Several workers from Axis Civil Construction in Columbus poured concrete in 2017 for a new sidewalk along the east side of Winter Street, part of the Safe Routes to School project. (News archive photo by Diane Chiddister)
Village Council considers changes to sidewalk policy, mediation
- Published: May 26, 2026
At the most recent regular Village Council meeting, Monday, May 18, Council members broached the possibility of changing a couple longstanding policies and programs — one being the onus of sidewalk maintenance and upkeep.
Though no decision was made on Monday, Council considered the implications of shifting responsibility for sidewalk repair and replacement from the Village to abutting property owners.
Such a move would reverse a 2011 ordinance that put the onus in the Village’s lap. Since then, the Village has spent $821,967 on sidewalk repairs, replacements, removals and extensions, according to a memo Village Manager Johnnie Burns shared with Council before Monday’s meeting.
That memo outlined three options for Council’s consideration:
• Option 1: The current policy remains and the Village retains full responsibility for all sidewalks throughout Yellow Springs;
• Option 2: Transition the responsibility back to property owners; or
• Option 3: Take a hybrid approach — one in which the responsibility is shared between the Village and property owners, with individuals handling day-to-day maintenance, and the Village “supports or cost-shares” major replacements.
Ultimately, Council decided not to take any of those options; the group went a fourth route, following a suggestion from Burns.
He recommended that Council continue thinking about their individual preferences, but to pause the conversation until later this year when the Village begins its budget planning for the upcoming fiscal year — particularly when staffers have a fleshed out capital improvement plan that details the costs of upcoming major projects, such as the cost of materials for sidewalk improvements.
All five Council members were amenable to that plan.
“We’re not saying this is off the table entirely,” Council President Gavin DeVore Leonard said. “We’re going to talk about it more when we talk about the capital costs of all our next projects.”
Before landing on that decision, Council members mused over the implications of burdening residents with the labor and costs associated with keeping up with the sidewalk in front of their homes.
“The red flag for me is the affordability issue,” Stephanie Pearce said. “How will this help the average resident in the community?”
Angie Hsu echoed those concerns.
“What are the options if it’s a cost that property owners can’t stomach? How is that decided and what is the redress for the people in that scenario?” she asked rhetorically.
DeVore Leonard pointed out that not every home in Yellow Springs has a sidewalk to maintain, and that, under the current model, those without sidewalks essentially subsidize those who do, albeit in the “public good,” as he called it.
“Do we need the money?” he asked. “If the sidewalks need to be maintained at whatever quality we expect, then someone is going to have to pay for it — the Village is going to have to administer some of it. So, I think it would really not make sense to have every homeowner do it independently, because we lose out on the economy of scale of doing it in chunks.”
Since 2018, the Village has consistently budgeted about $50,000 annually for sidewalk maintenance, and as Burns stated in the memo, he believes that amount has not been sufficient to “meaningfully address system-wide needs or keep pace with deterioration and replacement costs.”
Should Council decide the Village retain responsibility for all its sidewalks, Burns said the Village ought to begin allocating around $100,000 annually to “begin making measurable progress on backlog conditions.”
“Think about it this way,” he told Council members. “We are required to put in sidewalks if you build something new. Spring Meadows has new sidewalks, there will be a new one in front of the high school connecting Mary’s Way to Dayton Street, the multimodal path on Dayton Street … these are all now ours to maintain. Every time a sidewalk is added, you’re adding more labor and things for staff to do.”
Changes to Mediation Program?
Another potential shift coming down the municipal pike may be a restructuring of the Village Mediation Program, or VMP — Yellow Springs’ own community-driven conflict-resolution service, which has existed since its founding in 1989 as a mayoral initiative.
Historically, the VMP intervenes in civil and personal matters such as workplace disputes between employees and employers, neighborly disagreements and tenant-landlord conflicts. It’s a free service some seek, and for others, one to which they’re referred by the mayor or police.
According to a memo from Council member Carmen Brown that she sent her colleagues ahead of Monday’s meeting, she is recommending the dissolution of the program’s steering committee — a four-person group of villagers trained in mediation, to whom the VMP coordinator must report and consult, and which has also facilitated community forums in the past.
Longtime villager, psychologist and educator Brady Burkett has been the VMP coordinator since 2024. Under Brown’s proposal, Burkett’s position would change to director of the program.
Brown said in her memo that owing to Burkett’s “experience managing the program, a steering committee is no longer necessary for day-to-day operations, case coordination or program planning.”
“The VMP has served the Village for over 30 years, and while its mission remains important, the way mediation programs operate has changed over time,” Brown wrote. “As our expectations around confidentiality and program operations have evolved, it has become clear, in recent years, that the VMP would benefit from a more streamlined model that better represents how this work is done today.”
