing when you think about, you know, who owns the, the commercial property owners in Downtown. Um, but as a staff person, we could talk to the owners and say, "You know, the police can only do so much, uh, from an enforcement standpoint. And the police may take a person who is doing something wrong on the sidewalk and arrest them every day. They'll be released the following morning."

Tim Fulton 14:41Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 14:41"And it's just a revolving door. And here's this other way we could try to solve this problem." And so providing practical solutions that on the face of them look like, you know, bleeding heart liberal things. They really aren't, they're just practical solutions. It was so refreshing to see the owners in Downtown because they are enlightened enough and they will listen to ideas. Um, the other prime example, of course, is Downtown CPass.

Tim Fulton 15:06Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 15:06Uh, faced with a shortage of parking, faced with increasing vacancies in commercial offices, uh, turnover of staff at places like hotels-

Tim Fulton 15:14Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 15:14... uh, and knowing that the city was not gonna be building any more parking garages. The owners had a choice of, uh, either letting Downtown go fallow or trying something that'd never been done before. And God bless them, they actually tried something, uh, that had not been done before. It got a lot of support from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. They s- they, they matched the money that the Downtown property owners came up with.

Tim Fulton 15:39Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 15:39And it worked. It absolutely worked. Um, and, and so, um, it's, uh, and it's, it's gonna continue even after COVID now. We just recently, uh, just recently found out that the COTA and the CID have agreed to a plan for 2021.

Tim Fulton 15:53Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 15:53Um, the CID board has agreed to go forward with CPass in 2021. Um, 'cause I was a little worried with COVID, you know, people have not been riding buses. Uh, offices have not been used by people. There's been plenty of parking available. And so I was a little worried that program might go to the wayside, but it's not.

Tim Fulton 16:10Yeah. Well, and does it help a little bit that y- it's not like you're asking two or three stakeholders, um, who it's actually affecting their bottom line, "Hey, w- we would like to do this thing," whether that's the, the hiring the two social workers or the CPass program. It's not a whole lot of additional investment, it's the virtue ... It's basically the virtue of collective action. So in, is it in addition to that and sort of... I guess what I'm getting to is how do you convince folks that this is a worthwhile investment and a worthwhile program to embark on? You guys did a fantastic job of putting together every year the State of Downtown research piece. Is it, is it that? Is it sort of arming them with facts and, and spreading out the liability, for lack of a better term?

Cleve Ricksecker 17:06Yeah. And I, I think you said it very well. It's, it's a matter of giving owners the facts and giving the owners the, what their options are.

Tim Fulton 17:13Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 17:13We've never, we never try to convince owners of anything because you can't. The minute you get into trying to sell something to-

Tim Fulton 17:20Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 17:21... uh, a property owner, it, it, it gets thrown back in your face pretty quickly. And so, you know, our way of, of, of, uh, proposing services would be to s- to lay out what the situation is, lay out what the options are. In the case of Downtown CPass, there, there, there was no option to, to Downtown CPass. Um, so the only, the only issue was do you wanna spend the money to try this out?

Tim Fulton 17:46Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 17:46And, and as part of that process we did a pilot program, also funded by MORPC, that demonstrated a sh- a significant shift from driving a personal vehicle to taking transit. And based on, based on that pilot program the owners were willing to take the leap a- and go that one step further to, to take it to scale for 30,000 people who work in all the CID buildings in, in, uh, Downtown.

Tim Fulton 18:10Mm-hmm. Well, and it's, uh- I'm interested then in the, the other side of the stakeholder argument there of getting people to participate in that program. And is, is that... Did you guys view it as a, a pretty simple marketing campaign, or how, how do you convince folks of the viabili- 'cause I know transit's a big issue for you.

Cleve Ricksecker 18:32Mm.

Tim Fulton 18:32Right?

Cleve Ricksecker 18:33Yeah.

Tim Fulton 18:33Um, in your heart, frankly. Uh, and how do you convince people that this is a valuable thing to do, that you're actually saving money, that, that they should be doing it?

Cleve Ricksecker 18:46Well, the, that's a good question. And, um, the, the program allowed us to do a couple things. One is that we then made contact with, um, about, oh, 450, uh, tenants in downtown.

Tim Fulton 18:59Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 18:59Uh, all the big ones. Um, uh, most of the ones that, that we've not worked with are, you know, one person, two person offices.

