Q And A With Tony Marconi

Where would you like to see the city in the next few years.

The top priority would be to continue with our economic development strategy and partnerships. We will continue to pursue the new technology jobs, medical and bio science jobs, research and development jobs, etc. We also want to strengthen our current base of employment . We are well poised for new growth as our economy is slowly turning around. I also want our city to stay on top of our fiscal conservative policies and keep a health unencumbered reserve fund. We must stay on the path of a strong public safety program.

We must continue to reorganize city hall for the most efficient and cost effective means of services for our citizens. I have been very vocal about bringing change for our Section 8 program and our property maintenance code enforcement programs to clean up the blight and demolish buildings. We are making a difference with these programs and reducing vouchers and implementing tougher standards and regulations.

Streets must remain another top priority and this year is the most street work we have had for several years.

We will continue to leverage as much State and Federal money to help our street program and the city to put a small local share. Look at the new I-75 interchange – a 110 million project that the city only had to contribute six million as our share.

Breiel Blvd from Manchester to Riverview is undergoing a major reconstruction to the original base. University from Nelbar to Manchester is slated for 2010 as is Stuphin Street. Cincinnati-Dayton road from the Monroe Corporation to Coles/Central Avenue has been expanded and totally rebuilt and a new bridge by Fires Station #2 just completed. Council began an annual Spring Blitz road repair pavement program in 2007.

What is your plan to replace businesses that Middletown has lost.

New jobs and job retention is our number one priority. We will work our economic development plan to make Middletown attractive for business. We will take advantage of brown fields and land banking in order to expedite development. Aeronica and Midwest Services are two huge examples of brown fields and Ohio Clean Fund money being used for clean up, expansion, and job creation. We all know about Atrium Medical Center being the East End catalyst but we tend to forget about all the other successes with new development and jobs.

I get very upset when all I hear is people saying we have done nothing. That simply is not true. Keep in mind that the whole country has and is still going through a major recession and Middletown is not any different than anywhere else. Here are the facts and a small sampling. Starting with Atrium Medical Center, I can think of PAC National 350,000 sq ft facility, PayChex (the city in partnership with AL Neyer, Inc. received a 2.16 Million dollar grant through the Ohio Job Ready Sites Program for the construction of a 40,000 sq ft “Smart Office”), Innatech, Ventilex, Bio Life Plasma, Quaker Chemical completion, Dayton Children’s Hospital, the new Atrium YMCA, several office/industrial buildings along Cincinnati Dayton Road, The Kroger Market Place, Drury Inn, Medical Office Buildings along with the Oncology Center, Wausau Papers investment of 31 million in the downtown facility, Renaissance CVS, Inn at Renaissance (assisted living), Avalon by Otterbein, the new Senior Citizens Center on Central, Hospice of Warren County in East Pointe 200, the Towne Mall out lot redevelopment with Cincinnati Bell, National City Bank, Aldis new prototype store, Walmart and Kroger expansion, SunCoke 340 million facility. And the list can go on and on. Please do not tell me that we have not done anything. We have created new jobs, retained jobs and expanded our employment base. Our plan is to continue our aggressive policies and expand our economic development program.

How would you begin to repair and strengthen our relationships with the surrounding communities.

Overall we have a great relationship with our neighbors. I do not know why there is a perception of us not getting along with our neighbors.

It simply is not true. All of the surrounding jurisdictions are looking out for their citizens that they represent and rightfully so. We have very good solid relationships with our surrounding counties and cities. Our city manager Judy Gilleland, the Mayor and Councilman Becker are very involved with Warren County officials and the Warren County Municipal League.

I am very involved with our Butler County officials and State and Fed Representatives and Senators.

I worked with our city manager to contact John Boehner’s and Senator Sherrod Brown’s office to get our railroad crossings fixed. It is about building relationships. Of which our current council is doing.

All of council and our city dept heads (including our manager) have different degrees of relationships with all of our neighbors including Monroe. It simply is not true about having bad relationships with any local, county, state or federal agencies or officials.

Downtown Middletown has several focal points that we can build upon. I think the first thing we need (and we are addressing this issue) is to aggressively tear down buildings that need to go. The Swallen’s building and the parking garage needs to be demolished. The old Orman Building on Verity needs to be taken down also. We have the funds available in the downtown fund and I made it very clear a year ago that it must go. I am afraid that the money will get spent for other issues and we will still have the eyesore twenty years from now.

I like the concept of downtown being a destination point with different venues, food establishments and housing. One of the key things that council has done in the past two years is to update and change the downtown zoning to accomplish our vision and goals. As you know we established different zoning districts starting with Urban Core Central and all the guidelines on what can be located in each district.

Miami University is heavily involved with the Downtown Middletown Revitalization project. It is going to take private enterprise along with some Public/Private Partnerships and the City Of Middletown to help in any incentives, etc. The economic development dept is active with downtown and we have several irons in the fire.

The most recent is a possible partnership with Cincinnati Tech for a culinary and hotel management school concept. We do have a good core downtown with the city building, the Manchester Inn, Fifth Third and First Financial, Miami University, The Journal, Beau Verre Stained Glass, Governors Square, The Art Central District and foundation, Main Street Historical District, the library, the airport, Smith Park, Churches, and several independent businesses. This past summer we instituted police bike patrols and it was a great success to help clean up some problem areas.

Council has already made big strides in our Section 8 program, especially this past year. We have totally reorganized and revamped our Section 8 program from the administrator, to city staff, to implementing strict criminal background checks, strict housing code enforcement standards and inspections, and are currently redoing our Administration Plan to be submitted to HUD, hopefully by year end. We will aggressively not tolerate the rules be broken and will kick people off the program that do not comply.

We have instituted monthly reports from Doug Adkins our Director of Community Revitalization. Doug has been a godsend to the department and his aggressive implementation of procedures, processes and reporting to Council has been remarkable. Council has taken an active role as The Middletown Public Housing Board and will have a public meeting monthly. We have gone from a high of 1,662 vouchers to 1,542 as of August 31, 2009. Given time, the number of vouchers will decrease. Keep in mind that we have at anytime approx 650-700 citizens on vouchers that are disabled. The Sub-Committee of Housing (of which I am a member) has taken an active role in changing Section 8. It will be a model program when we are completed with all the changes and the vouchers will be reduced as we go forward.

Council is on top of the finances and budget. A direct proof of this has been our ability to currently have close to a 25% reserve unencumbered fund. Since I have served on council, it has always been a top priority to maintain a balanced budget with at least a 15% reserve. The national recession has hurt our whole country and our income. It is very difficult to balance the needs of the community with the necessary essential services with declining revenues. Our current budget talks are going to be the most difficult since I have been on council.

We must cut an additional one million out of our 2010 general fund as our revenues continue to shrink. We started being proactive several years back. We started cutting in order to maintain our minimum 15% reserve unencumbered fund. We are currently working through an economic reorganization at city hall (what departments need to stay, what needs cut or modified, what can be contracted out, furloughs, reduced hours, layoff, concessions, & regionalization). Currently everything is on the table to be looked at for possible savings.

I am proud to serve on council and have the current experience and knowledge to maintain stability to our city finances and continue to grow our tax base through jobs and economic development. Having served one term on council during one of the most struggling times in history, is a huge asset as we come out of the recession and are poised for our next round of growth. As I like to refute the Forbes negative article about my hometown: I have said this numerous times around town “Middletown is not a dying city but a CHANGING city for the better”