News archive

Energy Aggregation on the ballot this election

The March primary is just around the corner and early voting begins in a few days.  Besides the Presidential and other primary races, Huber Heights residents will have Issue 1, Energy Aggregation on the ballot.  After I vent, I’ll address the pertinent points that I believe should affect your voting decision. 
  
The City’s website HHOH.org, now has notice of Energy Aggregation being on the ballot

YMCA discussion and the Feb 2nd Work Session

We’ve had a couple of work sessions now with the new council members in place.  We’ve seen some positive and some negative results.  The one item I plan to talk about today is the discussion with the director of the Huber Heights YMCA.  That discussion is on video.  It is the 5th agenda item and starts about 1 hour 30 minutes into the meeting.  Before I start that discussion let me point out that

Apply for the open City Council Position or convince your neighbor…

There is an opening for the Ward 5 City Council position.  If you have lived in Huber Heights Ward 5 for at least one year and have been registered to vote in Ohio for at least one year you can apply by submitting a cover letter and resume to the Clerk of the Council, Mr. Anthony Rodgers.  I'd appreciate a courtesy copy or at least notice that you are interested.  The target date for submission is on or before Feb 10,…

Water Softening Discussion

The Feb 2, 2016 Work Session agenda contains the read ahead for the water softening discussion.  This include an April 2010 report on what it would take to bring water softening to the city.  I recommend you read the entire Appendix.   Here are some of the highlights:

When measuring hardness  75 - 150 mg/l of CaCO3 is considered Moderate hardness.  Greater than 250 mg/l is considered very hard

Controversy, Controversy,  Controversy

We made the newspaper again today.  For those of you that might not know the City hired retired State Senator and former judge Neal Zimmers to lobby for Huber Heights in Columbus.  I think a chronological posting of email messages is a good way for you to understand all the contention surrounding the lunch meeting that took place Jan 7th at TJ Chumps.
 
From: Neal Zimmers
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 4:31…

Controversy, Controversy,  Controversy

We made the newspaper again today.  For those of you that might not know the City hired retired State Senator and former judge Neal Zimmers to lobby for Huber Heights in Columbus.  I think a chronological posting of email messages is a good way for you to understand all contention of the lunch meeting at TJ Chumps.
 
From: Neal Zimmers
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 4:31 PM
To: McMasters, Tom
Subject:…

Anatomy of a Newspaper Article

One of the interesting parts about being in politics is the interaction with the media.  It is always important to realized that somehow the reporter will have to squeeze what you provide into a very short space.  I thought I would provide you a non-controversial interaction so you get an idea of the translation process.  The interactions that took place for an article published today (Monday Jan

School Board opening Huber Heights City Schools - apply ASAP

Update:  Information available on the Huber Heights City School Website about the application process being used to fill the vacant School Board seat:

http://www.huberheightscityschools.org/News/1274#sthash.xl8VCZvE.dpbs

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I'm having the hardest time finding information on the Huber

Goodbye 2015, hello 2016

This past week saw the last official business of the 2015 council and next week Tuesday the 2016 council will conduct its first work session.  Last week's Special Council meeting was much more chaotic than I expected or desired.  I expect there to be more chaos than desired Tuesday just because there will be a lot of changes not only do we have three new council members but we also will be going to the work session format.

Music Center profit loss discussion - this is fun.

The latest discussion on the financial impact the Music Center has on the City budget can be found on the city website and starts 1 hour 5 minutes and 11 seconds into the video (1:05:11).  The latest figures are posted below.  The video to the left starts at about 1:19:25.  This time was chosen because of my remark stating that debating the numbers is fun.  My view is that being able to

Carriage Trails Supplement Discussion during the Committee of the W…

Last week during the Committee of the Whole meeting there was a good discussion concerning the supplements the City provides to the Carriage Trails development.  To date there have been 16 amendments to the original development agreement.  These amendments get discussed as each of the phases of the development get sold out and so far cover 600 of the planned 1200 houses for that area.  The…

Model airplanes / Drones

I think it is because I was a test pilot for the X-45 and a safety officer for Global Hawk and Predator and I've also belong to a model aircraft club that I have a different idea of UAV than what we see in the news.  Most of the drones we see in the news are really just more sophisticated model airplanes and we would be a lot safer if people realized this and operated them as if they thought…

Cookies with Santa - Christmas Concert.

I received these two Huber Heights Christmas announcements for Thursday Dec 3rd Cookies with Santa at the Athletic Foundation and Sunday Dec 6th Christmas Concert at the Eichelberger Amphitheater.


A reminder of the annual Huber Heights Athletic Foundation "Cookies with Santa" event for 2015!


The event will be held this Thursday, December 3, 2015, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Huber Heights Athletic

What does The Impact Group do for the City?

Last week during the Council meeting we had a couple of interesting items that I'm planning on writing about.  Council authorized the continuation of the contract with The Impact Group (discussion starts at 1:06:50 into the video).  This was a bad decision and I'm going to write more about that.  Also, there was an expectation that council would waive the 2nd and 3rd reading of a finance…

Brandt Pike revitalization, Bike paths and Roundabouts

The City currently has a Request for Proposals out to companies that want to bid on helping to develop a plan for revitalizing the Brandt Pike Corridor.  The bids are due Dec 3rd so if you know of a company that does this kind of work have them look at the proposal criteria.
 