Tim Fulton 19:06Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 19:06So we, we, we're able to get, uh, make contact with most of the tenants in downtown representing, uh, the, an overwhelming majority of, of the, uh, employees because all of a sudden they had an, a, uh, benefit they could offer-

Tim Fulton 19:20Mm

Cleve Ricksecker 19:20... their employees, which was free transit. And whereas we, we could never convince HR people to take transit seriously before C-PASS, once C-PASS became available and, and there was a benefit they could offer, then people were interested in, in the whole process. And so we're able then to talk to 450 HR people. They were then motivated because they were hearing complaints from their, from their employees about parking to pass this information along. We made transit sexy through our, the materials that we produced, videos, um, and, uh, and static, um, pages as well. Um, and one by one, people that had never taken transit before began to take transit. And we did, uh, some testimonials. Um, you know, senior executives, people that broke the stereotype, um, of, of people that take transit because, you know, part of the problem in Columbus is that transit really ties into two negative, um, uh, attitudes: racism and classism. And, you know-

Tim Fulton 20:24Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 20:24... so the, the, the, you know, the notion was that the only people that took transit were poor Black people.

Tim Fulton 20:31Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 20:31Um, and, you know, it's an... I'm not... It's just, it, it is what it is. And, and, and talking about this is so important.

Tim Fulton 20:37Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 20:38Well, what people discovered was, first of all, it's kinda nice to share a space with somebody who's not just like you. And the second thing is that they d- they discovered that there were executives taking the bus.

Tim Fulton 20:48Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 20:48But the next thing that happened that's so wonderful is that this program began to integrate the system, at least during rush hour-

Tim Fulton 20:54Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 20:54... and it became much more of a economically and racially balanced, um, bus system during rush hour because of this. And, and some of the people that really were into it the most were people making the most money. You know, senior vice presidents making $300,000 a year who discovered they'd rather take the bus and do something other than stare at a windshield-

Tim Fulton 21:14Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 21:15... for, you know, 30 or 40 minutes. And the other interesting thing was we didn't see a shift among hourly, uh, workers.

Tim Fulton 21:21Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 21:22Because they were already taking the bus.

Tim Fulton 21:24Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 21:24What they got was a 6%, you know, for somebody making $11 an hour, uh, they got an after-tax raise of 6% because of C-PASS. And so all of a sudden the hotels and the restaurants were using C-PASS as a recruiting tool.

Tim Fulton 21:38Mm.

Cleve Ricksecker 21:38And hotels, we were getting calls from hotels outside of the CID saying, "How can we get in the program?"

Tim Fulton 21:43Mm.

Cleve Ricksecker 21:43"'Cause we wanna offer the same benefit to our employees." And so they benefited, you know, lower wage workers benefited, um, upper income people, uh, saw the benefit of taking transit. Um, and, uh, it, it's kinda sold itself because then it became a talking point in various offices. And, um, uh, individual employees would kinda sell it to other people in the office saying, "Hey, it's a great way to get to work."

Tim Fulton 22:07Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 22:07And so we saw an increase, uh, before the program started about 5% of the workforce within these 30,000 people. So about 1,500 people a day were taking, uh, transit to work. Um, uh, after the, after a year of the program, we increased that to somewhere between 10 and 14%. It's not precise. We couldn't measure precisely the merit of the program.

Tim Fulton 22:28Yeah, but it's close to threefold. Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 22:30It almost, it could be almost a threefold increase. Um, and, uh, it became more... It, it just felt more like, you know, being in New York and less like being in Nashville.

Tim Fulton 22:41I'm curious if there are things that you embarked on through either CID that you just weren't able to accomplish or things that you wish you had been able to, to bring to fruition.

Cleve Ricksecker 22:52Oh, yeah. There's several. One of which-

Tim Fulton 22:53Come on

Cleve Ricksecker 22:54... we did, we did an ice skating rink, uh, two years, uh, one on State, one year at State Street, one year on the, uh, the West Plaza of the, of the State House.

Tim Fulton 23:02Uh-huh.

Cleve Ricksecker 23:02The first year I did a Ferris wheel on State Street, which I thought, you know, who wouldn't take a f- ride a Ferris wheel in December on State Street in front of the Ohio Theater? Well, I had, I had budgeted for 40,000 people to ride it. 4,000 rode it during the period we had it. So that was a total... That was a fiasco.

Tim Fulton 23:19Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 23:20Uh, uh, but then there are other things. You know, we, we responded to a constant barrage of requests that we do, we deal with the lack of retail in downtown.

