In a village known for civic engagement and public discourse, recent debates over deeply felt issues — housing, schools and the community’s future — have sometimes broken down into fraught communication. This summer, local organizers hope to help chart a constructive path with the launch of the Civil Discourse Pilot Program, an initiative designed to foster more thoughtful dialogue by modeling civil discourse through a series of public events.
The program, funded by the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, is led by longtime resident and former Village Council member Marianne MacQueen and April Wolford, local activist and business owner.
“The idea for this project took shape after the LIHTC discussions,” Wolford said, referring to last year’s sometimes contentious public debate over a proposed affordable housing project. “It sometimes felt vicious, and many people were thinking, ‘We have to be able to do better than this in terms of coming together, communication and respect.’”
The first event of the pilot, “Running for Local Office — It’s Important,” will take place July 8 at the John Bryan Center. At the top of the program, local resident Ellis Jacobs will discuss the importance of effective local democracy, and Mayor Pam Conine will give an overview of the structures and functions of Village, Township and school board governance.
A moderated panel of local elected officials — including Conine, Village Council member Carmen Brown, Township Trustee Chair Chris Mucher and Board of Education President Rebecca Potter — will talk about what it means to serve in office and how public discourse affects both local governance and those elected to govern on a personal level.
“We’re experiencing the erosion of democratic processes at the national and even state levels,” MacQueen said. “That makes it really critical for us to know how to work democratically at the local level.”
The program will be moderated by Village Mediation Program Coordinator Brady Burkett, who will facilitate an audience Q&A following the panel discussion. He will also help establish “ground rules” for discussion — a common practice in mediation, in which all participants agree to guidelines that offer everyone a chance to hear and be heard.
MacQueen pointed out that giving folks an understanding of the varied aspects of serving in local public office seemed like a natural starting point for the pilot program, since much of the discord in public communication over the last few years has taken place within, or surrounding, the meetings of local governing bodies. She added, however, that local government meetings themselves aren’t always the best places for the “types of discussion needed to find solutions most effectively.”
“Ideally, this project — if it continues — will help us develop venues and spaces where these discussions can take place,” she said. “This could be a great service to those in elected offices, as a way to develop the educated will of the people.”
What might civil discourse look like?
While “civil discourse” is sometimes mistaken for simply being polite, it’s an intentional practice with a far-reaching goal, emphasizing empathy and the understanding that we work better together than we do apart.
The Ohio State University’s Center for Ethics and Human Values, in an introductory essay about its “Civil Discourse for Citizenship” program, describes the practice as “deliberating about matters of public concern in a way that seeks to expand knowledge and promote understanding,” with the aim of developing mutual respect, building civic trust and identifying common ground. The program emphasizes the “4 Cs” of civil discourse: “Be curious, be charitable, be conscientious and be constructive.”
Across the U.S., the need for civil discourse skills has grown more apparent over the last several decades, with communication across political divides often the most difficult bridge to gap. In response, initiatives like OSU’s that research and educate about civil discourse have been established at a number of higher learning institutions, including at Duke, Harvard and American universities. The town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a population of 30,000, operates its own volunteer-led civil discourse initiative.
In Yellow Springs, conflicting ideas are often more constrained to local issues than national ones, at least in public discourse — but Wolford pointed out that the effects of rifts in communication are often the same, no matter the locus of the disagreement.
“And social media doesn’t help — people can be much meaner in online forums than they would be if talking face-to-face,” she said. “So, our goal is to create in-person spaces where people can disagree productively, hear each other, maybe think about things differently afterward — or at least walk away with a better understanding of where others are coming from.”
The pilot program draws inspiration from earlier Yellow Springs traditions — in particular, the Friday Forums series launched in 1983 by Antioch College professor Al Denman. Those forums brought community members together to hear informed views on key issues, with the aim of deepening understanding across divides. Two additional events within the pilot program currently being planned for later in the summer will hark back to the Friday Forums, but will experiment with format and reach.
“We’re really trying to think about: What’s the right model now?” YS Community Foundation Program Manager Chloe Manor said. “How do we create a space where people can listen to opposing views without freaking out?”
The pilot program’s founders hope they can find the best path forward via consistency, by listening over shared meals that they plan to incorporate into forum events later this summer, and in follow-up discussions sessions after the forums.
“It’s important that these are not one-and-done events,” Wolford said. “The goal is to build this into a sustained process. You can’t change how people communicate overnight. It takes time — and opportunities for sustained dialogue.”
