Upper Arlington

Tim Fulton 00:10Ladies 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, I spoke with Upper Arlington city manager Steve Schoeny. We discussed the role of a city manager, what makes Arlington unique, his time as development director for the city of Columbus, making investments for long-term benefit, addressing diversity in communities, and the new developments coming to UA. 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. The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC's transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit morpc.org. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here virtually with the city manager of Upper Arlington, Steve Schoeny. Steve, how are you, sir?

Steve Schoeny 01:48I'm doing well. How are you?

Tim Fulton 01:49I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. I wanted to, first of all, just get your bio, what your background is, where you came from, and how long you've been with Arlington.

Steve Schoeny 01:59Yeah, sure. So I've been with Arlington for about two years, actually a little over two years now. So I started in September of '19. Before that, I spent six years as the development director for the city of Columbus. So there, I had responsibility for code enforcement, planning, housing, economic development, downtown development. Basically, I used to say—and then we had social service programs too—so basically, if you were doing something to invest in the city in some way, shape, or form, probably the Department of Development had something to do with it. So I spent most of my career before that with the Ohio Department of Development. Started off doing international trade promotion, went from there to running the state's tax incentive programs, and then running the state's business attraction program, did that for about 13 years. In between the two, I spent three years working for Ice Miller, which is a law firm here in town, doing—working in their consulting practice. I'm not a lawyer, but I was doing consulting for businesses that were looking to get incentives, or communities that were looking to improve their economic development programs. So I really kind of came to the city manager role in a pretty roundabout way, a pretty non-traditional way, for folks. But it's been great. It's been a fantastic two years, you know, setting aside this whole COVID thing, which was a little bit weird, but—

Tim Fulton 03:34I mean, most of the time you've been there, that's what you've been looking after.

Steve Schoeny 03:37Yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, as with everybody, the last two and a half years have felt more like five and a half, or 25 and a half, somewhere in that range. But it's been good. We've got a great community, a great team, and all things considered, we have come through, or are coming through, this storm and living—you know, learning to live with this—as well as any community around. So it's been great.

Tim Fulton 04:05Yeah. And for those that don't know, or aren't familiar with it, and have been living under a mayoral structure for most of their lives, can you talk about the role of a city manager, and who you're accountable to, and what it looks like?

Steve Schoeny 04:17Yep. So basically, if you have a city manager structure, city council hires that person to be the day-to-day manager of the city. So there is someone who carries the title of city council president and mayor. That's Brendan King, who, as any appointed official should always say, I have to say is the most amazing I've ever known. I really do—I have a fantastic council. I have seven council members. They're all elected at large. I actually have—I'm wearing my "voted today" sticker. Today's November 2, so I have four of my seven seats on council on the ballot today. I have three incumbents running, one open seat. And for folks who are running to fill a seat as a challenger, whatever term you want to use, this is one of those days where, you know, you sit back and you're watching. I've joked it feels a little bit like I'm on some kind of strange dating show, watching, figuring out how other people are going to pick the people that are going to be really responsible for overseeing me in my role for the next four years.

Tim Fulton 05:36And is it—they are running for particular seats? They're not?

Steve Schoeny 05:40No, no, they're all at large. So everybody votes in Upper Arlington today, gets to click on four names. You know, I will say, I'm really fortunate, I've got seven people running who I think are all running for the right reasons. They're dedicated to this community, they're not out trying to throw bombs over one thing or another, and really kind of believe in Upper Arlington as a place that should be open and welcoming, and a great place to live and work and raise a family, and all those wonderful things. And so I really do feel very, very lucky to have a really good council currently. And then, you know, no matter how this turns out, I think I'm going to end up with a great council.

Tim Fulton 06:24And so do you continue to serve at the pleasure of council, just until it's done? Or is it—you're, like, a football coach, and it gets renewed every couple years?

Steve Schoeny 06:34I don't quite make football coach money—okay, college coaches. But yes, I have a contract. I've got a three-year contract. So it's good, because it gives some level of stability, that I can go and push issues and try and drive the agenda forward. And it's something that gives council a little bit of pause, if they should decide that, you know, on this podcast, I said one wrong thing, and they decided they wanted to fire me because I said, you know, they didn't like what I said about how the election was going or something like that. It's something to give them a little bit of pause, and allow them to make a reasoned—force them to maybe make a more thoughtful decision than a passionate decision, which sometimes you find in elective office.