Tim Fulton 23:30Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 23:30And, um, and so we, we put together a very, very good program with a woman named Casey Brandkamp, who, uh, did a, a retail study on what, what sorts of retail services were in demand in downtown. She very carefully put together, uh, went out and networked with, um, uh, individual proprietors and local chains and built a list of about 250 local, um, retailers who would do well in downtown. You know, a wine store, um, various clothing stores, um, particularly off, you know, uh, the lower priced clothing stores. Um, and at any one point about 10% of those, uh, tenants w- Wanted to move downtown. Where we, where we couldn't make any progress was finding space, believe it or not.

Tim Fulton 24:19Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 24:20And, and, uh, there just isn't a good, uh, cluster of affordable retail space in downtown like there was in the Short North back in the '80s and '90s.

Tim Fulton 24:29Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 24:29Where you could start a business. Um, the developers there were very good about, about clustering the space they had, white boxing the space so it was ready to move in.

Tim Fulton 24:39Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 24:39And then, and then trying to, you know, get a, a variety of tenants. Well, we didn't have that in downtown. We didn't have property owners who were willing to, um, you know, cluster space together, who were willing to white box space. Mark Wood of the Wood Companies claims that Wood Companies in the Short North has never leased a, a retail space that wasn't prepared and white boxed in advance. Well, nobody does that in downtown.

Tim Fulton 25:01Hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 25:01And so downtown's a very hostile place to open a retail business if, if... unless you're a creditworthy business like the D- the, the, uh, Dollar General DSX, uh, grocery store on South High Street.

Tim Fulton 25:13Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 25:13And they're creditworthy. They, they could build out their space. They have the ability to build their space out. But in terms of encouraging independent retail, which is really the big potential supply of downtown, because chains don't wanna be downtown, it's a very immature-

Tim Fulton 25:26Right

Cleve Ricksecker 25:26... market. Um, they need, they need more help than downtown's willing to give. And so we finally had to give that up because we weren't able to give any, get any traction on that. And that was, that was frustrating because it's still, it's still something that people, um, say they, they wanna see in downtown a- and for good reason.

Tim Fulton 25:42Right. But is it a chicken and egg sort of situation of it's an immature market, there's not a whole lot of foot traffic, and there's not a- a- a, an appropriate amount, as you said, a, basically a cluster of real estate that basically supports each other with folks passing by like the Short North, and the property owners basically not taking a chance on the initial investment of white boxing the space and getting folks in there?

Cleve Ricksecker 26:11Well, yes. Y- y- you're right about that. Um, but I think until one or more property owners in downtown actually makes a c- a concerted effort to help build a consumer market in downtown, uh, it's not gonna happen.

Tim Fulton 26:26Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 26:26Um, and then that's what happened in the Short North is that Sandy Wood and Stalios Giannopoulos and Peter Everedopolis, they, they c- they consciously put together a blend of retail, uh, operations, supported the Gallery Hop, supported other efforts that, that created consumer traffic in the Short North. And now, of course, they've got chains, national chains there. Um, it doesn't exist in downtown. And, and the part of the problem is that, um, there, there isn't... it's a hostile environment for, for retail, but part of the problem, too, is that the, one of the big portions of the retail market is, uh, downtown residential.

Tim Fulton 27:00Uh-huh.

Cleve Ricksecker 27:00Well, everyone, you know... The problem in downtown is that everyone wants to own a car and warehouse a car in downtown. They pay, whatever, $100 a month to park their cars. Well, if you have a car downtown, you're not gonna walk to a neighborhood, uh, grocery store and pay-

Tim Fulton 27:17Even two blocks, yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 27:18... even two blocks and pay more. You're gonna get in your car and drive to a big box store. And so part of the problem is the lifestyle in downtown is such that it, it, it can't support downtown retail. Uh, and so it's, there are lots of things that are happening here. The other is that the price of space is very expensive-

Tim Fulton 27:36Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 27:36... and owners aren't willing to, to, um, price their retail space in such a way that, you know, an independent retailer can afford to locate there.

Tim Fulton 27:46Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 27:46Um, you know, I, I must say a lot of the, a lot of the problem rests with the, with the, the property owners themselves-

Tim Fulton 27:53Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 27:53... and the lack of any sort of leadership to get this started.

Tim Fulton 27:57Got it. Talk about sort of the difference between... First of all, the Discovery District is essentially east and just south of downtown, correct?

Cleve Ricksecker 28:09It's east of 5th Street. So it's the eastern third of downtown.