The pilot dovetails with the YS Community Foundation’s evolving mission, which has included its establishment of the YSEQUITY guaranteed income program, as well as its support of civic engagement and discussion through last year’s Village Cafe events, among other initiatives. As Manor explained, the Foundation is part of a national cohort with CFLeads, which works to help community foundations play a stronger role in civic leadership, economic and racial justice and community learning.
“We’ve been thinking a lot about, ‘How do we do more convening? How do we make the most meaningful impact by helping people collaborate, getting different folks to the table and making a place for people who aren’t normally heard?’” Manor said.
She added that the pilot program is, as its name suggests, an experiment, the shape of which could change, as it also aims to help shape what modeling civil discourse on a village level looks like.
“Is this model going to reach beyond the 20 people in the village who show up to everything?” Manor said. “Those 20 people are so important, but we’re really interested in finding a way to hear [from a range of] people and know where they’re coming from, where they’re at, what they’re experiencing and what their ideas are.”
“Running for Local Office — It’s Important,” the kick-off event for the Civil Discourse Pilot Program, will be held Tuesday, July 8, 7–9 p.m., in Rooms A and B at the Bryan Center. All are welcome to attend.
More information about the pilot program’s second and third events, slated for later this summer, will be announced in future issues of the News.
Summer is heating up, but the Mills Lawn PTO is already looking ahead to an expansion of one of its largest annual efforts — the back-to-school supply drive.
This year’s supply drive continues the PTO’s tradition of providing free school supplies to families who need them, but also introduces a new option for all Mills Lawn families to order bulk school supplies through the PTO.
Additionally, for the first time, a portion of donated supplies will be directed toward students at McKinney and YS High schools — a move PTO members told the News last week they hope will mark the beginning of broader support for students across the district.
“Last year we provided supplies to close to 60 kids for free,” PTO Vice President Emily Gray said. “Based on the numbers we’ve gotten so far, this year it might be closer to 75. And this year, parents can also place orders through us.”
Parents who opt in to bulk ordering will receive their school supplies ready to go at the annual back-to-school open house.
“When you buy supplies yourself, you often have to buy extras or hunt for specific things,” PTO President Liz Hohl said. “We think this will end up being cost-saving and time-saving for families.”
The supply ordering program is available for elementary families only, but the PTO’s ongoing supply drive, which is funded through community donations, is expanding to benefit students in higher grades as well.
“We’re sending supplies to 10 students at the high school and middle school this year,” Gray said. “That’s something we haven’t done before.”
Community members can support the supply drive by donating through Venmo — @MillsLawnPto-MillsLawnPto — or sending checks to Mills Lawn PTO at 200 S. Walnut St.
“We’re really lucky to have the support we do from the community,” Hohl said. “It lets us keep doing these things.”
While the supply drive is front and center this summer, the PTO’s work spans the entire school year, and much of it focuses on supporting teachers.
“We do a lot of outreach to the teachers to make sure they know what’s available,” PTO member Megan Meier said. “Every teacher gets a direct stipend each year just to buy whatever they need for their classrooms.”
Sometimes those purchases are basic supplies, but they also fund projects and experiences. Recent examples include a cotton candy cart tied into a science lesson and goat yoga for third graders.
“Teachers are getting more comfortable asking us for funds,” Hohl said. “At first, I think they were so used to doing everything themselves that they didn’t realize they could ask.”
In addition to the stipends and supply drive, the PTO organizes a range of events throughout the year, from the annual skating party to teacher appreciation lunches and restocking the Mills Lawn staff lounge with snacks. The group raises much of its funding by managing paid Street Fair parking on the Mills Lawn grounds.
One popular event, Grandfriends Day, which was established in 2023, will take a pause due to construction at the elementary school this school year, when space will be limited.
“But we’ll still do something to make our grandfriends feel appreciated without being in the building,” Hohl said.
Looking further ahead, the PTO hopes to grow into a district-wide organization that can support all Yellow Springs students and teachers. To that end, the PTO is always working to expand its ranks.
“A lot still falls on the same eight or ten people,” Hohl said.
One initiative for the coming year will recruit a “classroom parent” for each class to act as a liaison between teachers, families and the PTO — and, hopefully, encourage more parents to get involved.
“It’ll be a good way to connect with parents a little bit more,” Hohl said.
For more information on the PTO, how to participate or how to donate to this year’s supply drive, go to http://www.millslawnpto.com.
The Little Art Theatre will host the premiere of “A Light Amidst Ashes,” an independent feature written and directed by 20-year-old Dayton-based filmmaker Rose Combs, on Thursday, July 3.