One idea that I heard from a resident awhile ago was to try and make the interior residential neighborhoods between…

Election is over.  

New page has will turned.

Now that the election is over I'm looking forward to the next two years.  I know I've been lax in posting to the Mayor's blog this last couple years.  It is my intention to going back to writing at least weekly.  I'm hoping these next couple years many of the articles I write will have a positive tone and others will explore the pros and cons of different ways to approach how the city does…

DDN article concerning staff at General Council Meetings

I suggested months ago that we stop asking all of staff to come to Council meetings if it was preventing them from preparing written reports prior to committee meetings. Today, days before the election that request was twisted into an article from the DDN. http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/…/huber-heights-cha…/npB3R/

Below you can see the example of what staff needs to be protected from.  If…

Letter to Ward 6 residents

Ward 6 Letter endorsing Richard Stan


Ward 6 endorsement letter back page


Here is the letter from the Fire Fighters Local 2926.  After the letter I put links to the interview videos so you can

Fire Station support - yes - but I've never supported the 2025 plan

I did a quick search of this site to see what I wrote concerning the proposed fire station / fire house:

This first post predates the 2025 plan so you can see I've always been against the promise to lock the city into just providing current levels of services.  On April 6, 2014 I wrote:

How about Police and Fire services?  Is it really realistic to ask for a levy that does no more than…

Recent videos from Local 2926 interviews

The original post is  below and also the original controversial video.  Watching the full interviews are more informative so if you are time limited skip the write-up and the first video and watch the full interviews first.  They can be found below the first video. 

Original with updates ————–
The Executive Committee of Local 2926 invited the candidates to speak to their members.  They video…

Housing to Youth

I was looking at the procedures to start an llc and found this interesting in the context of all the questions about Concept 1.  I wonder if they have the referenced letter and if they do why they didn't provide it.  It certainly would have helped their credibility. 

Some of the reasons to add an attachment would be in the following situations:
* The business name you have selected is already in

I'm always looking for your input to help me improve the discussion

 This week I've been following comments to a DDN article about the construction of the Fire Station.  It would be more beneficial to me if more of these discussions helped me do my job. For instance if you fast forward to 1:25:10 of the administration committee video you will see that I asserted that we had not passed a budget for the Fire Station. This is wrong. We passed a budget on Sept 14, 2

$17 million or $8.5 million council chooses $8.5

There was a decent discussion on the subject of the Carriage Trails Supplement last Council meeting.  I recommend watching the video on the City's Website. Putting the bottom line up front; if the City didn't supplement the building of Carriage Trails it would likely net $17.4 million dollars over the next 21 years.  If council keeps supplementing the development the most it can net is $8.5…

Election message for the residents of Huber Heights

For three years prior to being elected and in the two years since being elected I've asked current council members to adopt standard practices like going out and bidding major contracts, adding a means for us to recover our costs if a contractor fails to perform and requiring a conflict of interest statement for a businessman like Mr. Conaway that is being paid both by the City and by the…

2040 Long Range Transportation Plan

Subject:        Public Participation Meetings to be held regarding the 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan Update. 
Dayton, OH - The Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission (MVRPC) will hold a series of Public Participation Meetings regarding the 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan Update as follows: 
 

  • Tuesday, October 20, 2015 
Troy-Miami County Public Library – Multipurpose Room
419 W. Ma

Ed Lyons - Thank you council for a billion dollars!

Thank you council for giving us a billion dollars, "that's billion with a b".  This was Ed Lyons showing his understanding of economic development at the announcement of "The Heights" development project just before he was elected to council.

Not all browsers show the embedded video.  If you can't see the preview view it directly from YouTube 


 
If Ed Lyons, Jan Vargo, Karen Kaleps or Lu…

Ed Lyons - Thank you council for a billion dollars!

Thank you council for giving us a billion dollars, "that's billion with a b".  This was Ed Lyons showing his understanding of economic development at the announcement of "The Heights" development project just before he was elected to council. 


 
If Ed Lyons, Jan Vargo, Karen Kaleps or Lu Dale were capable of understanding what it takes to produce economic development they would have…

There are reasons I like Richard Stan for Ward 6 Council Representa…

Ed Lyons has been useless in helping me do my job of making sure the public understands the decisions Council makes on behalf of the City.  I just came upon this article by Richard Stan that makes me believe things could be much better next year.
 

From the desk of Richard Stan:

Rebuttal to Ed Lyon’s Speech to the League of Women Voters on Thursday, Oct 1.

My honorable opponent, Ed Lyons, spoke…

Update  15  Oct  –  Another $579,000 wasted by Council

There was a decent discussion on this subject.  I recommend watching the video on the City's Website.  The discussion starts at 58 minutes and 48 seconds.  I thought I would  produce a table below based on the numbers provided to show how much would be collected if the developer were to sell 30 houses per year and the city netted $53,000 per house (we don't provide any supplement) versus…

Update $651,651 (not $1 Million) dollar deficit in City Budget

6 Oct 2015
Tonight we had an administration committee meeting and further discussed the 2016 budget.  Let me first say it has always been my objective to have informative discussion at committee and general council meetings.  When I am successful there will be many times when we will start with preliminary numbers and facts and they will be honed as we get deeper into the discussion.  So a…