Tim Fulton 28:13Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 28:13It goes from Columbus State on the north, and I-670 on the north down to, uh, I-70 on the south, and it's bordered generally by I-71 on the east.

Tim Fulton 28:24Got it. And so what is... How do you define that district as b- What, what are the cardinal differences between the two?

Cleve Ricksecker 28:34Um, greatly, uh, different, uh, sets of property owners and different, um, set of, um, uh, values, uh, on the east side of downtown.

Tim Fulton 28:42Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 28:43The Discovery District really considers itself to be a neighborhood. It, it really doesn't consider itself to be downtown so much as, as a, as a neighborhood.

Tim Fulton 28:53Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 28:53And so it's a much more cohesive group of property owners than the Core, than Capital Crossroads. Um, much more congenial in many ways. And, and they have, um, they have, uh, not as... The, the property values aren't as high, and so there, there wasn't the money generated, uh, that there was in, in the core of downtown, which has, you know, really high property values.

Tim Fulton 29:15Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 29:16And so they really focused on, um, safety issues, um, uh, uh, outreach being a big part of that. Uh, specialty police officers were very, very important, in part because there are a lot of social services. Um, and, and this, this is not pointing fingers, but, you know, Faith Mission is there, the Community Kitchen is in that neighborhood.

Tim Fulton 29:36Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 29:36And, and the library is there. The library, um, draws a lot of people who are, have, um, social needs in-

Tim Fulton 29:43Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 29:43... the library. And so there's a concentration of things that, that c- that either cause some disorder or perceptions of disorder.

Tim Fulton 29:50Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 29:51And so from their standpoint, uh, the Discovery District just wanted to, um, you know, keep, keep order, ma- maintain order, um, knowing that there wasn't a serious crime issue, and there isn't and never was a serious crime issue in downtown generally.

Tim Fulton 30:06Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 30:07But for them, uh, the, the focus was really, um, safety and the appearance of safety, um, with, with some other things as well.

Tim Fulton 30:14Gotcha. A- any special initiatives in that area or what they, tasks they wanted to accomplish?

Cleve Ricksecker 30:21The one, the one, um, task that was not accomplished there, which is a, was a disappointment, um, from the beginning, uh, people in the Discovery District really wanted to do something to create a stronger neighborhood identity and give the neighborhood-

Tim Fulton 30:34Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 30:34... more of a curb appeal. And, and really the thing that they, they looked at that they thought was, was in- instructive was, were the arches in the Short North. You know, here is a-

Tim Fulton 30:43Hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 30:43... physical thing in the Short North that created an identity, defined the neighborhood, and fueled investment. And so the idea there was that, uh, if we could find something for that neighborhood that would help define the neighborhood, give it an identity, and fuel investment, that that could have a very profound, uh, impact. And it could.

Tim Fulton 31:02Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 31:03Um, but we, you know, our, the timing was bad, um, because by the time the, the, uh, Discovery Distr- District came up with the plan, which was called the Discovery Trail-

Tim Fulton 31:12Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 31:12... which would have been, uh, a trail designed by, uh, not only arc- uh, landscape architects, but artists, that would've, that would've really encouraged, uh, people to walk from one, uh, attraction to another attraction and would've helped create some synergy in that neighborhood.

Tim Fulton 31:30Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 31:30And the neighborhood lacks synergy at this point. Uh, the Discovery District has a lot of insular destinations, um, that draw people to them by car.

Tim Fulton 31:40Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 31:40They park, they go to that one thing, and they get i- in their car and they leave. And so there's no real synergy. There's no, there's no walking from one place to another. So the whole idea was to get people to walk from one, from one attraction to another attraction. The timing was bad. Um, the city had made a lot of capital commitments by the time the owners had c- come up with a plan and matching dollars.

Tim Fulton 32:01Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 32:01And unlike the Short North where the city agreed to match the investment that the owners were, were proposing in the Short North-

Tim Fulton 32:08Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 32:08... and in downtown for many of the, um, of the capital improvements that Capital Crossroads did, um, the city was willing to match the, the owners. Um, the, the city had really made so many commitments with the soccer stadium, the parking garage in the, on the side of Peninsula-

Tim Fulton 32:24Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 32:24... and other things that there was, there really was no money left over. And so that-

Tim Fulton 32:28Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 32:28... that died. That, that initiative died.