The film tells the story of 17-year-old Elijah Notch, played by Givan Onuaguluchi-May, who navigates a post-apocalyptic world in the wake of a mysterious virus, accompanied only by his pet cat. In speaking with the News last week, Combs compared “A Light Amidst Ashes” to the 2007 film, “I Am Legend,” in narrative, if not necessarily in tone.
“It is post-apocalyptic, so there are horror aspects,” Combs said. “But I definitely lean more into the drama genre.”
The film was produced by Alpha-Marshall Productions, a studio founded by Combs’ friend, Joshua Matthieu, in 2023, in collaboration with core members Jerry Ward, Brianna Halsey and Combs. Alpha-Marshall’s first project was 2024’s “The Rake,” a horror film based on the internet monster of the same name and completed on a shoestring $2,000 Kickstarter budget.
“We turned the proceeds from that first film into this one,” Combs said. “So [‘A Light Amidst Ashes’] had about a $1,500 budget.”
That budget was stretched by way of community connections and goodwill. Shooting locations included Vandalia Butler High School and the Toll House Tavern in Union, secured via personal connections within the production team. Though “The Rake” and a second Alpha-Marshall project, 2024’s “Writer’s Block,” involved mostly the company’s core team, most of the cast for “A Light Amidst Ashes” was assembled through online calls and local outreach, bringing in new faces to the group. One cast member, however, came from closer to home — the main character’s feline companion.
“This was my pet cat,” Combs said with a laugh. “You don’t really work [with a cat]. We followed it with a camera, and it did what it wanted. So we didn’t have pet auditions.”
Combs, who just finished her sophomore year studying biology — with a minor in film — at University of Dayton, said she wrote the first draft of the script while in a high school media production program. She finished a final draft in April 2024, and filming took place from May through August 2024. Combs edited the film herself, wrapping post-production just in time for this summer’s premiere.
Combs said working on “The Rake” was a learning experience for her and the entire production crew of close friends, but stepping into the director’s chair for her own feature-length film really pushed her to stretch her filmmaking muscles.
“I remember the first day we were on set; we had this empty high school to ourselves for five hours,” she said. “There were 30 people on set … and this was the first time that we had kind of branched out of our own little group, so it was scary, and I had a lot of people I didn’t know looking to me as a director. I had to really grow into that role.”
Originally from Union, Combs said she first fell in love with film watching movies with her family — especially her late grandfather. Making movies — and one day, hopefully, a television series — feels like her “calling,” she said. Though she hopes “A Light Amidst Ashes” will turn a modest profit, it would all be in service of creating Alpha-Marshall’s next film — the model she and her fellow creators established with their first film.
“It really has been a labor of love,” Combs said. “I could not have done it without all the people who came together and helped me — people I got to know, and then people I’ve known for years. They all kind of embraced the project and supported me, especially through the harder bits.”
The Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs — a town Combs has visited her “entire life,” she said — felt like the natural choice for the film’s premiere.
“I think Yellow Springs kind of has a magic to it,” Combs said. “It’s kind of like going on vacation in Ohio. … There’s a small-town warmth.”
“A Light Amidst Ashes” will screen at the Little Art Theatre at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 3; go to http://www.littleart.com/showing/a-light-amidst-ashes for more information. A second screening will be held Wednesday, July 30, at The Neon in Dayton.
On Tuesday, June 10, Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber implicated several former Village officials in a finding for recovery of nearly $20,000, which had accrued as a consequence of the Village’s failure to pay federal tax withholdings on time.
According to state documents, auditors found that former Finance Director Matt Dillion — who worked full-time for the Village from October 2020 to June 2022 — “failed to timely remit payroll withholdings and filings to the federal government, leading to late fees, penalties and interest” for the 2023 audit period.
The following penalties, totalling $19,512.30, were incurred:
• $4,657.30 for the late filing of a federal 941 form;
• $5,002.19 for seven instances of failure to submit withholdings;
• $9,520 for incorrect filing of a 1099 form; and
• $332.91 for seven instances of interest for failure to pay IRS penalties.
Along with Dillion and his bonding company, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies, former Village Manager Josué Salmerón and former Finance Director Amy Kemper were also listed in the state’s recent audit.
Salmerón and Kemper were charged $156.95 and $136.13 respectively — amounts which were repaid by them and posted to the Village’s General Fund in February.
Now, Dillon is being held responsible for repaying the remaining $19,219.32.
“The failure to pay federal tax withholdings and submit forms timely is considered gross negligence,” the audit reads. “Late payment fees incurred through gross negligence are illegal expenditures which do not serve a public purpose.”