Tim Fulton 07:23Right. I would imagine—would you say that you're then the administrator of the city? Or, how empowered do you feel to make policy decisions, or at least make those recommendations and then have them approved by council?

Steve Schoeny 07:36Yeah, I mean, I love using kind of private-sector analogies. And city manager form of government works really well in saying, you know, I'm the CEO, and they're more my board of directors. I mean, that's really fundamentally how it works. And so, you know, there will be things where you look at something and say, look, ultimately, this is a judgment—this isn't an administrative judgment about, you know, is it best to do something this way or that way? This comes down to how much you value X versus Y. Well, that value judgment, that's really the elected officials' role. That's what the people are electing them to do. It's my job to figure out, what are the best options? And if there's a clear one, pretty much they give me the authority to run with it. If there's something where it's a borderline thing, and it's something that matters, then typically I'll go to them. And then, obviously, on anything with money, I have to go to them.

Tim Fulton 08:32Right, because they manage that budget. Yeah. Talk me through—you can use Columbus as a comparison, but I don't think maybe it's the best one—but talk me through what's unique about Arlington versus the other suburbs.

Steve Schoeny 08:48Yeah. You know, what's unique about Arlington is it's what you'll hear sometimes referred to as an inner-ring suburb, but it's a really big one. So, you know, historically, geographically, we're kind of similar to a Marble Cliff or Grandview or Bexley or Whitehall, in that we're completely surrounded by Columbus, essentially, and we're landlocked. But we're 36,000 people, it's a big footprint. It is centrally located, so that gives us the ability to do some things, like have some pretty big development and host some pretty big development, but still be really close to downtown and really close to a lot of amenities, and take full advantage of our proximity to the Ohio State University, and take advantage of being between the two rivers, and things like that. But, you know, if you're asking kind of what makes us different, it's the combination of size and central location that's pretty unique in Franklin County. Yeah, really, honestly, in all of Ohio. When you look at the Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County communities, they all tend to be really small; it's very balkanized up there. Hamilton County tends to be—the big spaces tend to be a lot more township stuff. And, you know, there are a couple smaller communities that are similar, but really, we're pretty big for a community that's situated the way we are.

Tim Fulton 10:17Right. Can you talk about what issues you tend to have to address or deal with that might be unique to Arlington—maybe because of the size, maybe because of proximity to the city?

Steve Schoeny 10:30Yeah. So, you know, being right in the middle of everything, it creates a number of things in terms of being on transportation corridors—you know, having 33 run off along one side, looking at the development of the western lands at OSU, the Innovation Campus, the Innovation District they're calling it, that's going to have a huge impact on us. Those are things that fundamentally will change how our residents get to and from where they're going. The development, of course, of trails getting right on our doorstep, huge impact on us. And so it does put us in a unique place. I think one of the other things that's really unique and really good is that our residents are residents of the broader community, and are full participants in the broader community. So you'll find our residents in the important boardrooms, whether those are corporate boardrooms or not-for-profit boardrooms around town. You'll find them in discussions about the things that are really impacting the community as a whole. So when we talk about things like the LinkUS effort, the efforts to bring transit accessibility and real mass transit to the Columbus region, number one, we're positioned where it's really going to matter to us. And two, we're also positioned, I think, in a place that we should be influencing it, and really looking at, how does it not only impact Arlington, but how does it impact the community as a whole, the greater community as a whole?

Tim Fulton 12:06Got it. Talk about your time with the city of Columbus as the development director, and sort of the issues that you faced there, and what you see is different now.

Steve Schoeny 12:18Yeah. Well, I mean, I loved that job. And I love this. Yeah, it was an amazing time to be in that position, because we were transitioning—when I came in, in—gosh, must have been '13—we were still coming out of the Great Recession, where we were still bringing in vacant and abandoned—so I had the land bank under me too—okay, we're still bringing in vacant and abandoned houses, we're still getting things out of tax foreclosure. I want to say we were up around like 1,300 properties in the land bank, and we didn't have a land trust yet, and all those different things. You know, I was on something where Michael Wilkos from the United Way was talking the other day, and he was talking about how one of the big challenges going forward is that we've absorbed all of that underutilized housing, we've absorbed that housing that was on the sidelines. And so when I look at what's changed today versus when I was there—that's different. You know, in terms of the jobs, it's interesting. I'm running an organization that's about the same size, that's interesting, because I had—it wasn't just economic development, right, it was such a broad portfolio. But, you know, now I clearly don't have the housing and code enforcement issues that I had with the city of Columbus. But now I'm learning about what it means to have an effective fire department and police department.