Tim Fulton 32:31Okay. As we spoke about at the beginning of this conversation, you retired at a time of a whole lot of at least temporary change with the pandemic happening and, as you said, I think the day before ... Excuse me. Yeah, the day before your last day, uh, was the first day of protests downtown after the killing of George Floyd. And there's a big, I think, perception of lack of safety because of both of those things.

Cleve Ricksecker 33:00Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 33:01If you had a crystal ball, because I'm sure you're thinking about it and have thought about it, first of all, those two things individually and what, what's that confluence going to do? Or what needs to-

Cleve Ricksecker 33:15Yeah, that's a good question

Tim Fulton 33:15... what, what needs to happen?

Cleve Ricksecker 33:18Yeah. There, there are, there are really three things happening that give the impression that downtown's no longer safe. One is, um, uh, of course there are more vacancies, first floor vacancies.

Tim Fulton 33:27Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 33:27And when you have, when you have vacant storefronts, that feels less welcoming and less safe than if you have a occupied storefront.

Tim Fulton 33:36Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 33:36The second, uh, is that there are fewer people in the streets because so many of the offices still have, uh, very few employees if any employees working downtown. So you have fewer people on the streets, and then you have, um, some of the remnants ... Uh, actually, there are four things. The city has not enforced misdemeanor laws, um, because of COVID-19. And so somebody who, you know, um, uh, is publicly inebriated and, you know, lies down on the sidewalk and blocks pedestrian acc- access-

Tim Fulton 34:05Hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 34:06... uh, prior to COVID might have been taken off the sidewalk and down to a municipal court and, and, you know, spent a night in jail or, or whatever might have, might have happened. Well, that's not happening anymore. So misdemeanors are going un- um, unaddressed in downtown. Um, and then there's sort of the remnants of the George Floyd, um, uh, protests.

Tim Fulton 34:28Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 34:28People kinda camped out in, in places near Broad and High. Um, all of that, you add all of that up, it's still very safe downtown. It just doesn't look real orderly and safe if you're not-

Tim Fulton 34:41Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 34:41... used to an urban environment. Um, and, and I, I don't think anyone knows g- what's gonna happen, uh, when COVID-19 finally goes away. Um, and I don't think anyone can predict what's gonna happen. I know that when, you know, New York after 9/11, uh-

Tim Fulton 34:59Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 34:59... Lower Manhattan came back stronger than ever before. Um, and I, I hope that the same can be said for downtown, 'cause everything in downtown ... Downtown was operating on all cylinders before COVID-19 hit.

Tim Fulton 35:11Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 35:12You know, we had gone from a place that had a lot of stodgy, older, large businesses, which it still has, but we had, we had seen a lot of new startups in downtown, creative businesses, tech businesses that occupied not the newest buildings necessarily that had the tax abatements-

Tim Fulton 35:30Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 35:30... but some of the older properties. Like the Chase Tower, uh, drew Bold Penguin, which is a startup, a tech company-

Tim Fulton 35:36Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 35:36... which started off with a few employees, has now ex- expanded into two floors of the building. Uh, and when COVID's over, those two floors will probably be able to accommodate 150 to 180 people.

Tim Fulton 35:49Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 35:49Um, so we had new businesses, startups, uh, coming into downtown, recycling of some of the older office buildings. Um, uh, and we, with, with CPass, we'd, we'd seen some, um, more, we'd seen more transit use and less dependency on cars. And, and we had several residential buildings that bought into CPass, not just the commercial, um, retail and office buildings. And so we had residents who would take the bus to see the movies at, uh, Gateway, for example. And-

Tim Fulton 36:16Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 36:16... so we're sort of, we're, we had begun to wean people off their cars in downtown. That was really a great thing. Um, uh, a- and biking and walking as well. Um, and, and, and so... A- and then we had Practical Retail opening up, the, um, uh, the Dollar General, um, store, uh, s- uh, uh, at the corner of Rich and, and, uh, High Street, uh, opened up along with s- CVS and some other places. So i- it made it more e- easy to, to navigate downtown and be car-less. I mean, all the things were, were pointing in the right direction, and COVID then of course has decimated all that. So the reason to live downtown, which is access to bars, and restaurants, and theaters, doesn't exist because you can't really enjoy theater, and bars, and, and restaurants-

Tim Fulton 37:03Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 37:03... now. Um, people are afraid to ride the bus. Uh, I don't think it's any more dangerous than being in a, you know, in a store with somebody, but I get that.

Tim Fulton 37:12Right.