Ahead of Monday’s meeting, two steering committee members — Marianne MacQueen and Len Kramer —- wrote to Council saying that they were not consulted on the possibility of the group’s potential dissolution, and beseeched Council to consider the steering committee’s importance.
“In addition to providing confidential free mediation services to community members, over the years the VMP has hosted community trainings in conflict resolution, mediation, and facilitated numerous community forums,” MacQueen and Kramer wrote. “It has been able to do this because of the volunteers who have served as mediators, facilitators and Steering Committee members. There are a number of points of value to having this cohort of volunteers, not the least of which is spreading the capacity in the community to deal with conflict.”
The two committee members also challenged the notion that Council ought to be the deciding body about VMP operations. Brown, at Monday’s meeting, contended that Council does have the latitude to do so, given that the VMP is a taxpayer-funded service. In the 2026 budget, Council appropriated $14,420 for the program — mostly to cover Burkett’s stipend.
“I’m not a helicopter Council member. As long as people are saying the program is working, then I’m fine,” Brown said. “But when people say the program isn’t working in how it’s flowing, or how mediations are being handled, then it’s time to step in.”
Brown shied away from specifics, but said that she and Council member Pearce will soon meet with Burkett, Burns and the steering committee to consider the next best steps.
Data center moratorium
By a unanimous vote, Council gave emergency reading to and approved an ordinance that establishes a year-long moratorium on the issuance of zoning permits and approvals for data centers in Yellow Springs.
As the News reported earlier this month, the initial proposal to enact the moratorium was brought forth by Pearce because she suggested “large-scale data center development does not align with the scale, needs or values of our community.”
“As communities across Ohio and the country see increased interest in large-scale data centers, Yellow Springs should act proactively rather than reactively,” Pearce previously wrote. “Data centers are a unique — therefore largely unregulated — and increasingly common land use that can place significant demands on local infrastructure.”
At the previous Council meeting this month, the group was generally approving of a draft ordinance that Pearce and Village Solicitor Amy Blankenship had crafted, but they wanted to make sure the language was honed so as not to discourage small-scale development — specifically, the kind of data centers resembling the village’s own Miami Valley Education Computer Association, or MVECA, from seeking to do business in Yellow Springs.
Owing to that preference, Council members approved the ordinance with the condition that data centers that create an aggregate monthly demand or peak load equal to or less than two megawatts still be permitted to build within municipal limits.
Anything greater — particularly the 100 megawatt-consuming “hyerscale” data centers cropping up throughout Ohio and elsewhere — is expressly prohibited, at least for the next year.
$20k for home repair program
Village Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing a grant of $20,000 to village-based affordable housing nonprofit YS Home, Inc. for the organization’s ongoing home repair program.
That amount had previously been approved in last year’s budget discussions regarding the current fiscal year.
The grant allows Home, Inc. to continue to work in conjunction with the Dayton Home Repair Network to offer grant dollars to income-eligible homeowners in town for home improvement projects such as roof replacement, the installation of accessibility ramps, furnace replacement and other health- and safety-related repairs and accessibility modifications.
More information regarding the program, including an application for funds, can be found at http://www.daytonenergycollaborative.org, or by calling 937-369-0654 or emailing info@daytonenergycollaborative.org.
Softball field improvement funds
By a unanimous vote, Village Council members approved a resolution authorizing Manager Burns to pursue a $50,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to improve the Davenport Memorial Softball Field at Gaunt Park — namely to regrade the field to keep it from flooding as frequently as it does.
Should the Village receive the grant funding, the Village would be required to offer matching funds of $12,500.
Those dollars would be spent reconstructing the field — the one closest to West South College Street — and installing proper drainage, improved grading and “bringing the field up to modern safety and play standards,” Assistant Village Manager Elyse Giardullo told Council members.
Additionally, if awarded the ODNR funds, the Village could construct accessibility improvements near the fields, such as more accommodating paths to the drinking fountains, bathrooms, dugouts and stands.
“This is not a maintenance issue, but an underlying engineering problem with the field itself,” Giardullo said of the softball field’s tendency to retain water long after a rainstorm. “This field serves a wide range of users, youth leagues, high school athletes, our adult summer league, but the current condition limits playability, creates safety concerns and leads to frequent game cancellations as well.”
She continued: “I also want to emphasize that improving this field is directly tied to expanding opportunities for female athletes in our community. Right now, there are very limited softball-specific opportunities and field access is a major barrier. So if we can’t provide a reliable place to play, then we can’t grow those female programs.”
The next regular Village Council meeting will be Monday, June 1, at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers, on the second floor of the Bryan Center
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