Tim Fulton 13:59And how is that structured in Arlington? Like, do they directly—

Steve Schoeny 14:03Yeah, yeah. So I enjoy telling my kids periodically that I am the chief law enforcement officer of the city of Arlington. It doesn't usually do much for me, but I do tell them. So, you know, in the charter, yes, the police chief reports to me, the fire chief reports to me. And so, you know, we've got—you have—

Tim Fulton 14:23You have the ability to hire and fire them as well? Or is that a role of council?

Steve Schoeny 14:27No, no, I have the ability to hire and fire them. Yes. So, you know, having that responsibility—having, you know, it wasn't just COVID that we went through last year, right, it was the social unrest and the reckoning that came with the murder of George Floyd, and all that came with that. And dealing with it both as, you know, helping the community talk it through and wrestle with what it meant for the community, and helping our officers talk it through and wrestle with what it meant for them, in terms of how they felt they were being portrayed in society, in the media, and their commitment to the vocation and safety of people, and dealing with all that. I mean, it was tough.

Tim Fulton 15:13So, given the time that you were at the city of Columbus, you spanned both the Coleman administration and the Ginther administration. I want a little bit of insight on, like, what the differences were there—not necessarily about what they were like as bosses, but how priorities changed for you. And then also, now that you've been away for a couple of years, how do things seem to have changed just since you left?

Steve Schoeny 15:42So, you know, it was interesting. So I talked earlier about the evolution of where we went from having our biggest problem be vacant and abandoned housing and lack of investment in all these places, and the need to kind of get stuff going. So the need to get stuff going was really the focus, still the focus, when we were with Coleman. And when Ginther came in, I think he saw—I'll give him credit, he saw ahead of the curve more than I did, that's why he was mayor and I was just director—the need to start shifting to how do we think about not just getting the wheels turning again, but making sure that they're moving everybody forward. Right? How do we make sure that we're getting ahead of the curve on things like affordable housing? How do we make sure that we're thinking further down the road? In terms of Ginther and Coleman, it wasn't a difference in desire, it wasn't a difference in belief, it wasn't a difference in any of that. It was more a difference in, hey, the time is different, so it's a time to change our focus. Because Coleman would tell you all those things are important too, right? Absolutely. But where he was, the timing wasn't right to emphasize those things. And then when Andy came in, and he really got going, he was right to be saying, hey, we have got to focus on housing, housing, housing. And so that's why we changed the rules around the Community Reinvestment Areas, so that it wasn't that everybody was getting CRAs without any kind of strings, without any requirements for mixed-income housing. That's why we changed all that stuff, and got that ball rolling, and pushed for investment, like the fund that—the Huntington Bank, you know, we put that together with them. So, yeah, I think that's the biggest change.

Tim Fulton 17:45And now that you're outside, what do you see is different?

Steve Schoeny 17:49You know, it's interesting. So, first of all, when you step away, you make a point of not kind of putting your toe back in, and letting folks do their jobs. And right—there was such a—you know, I talked a little bit about the impact of social unrest and racial reckoning on Upper Arlington. The impact of that, and the impact of COVID, on the city of Columbus—even as someone who knows the people in those roles, I have a hard time, as an outsider, kind of getting my head around how big of a shock to the system that must have been.

Tim Fulton 18:25Yeah, well, it's still—

Steve Schoeny 18:27Yeah, it's still—right. And so, you know, I think the emphasis now really is what I talked about earlier, in terms of those—and I don't know the statistics that Michael Wilkos said, I don't know off the top of my head—but, you know, this idea that we've absorbed all the housing that was sitting on the sidelines, we've absorbed all of those slack resources that were on the sidelines. Now, what happens next? And that really is the big challenge. I mean, so you're seeing really good kinds of growth. I'm really pleased with how they're finishing out things around Crusader. You know, I'm really pleased with the kinds of investments they're seeing. I'm really, really pleased to see them moving forward with looking at high-capacity transit corridors, and that COTA is looking at how do we expand on-demand service, and those kinds of things. Because, fundamentally, the Columbus region will succeed unless we force ourselves into failure. As we look at kind of what the future economy looks like, where people are looking for affordable communities with lots of amenities—and for decades, that has been the Columbus story, we're the biggest college town, and that's what college towns are, they're affordable places with lots of amenities. And so, whether it's a work-from-home environment, or hybrid environment, or whatever it is, this region is poised to succeed. You know, we're resilient in terms of climate shocks and things like that. We've got the things that people and businesses look for. We just have to be—whether we're willing to accept our success or not, we're gonna have to. And, you know, when I talk about the willingness to accept the success, it's, you know, sometimes people don't like that, sometimes people don't like change. Right? Change is hard. It's a cliché, but it's something that we as a community have to get our heads around and really deal with.