Cleve Ricksecker 37:12I understand why. Um, and then, you know, then there are, the employees aren't downtown anymore, and now we keep hearing things like, "Oh, maybe people will work remotely after COVID is, is over." Um, and so there's, there are a lot of, um, question marks right now, but I think people like to, to rub shoulders with, with other people-

Tim Fulton 37:32Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 37:32... whether it's on a bus or in an office. And, and I know plenty of people, including my wife, are losing their minds working at home.

Tim Fulton 37:39Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 37:39And so, you know, who knows? Maybe m- maybe downtown will roar back stronger than ever once this is over. I hope so. I certainly hope so.

Tim Fulton 37:46Yeah, absolutely. So what are your plans for retirement? You've... You know, you're a fairly young guy and have some, you know, have some-

Cleve Ricksecker 37:56And there's a-

Tim Fulton 37:56... work in you, I imagine, given the way you're talking.

Cleve Ricksecker 37:58Yeah, I do. I haven't, I haven't figured it out yet, but here's, here's what I-

Tim Fulton 38:01Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 38:01... did, what I did. My father was an, was an attorney, and he worked until he was 80 years old, and his law firm kicked him out 'cause he started to-

Tim Fulton 38:08Okay

Cleve Ricksecker 38:08... get dementia, and then he had no idea what to do with himself. He was too old to sort of make, make a transition. So I, I looked at that as a ne- as a negative example. I love my father.

Tim Fulton 38:18Yeah. Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 38:19Um, but I thought, "I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna retire, rewire at a young enough age that I can figure out, uh, something else to do that's meaningful for me."

Tim Fulton 38:28Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 38:28Um, since... But, you know, retiring in- into a pandemic is a little difficult because the, the opportunities to sort of get out there, uh, and do things I was thinking I wanted to do are, are kinda limited right now.

Tim Fulton 38:40Right.

Cleve Ricksecker 38:40But I will say that it's been three and a half months now, uh, of sleeping in- ... and being completely spontaneous, and reading books, and cooking more, and going camping. I kinda like not doing anything, but eventually I'll get bored and, and figure out the next step. I don't know what that's gonna be. You know, Columbus could use a screamer. We've had, we've had our share of screamers, people that just scream about issues and not-

Tim Fulton 39:02Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 39:02... worry about the consequence. Liz Lessner was like that for a while. Uh-

Tim Fulton 39:05Yes, she was.

Cleve Ricksecker 39:07And, and I didn't agree with him, uh, on many things. And, and Liz c- you know, Liz could be a tough person to deal with, but I think every city needs somebody who points out obvious things that everyone else is afraid to point out.

Tim Fulton 39:19Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 39:20Um, uh, you know, for example, what did Smart Columbus do? Can anyone really say what Smart Columbus did with that, what, $90 million or whatever was it got? Or, uh, uh, uh, why do people complain about tax abatements in downtown, in the Short North, when 80% or more of the tax abatements are in places like New Albany, and Obetz, and Dublin, and other suburbs? I mean, it's... The, the... There's so many, uh, issues. W- why are we making... Why are we building more interchanges, um, north of 270-

Tim Fulton 39:58Uh-huh

Cleve Ricksecker 39:58... when we know that leads to sprawl? Why are we allowing Delaware County to, to develop into more sprawl, which will create more expense for, you know, highway maintenance, highway construction, sewers? I mean, uh, there are so many issues that everyone's afraid to talk about in this, in this city. Um, and I'm not sure I have the strength to do it, but-

Tim Fulton 40:20I-

Cleve Ricksecker 40:21... uh, that's one thing that has occurred to me, is that just becoming the person who points out the obvious.

Tim Fulton 40:27I th- I absolutely see value in that, and I think that what's interesting is what's happened with, with some of that, it, it congeals over one specific issue, and then it's owned by a certain group of people, which by extension then is perceived as having some political bent or view. And it's not really addressed as, "Hey, let's critically evaluate this thing." It's-

Cleve Ricksecker 40:54Mm

Tim Fulton 40:54... funny. It goes back to we had such a politically diverse group of property owners downtown, but when you presented them with data and were able to say, "What do you wanna do with this?" And, and let them have agency over it, they kind of did the right thing-

Cleve Ricksecker 41:13Mm

Tim Fulton 41:13... it tended to be.

Cleve Ricksecker 41:15Right.