Tim Fulton 20:28When you were with the city of Columbus, what did you feel like you were most having to bang your head up against the wall about?

Steve Schoeny 20:36Oh, gosh, I blocked all that.

Tim Fulton 20:39Oh, good for you. Good, good.

Steve Schoeny 20:43Two years of therapy, you know.

Tim Fulton 20:47Or maybe—maybe this way. What did you feel like it was hard to get people to understand about the city and the things that needed to be happening?

Steve Schoeny 20:58Yeah, I think the hardest thing to get people to understand is that it's not a zero-sum game. So I go back to CoverMyMeds, when we were doing the deal to take them out to where their headquarters is now. And we couldn't get past this idea that some folks wanted to portray, that we were somehow taking money from the schools. You know, we ran all the numbers in the world, we had all the data in the world, and people just didn't want to accept that this could be a good thing, because they didn't like the narrative that it could be a good thing, for whatever reason.

Tim Fulton 21:43I would say that maybe it's easy to understand: there's this big tax break happening, they don't see the additional benefit that comes down the pike as a result.

Steve Schoeny 21:55Well, and, you know, 100% of 0 is 0, right? So, sure, we could stop giving tax breaks, and you can get 100% of nothing. And when you do a 15-year tax incentive, your year 16 eventually comes. And your year 16 is a really good year. And if you look at some of the school districts down around Rickenbacker, you know, you could name some school buildings the year-16 building. Because if you look at the development patterns down there, those communities that offered aggressive incentives, their stuff built out really fast, and their year 16 has come on all those buildings, and they're paying a ton of money to schools. And you look at other communities, like Columbus, where it took the city longer to come around to being aggressive in their tax incentives, where there's a lot of land that's still sitting there vacant, that, you know, the schools are collecting 100% of nothing. Whereas Southwestern schools, or whoever it is down there, you know, maybe forwent, had to forgo 75% or something, for 15 years, but then their year 16 hit, and their year 16 was a good year. So was their year 17 and 18, and then on in perpetuity.

Tim Fulton 23:13And it's hard to get people to basically make that investment, or forgo that money—the 100% of nothing, or 75% of nothing—for something that's 15 years in the future, because it's so hard to wrap your head around. And it's why there is a compulsory Social Security system. Like, it's hard for people to say, I'm going to need XYZ amount of money when I retire, or I'm going to want to retire, or something's going to happen to me. It's difficult to wrap your head around. Flipping that forward towards Arlington—what do you find yourself having to negotiate, or work around, or get folks to understand, in order to provide for the community?

Steve Schoeny 23:59You know, Arlington's an interesting place. Its members of the community are very engaged. They will focus in on big issues, they will want to really dive into the specifics of an issue. So, you know, the big thing we've got going on is we're going to be building Arlington's first-ever community center. And it's going to be in a seven-story building on the site of the old Macy's at Kingsdale, as part of a three-building mixed-use redevelopment that Continental is doing the other two buildings of. The community center portion of it's gonna be $54 million, is what we've got budgeted. We're going to have about 50,000 square feet of leasable space in there. OSU has announced their desire to take a little bit more than half of that.

Tim Fulton 24:53And that's the commercial space, not the community center? Yeah.

Steve Schoeny 24:57Yeah, commercial space. So they'll put some medical office, some therapy stuff in there, and really be partners with us in the building to help us make it more than just kind of a gym and a workout facility and a senior center for older adults. So, as with everything, I mean, the big challenge is getting people to adjust to change—whether it's adjusting to the idea that we're going to be more dense, and we're going to have higher-form buildings in the right places, because that's what the market demands. And, you know, that's how you bring new people into the community, and that's how you get people who are aging out of their current housing to stay in the community. Right? And, you know, it is really hard, though, to get people to adjust to change. And the other thing that we talk a lot about is making Arlington more welcoming. You know, we are not the most diverse community in central Ohio. And that is something that—there are a lot of reasons over time for that, but it's something that we've got to do a better job of, you know, going out and saying to people, look, we value everyone, and we value every perspective, and we want you here in our community. And, you know, so if you're looking at private school tuition on the side, why don't you look at moving your family over on the other side of 71 and sending your kids here, and living here?