Tim Fulton 41:15But yeah, it's, uh, I think a lot of it's about perception and sort of how you present it. I will say I, I encourage everyone to listen back to the first episode that you and I did because it was so exciting. A- as a kid who grew up on, you know, just south of Clintonville, who rode the city bus every day, and you, without any prompting in that interview, said, "Well, I'll tell you why people don't ride the bus, 'cause it's the Black bus." And what you meant there is there's a perception that it's not-

Cleve Ricksecker 41:45Right

Tim Fulton 41:46... for a c- certain people. It's not for white people. It's not for middle-class people.

Cleve Ricksecker 41:50Right.

Tim Fulton 41:50It's for poor Black folks.

Cleve Ricksecker 41:52Right.

Tim Fulton 41:53And I think it's important to speak... It's not even truth to power. It's just truth.

Cleve Ricksecker 41:58Right.

Tim Fulton 41:58You know? And we've, we've had folks like th- we, we've had some, uh, truth-tellers that actually w- weren't right. You know, we've had our Bill Moss.

Cleve Ricksecker 42:10Right.

Tim Fulton 42:10Uh, and we've had, uh, other folks that sometimes are speaking the truth and sometimes they're coming down on the wrong side of things.

Cleve Ricksecker 42:17And, you know, it takes a certain amount of strength to be, to be in that role because-

Tim Fulton 42:21Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 42:21... you're targeted then. People do insane, terrible things about you, and, and, you know, you piss people off, and that's not a, an easy thing to do or a comfortable thing to do.

Tim Fulton 42:31Yeah, absolutely. Well, and you, 'cause you have to own it, right? You have to back it up.

Cleve Ricksecker 42:35Right.

Tim Fulton 42:35And there's some danger there too with-

Cleve Ricksecker 42:37Right

Tim Fulton 42:37... being too, uh, ingrained in your thoughts. I wanna wrap up just by asking, you've been here for roughly 30 years, right?

Cleve Ricksecker 42:46In Columbus?

Tim Fulton 42:47Yeah.

Cleve Ricksecker 42:47Uh, let's see, 1977.

Tim Fulton 42:49Oh, well-

Cleve Ricksecker 42:5043 years.

Tim Fulton 42:51Okay. There you go. Talk about sort of what you think Columbus is doing well, and the obvious follow-up to that is what could Columbus do better?

Cleve Ricksecker 43:00Mm-hmm. Well, Columbus has done, I think, a very good job of densifying.

Tim Fulton 43:06Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 43:06Uh, when you look at, um, the Short North, for example, um, it... When I was first in Columbus, there was no walkable, mixed use, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. German Village was the closest thing to that. It wasn't, it wasn't a nearly a complete neighborhood, um, as charming. Still is, of course.

Tim Fulton 43:26Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 43:26But there's no real, um, neighborhood with, that had a, had a city pulse to it. And, and th- and now we've got the Short North, we've got, uh, Grandview Avenue. Uh, Parsons Avenue is, is humming along. Franklin is humming along. And as people get the idea of, of urban living, and, and I think we'll see development happening much quicker because there are examples of successful urban, um-

Tim Fulton 43:49Hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 43:50... developments have taken place already. Whereas, when the Short North was going through its evolution, there was no example locally that people could hang their hat on and say, "Oh, it's worth, you know, putting lots of money into creating something like this."

Tim Fulton 44:02Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 44:02And so, um, I think the biggest thing, uh, that I've noticed is, um, more choice. There's more choice, uh, now than there was back then. Um, it's easier to live here and be able to walk to services and, and not own a car. Um, and, uh, there, there are so many ways of getting around now that, um, y- you can choose your lifestyle in ways that you couldn't choose your lifestyle back then, and that's the mark of a mature city. Um.

Tim Fulton 44:28Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 44:29Uh, and I think that's probably the, the most, uh, for me, the, the change that has been most meaningful. Uh, I mean, there are so many things about the city. It's, uh, welcoming, just, you know, it's a gay-friendly city. Um, I think racially speaking it, it's a, it's a relatively, um, uh, accepting place. Um, uh, which is not to say that we're not without our own problems here, but-

Tim Fulton 44:53Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 44:53... um, I, I think that socially it's, it's, uh, it's in a good place. Um, and the, the physical environment is much more interesting now than it was back then.

Tim Fulton 45:01Mm-hmm. And what could we do better?

Cleve Ricksecker 45:05Well, ugh. The, um... There's still a big lifestyle. I, I think the, the biggest issue we have to deal with here is lifestyle. People can't have it all. People who wanna have an urban environment then have to live like they are in an urban environment. You can't live in the Short North or downtown and treat it like it's an apartment complex in the suburbs.