Tim Fulton 26:28And there is some historical reason for the diversity, right?

Steve Schoeny 26:34Yeah, I mean—the lack of diversity, rather. Yeah. Right. So, yes, Arlington was set up with restrictive covenants that kept out people of color and, you know, Jewish people. I mean, it's just—it was part of how high-end exclusive communities were built 100 years ago. Yep. And that's a legacy that we acknowledge, and we acknowledge we've got to work to get past. Arlington is a great community, we've got great things going for us. But we haven't always let everybody come in and take advantage of that. And that gives us some work we've got to do today.

Tim Fulton 27:14And how are you addressing that?

Steve Schoeny 27:17We're still working on it. Because, you know, I'll be honest with you, I've looked, and I've found no other community in the country that's kind of overcome that legacy. Nobody's written that playbook yet. You know, it starts with being honest about it, and having conversations about it, and not being afraid to say what I just said to you.

Tim Fulton 27:33Absolutely. And that's why I prompted it a little bit, like, I want you to just say it, you know.

Steve Schoeny 27:39No, it just is what it is. I mean, you've just got to acknowledge it. So, you know, we put—not "we," City Council put together a Community Relations Committee, just over a year ago now, so they're just kind of getting themselves started, to help us kind of figure out, how do we do this? You know, how do we become more welcoming? How do we tell our story in a way that's better? How do we invite people in? Oftentimes, people say, well, we just need to be more welcoming. And I'll say, a lot of times, you can be as welcoming as you want, but if nobody walks through the front door, your being welcoming doesn't do you much good, right? So, you know, how do we get more people to be willing to, and feel okay, stepping through the front door in Arlington? Because I do think it is a community that really does welcome people. And I am always struck by the warmth of the people here. And it's just a matter of getting folks to come in and understand who we are. We're not a community without problems. Every community has problems. But we take them on.

Tim Fulton 28:40Good. What else is coming down the pike in Arlington, in terms of, basically, what's on the horizon?

Steve Schoeny 28:48Yeah. So there's a bunch of stuff on the horizon. In a literal sense, the construction on the Arlington Gateway project at Lane and Northstar, right on the edge of campus, is going to be a big deal. It's going to be the tallest building in Arlington. It's going to be called the Arlington Gateway for a reason, because it's right there at the gateway of Upper Arlington. And it's leasing up really well. They've got a lot of interest in the building. I think it's a great location. So, you know, we've really made a lot of progress in terms of changing Lane Avenue, so it really does feel like the way in which we welcome people into our community. We're remaking the Kingsdale area so that it's becoming more of the heart of our community. You know, that's why we're putting the community center there. And that really kind of—sometimes I'll talk about, I want that to feel like, you know, if the city is a house, that needs to feel like the kitchen, like where real people really come together. Henderson Road is kind of the next frontier for us. That will be hugely impacted by what happens with the LinkUS initiative and efforts to bring high-capacity transit to the northwest side of Columbus. So there's a line that runs Olentangy, cuts across to get over to Sawmill, and whether that line runs across Henderson or whether it runs across Bethel, that will have a huge impact on the Bethel Road corridor. Because if you bring access to high-capacity transit that close to our northern border—and then, you know, in terms of our commercial corridors, that's the one that really hasn't been re-envisioned to think about what it having it become what it could be. And if you drive it sometime and you look at it, you think, gosh, what could this be if we rethink some of these kind of tired strip centers, and we do something—there are some things where we can cooperate with the city of Columbus to really address how that area feels. That could be pretty amazing. So the other big thing is, we've got the company that owns Charley's Subs and BIBIBOP, they bought the old CompuServe headquarters building that was purchased by a Tree of Life Church to try and build a school, and I got in a long fight with the city about it, and eventually the city won and said, you can't put a school there. Well, that entity bought the parent company of those two restaurants and some others—they bought that, they're going to move in there, they're going to redevelop the site. That's a big thing that, as I look kind of five, 10 years down the road, that's an area that I think is ripe for a lot of excitement and a lot of creative energy for us to put into. You know, we're still absorbing basically all-brand-new schools, except for our middle schools, which is a big thing for the community; the high school really is a gem, I mean, it's amazing. So there's a lot going on. But, you know, we've got a lot to chew on right now with kind of getting this community center project going, and a couple of the other economic development things we've got going. So we'll bring those in, we'll work those. There's a couple of other things, little smaller projects that are working, sites that are a little more challenged around town, and so those things are coming in. And then the other big thing is, you know, how do we—I alluded to this a little earlier, on one of your questions in terms of how Arlington is different, how it fits into this broader context. How do we fit into things like high-capacity transit? How do we fit into things like the greenways? How do we fit into RAPID 5? How do we connect to core trails? Because as that develops, that is going to be a regional gem that our residents will demand to get to by more than just hopping in their car, right? They're going to demand that they can hop on their bike, or run, or, you know, whatever, their way over there. So there's a lot of great stuff going on.