Tim Fulton 45:28Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 45:28The people, uh, need to use their imagination and, and think about Columbus like they would think about a city that they travel to on vacation. So if they go to Amsterdam and they love the bicycles and the trams and the, the walking and the trains, they can... We might not have train service, uh, in, in Ohio. Um, but you can still live that lifestyle here. Um.

Tim Fulton 45:54Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 45:55But that, that triggers something. I think the biggest thing that's missing right now in, in Columbus and Ohio is inner city transportation. We've got a good, we have a good local bus system that can get anyone who lives in an urban neighborhood can get around pretty easily by COTA.

Tim Fulton 46:09Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:09Or by, and, and bicycle and, and Uber and all those things. But if you wanna go from here to Cleveland or Cincinnati, guess what your option is? Have you taken Greyhound recently?

Tim Fulton 46:20Not, not in 20 years.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:21Yeah, well- ... I have. Uh, I finally swore off Greyhound about a year ago.

Tim Fulton 46:26Okay.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:26Um, it, it's a miserable experience. You don't know when the bus is gonna leave.

Tim Fulton 46:31Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:32It's a humiliating boarding process. People scream at you at the PA system. The buses are filthy.

Tim Fulton 46:37Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:37They bra- they literally break down between cities. And the ter- and there, there, there aren't many runs, and so your choice of times are very limited. And the only option is to rent a car.

Tim Fulton 46:48Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:48See, I don't own a car myself. My wife does, but I don't own a car.

Tim Fulton 46:50Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 46:51Or fly. And if you fly you have to fly through Detroit or Pittsburgh, pay $400 or $500 dollars and it takes about six hours. So if you wanna go to Cleveland-

Tim Fulton 46:59And you could have driven there in... Right.

Cleve Ricksecker 47:02So if you wanna go to Cleveland or Cincinnati, and many people wanna go to those cities without having to stare at a windshield for two or three hours-

Tim Fulton 47:10Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 47:10... your choice is Greyhound. And so there is no intercity transportation in the state of Ohio. It's, it's, it's more than embarrassing. It will drive smart people out of this state. Because I can tell you-

Tim Fulton 47:22Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 47:22... that I don't know what the percentage is, 5%, 10%, 15%, I don't know what it is, but there are a lot of people who are rich enough to own cars who don't want to drive if they're-

Tim Fulton 47:34Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 47:34... going to visit friends in Cleveland, go to see a game, or go on business. They wanna be able to read, work-

Tim Fulton 47:40Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 47:41... or nap. And-

Tim Fulton 47:42Yep

Cleve Ricksecker 47:42... and, and until the state figures that out, um, it's, it's a laughing stock. The last time I took Greyhound from Cleveland to s- to Columbus I went to the terminal in Cleveland on time.

Tim Fulton 47:53Mm-hmm.

Cleve Ricksecker 47:53And we, we queued up to board the bus-

Tim Fulton 47:56Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 47:56... for Columbus, when we're supposed to queue up, and the announcement came over, um, that the bus was late to sit down, and so we all sat down. Well, we queued up two more times, and then two more times that the PA person screamed, "Sit down, the bus is late." That's all the information we got. There was a family from Spain at the terminal playing cards who were, they were traveling around the States. And of course you, if you're from Europe you think any civilized country has a good transit system.

Tim Fulton 48:22Right.

Cleve Ricksecker 48:22So the, the bus finally, we finally boarded three hours late. It broke down three times on the way to Columbus. And I thought- ... what do those people think of Ohio? Are we really-

Tim Fulton 48:32Right

Cleve Ricksecker 48:32... a third-world country? And, and I think-

Tim Fulton 48:34Yeah

Cleve Ricksecker 48:34... we are a third-world country. Our healthcare, our transportation, our, you know, our, our li- uh, uh, projected lifespans. If you start-

Tim Fulton 48:44Mm-hmm

Cleve Ricksecker 48:44... going through the data it, it's an embarrassing, terrible situation, and public transportation is right up there at the top of my list of, of m- major problems in the state. I don't even care if we... I'd love to have train service. Don't get me wrong, it'd be fabulous. I would just like to have reliable, clean buses.

Tim Fulton 49:02Yeah. Uh, one step in the right direction.

Cleve Ricksecker 49:05Right.

Tim Fulton 49:06Yeah. Well, Cleve, listen, thank you so much for your time.

Cleve Ricksecker 49:09You're welcome. This was fun.

Tim Fulton 49:21Thank 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 screamer. 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.