Tim Fulton 32:59That's great. And when is the community center set to open?

Steve Schoeny 33:03So that should open sometime in '24. Okay, we're in design right now. So we're hoping to finalize the program sometime before the end of the year, really kind of get locked down what's going to happen in the building, and what floors things are going to happen on, right? You know, we're not gonna have a rooftop pool—it would look really cool to have a rooftop pool, but that's not gonna work—how do we work that out? Where do we put various things in the building? We'll have all that settled by the end of the year. February, we'll get to hopefully some schematic design that gives a sense of what it's really going to look and feel like, from the outside in as you go through the building, and then hopefully break ground sometime next fall. 18-month to 24-month construction period. And then you've got to think—

Tim Fulton 33:52I want to wrap this up by asking two questions. One, what is Central Ohio, or the Columbus region, doing well? And then, what is it not doing so well?

Steve Schoeny 34:05You know, I think one thing that Columbus and Central Ohio does really well, and is continuing to do well, is to bring in new voices and new ideas quickly, and without a whole lot of stodginess, for lack of a better term. So, you know, one of the things I saw this when I was in Columbus, and I continue to see it here in our community, and I see it in the broader community, where, you know, if somebody comes in, and they show good ideas and the ability and willingness to work them, they're brought in, they're at the table, right? This community, it's about, what can you contribute? Doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean people aren't gonna push back on you, it doesn't mean everybody gets a seat at the table. But if you come in and you show that you can work with others, and you can add value to the decision, there's a seat at the table for you. And I think that's one of the things that, if this community continues that, will make everything else work. You know, in terms of what do we not do well? I think this is something that every community struggles with: the pace of change that we're facing right now is so rapid that it's a challenge. And I think the other thing that nobody's doing well right now is figuring out how you return back to conversations where everybody's energy level, from a negative energy level, is starting at a three instead of a seven. And I think, you know, that'll be another key to success, if we can find ways to keep bringing people to the table, where they're starting at a three. You know, everybody—look, if you're good, you're starting with—you always got a little bit of edge to you, right?

Tim Fulton 36:00There's gonna be skepticism.

Steve Schoeny 36:03Yeah, yeah. But it's getting people—you know, when we see bad behavior and lack of civility among people, one of the things I've said is that, whether it's COVID, or it's the social unrest, or it's all of it, whatever it is, you know, whereas before you'd have one person in a room starting at a level seven, two people starting at a five, and everybody else is starting at three or below—now everybody's coming in the room at a seven. And, you know, if we can find a way to have these big conversations with everybody back to that normal spread of the spectrum, we'll be able to get a lot more things done, and really make sure that—I firmly believe that Upper Arlington can be the model of a community, kind of an inner-ring suburb, a successful community. And I firmly believe that Columbus should be the model of what a mid-sized region looks like in this kind of distributed workplace environment.

Tim Fulton 37:08Absolutely. Thank you for your time.

Steve Schoeny 37:11Oh, no, I love doing this. I love talking. I appreciate the work that you do, and everybody down at Underground. And—I think this isn't just a suck-up, it's partially a suck-up—but I do think that having, to what I said at the end, having groups that are willing to come and facilitate conversations and have conversations, is really important in the civic culture. So I appreciate everything you guys have done, everything you're doing, and everything that Walker and the team at Underground have done since he started that crazy venture a few years back. So.

Tim Fulton 37:44Well, thank you very much. Thank 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, and share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite city manager. 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.