The audit also notes that the charges against the three former staffers “would have been avoided had the funds and forms been remitted by the required due dates.”
Current Village Manager Johnnie Burns had no comment on the matter.
How big should Yellow Springs be? How big can it be?
These are questions that have been at the center of villagewide discourse and municipal decision-making for decades — ones expressed in a litany of ways in myriad contexts as Yellow Springs’ population has gone up and down, housing developers come and go, businesses open and close.
They’re also questions Village Council members and Village staff addressed head-on at a recent work session, Monday, June 23, when the group mused over the practical limits of growing the physical boundaries of Yellow Springs, as well as the population within.
Council Vice President Gavin DeVore Leonard said at the outset of the work session that the goal was to look at “the big picture,” as he described it, and for the elected body and staff to talk about ongoing and forthcoming developments holistically and all at once.
Among those projects set to grow Yellow Springs are the forthcoming annexations of two separate pieces of farmland, that combined would expand municipal boundaries by a total of 112 acres; the ongoing development of the 89-unit Spring Meadows subdivision; Home, Inc’s 32-unit, senior-focused Cascades development; and the proposed apartment complexes on or near Antioch College’s campus, which, if completed, would add nearly 150 more rental units to the local stock.
Bearing in mind these still-moving pieces, Council members discussed their priorities and concerns related to growing Yellow Springs, as well as their vision for the future.
“I’m not interested in growth for growth’s sake,” DeVore Leonard said. “How can we share the benefits of this great community with as many people as possible? How can we make it more affordable so we can share our prosperity?”
He added that he wouldn’t support any further growth in Yellow Springs if those efforts weren’t focused on lowering the median age, increasing affordability and bolstering racial diversity.
According to 2020 census data, of Yellow Springs’ population of 3,655, the median age is 53.6 years old, 18% is nonwhite and the median value of owner-occupied homes is $279,700.
Council member Carmen Brown agreed with DeVore Leonard’s priorities and added, “Everyone always thinks about diversity as racial or ethnic, but not socioeconomic diversity. We need more safe and affordable housing in this community — workforce housing.”
Council President Kevin Stokes likewise supported growing Yellow Springs, if only to increase the municipal tax base and to “put more butts in seats.”
“Growth doesn’t need to be a bad thing,” Stokes said. “We don’t need to be afraid of becoming a city.”
As the News reported earlier this year, should Yellow Springs ever reach 5,000 residents, it would be reclassified from village to city, per Ohio Revised Code. The closest Yellow Springs ever came to this threshold was at the time of the 1970 census, when there were 4,624 residents.
Council member Brian Housh was in agreement with his colleagues — that the Village should facilitate growth, and by extension, build more workforce housing — but drew a hard line in what that ought to look like.
“I’m done with single-family homes,” he said. “I don’t want to encourage that in any way. I’m looking at this through a lens of mitigating gentrification and affordability — values we’ve talked about for the 12 years I’ve been on Council.”
Housh and others alluded to the Housing Needs Assessment of Yellow Springs — authored in 2018 by Bowen National Research, costing the Village $24,500 — which recommended expanding the local housing market by building 100 subsidized rental units, 80 low-income rental housing units, 70 affordable workforce rental units, 60 market-rate homes, 15 beds in senior care housing, 40 entry-level homes, 30 moderate-income homes, and 120 high-income homes.
While Yellow Springs gained some new residential units in the seven years since the Bowen study, the village still falls short of its recommendations.
Home, Inc., in 2018, built the six-unit Forest Village homes — its first slate of affordable, multi-family rentals — and then in 2021, sponsored the construction of the 12-unit Glen Cottages pocket neighborhood along Xenia Avenue.
The Spring Meadows subdivision’s 89 market-rate homes and the forthcoming Cascades senior rentals have likewise made inroads to meeting the outlined housing recommendations.
Village Manager Johnnie Burns said that, while he supported the findings of the Bowen study, it had some limitations: It didn’t account for expanding needed municipal infrastructure to accommodate the recommended increase in housing, nor the capacity from current Village staff to make it all happen.
Burns later said that his administrative team is again in discussions with Bowen National Research to update the study to account for more current housing needs and market prices — an update Village Planning and Economic Director Meg Leatherman later told the News that would cost around $27,000.
The village manager said that he is also working with AES Corporation, a utility and power generation company and Village partner, to conduct impact studies that would determine the extent to which the Village’s electrical grid could accommodate new residential developments.
The water treatment plant, Burns said, is presently at a third of its capacity; it was engineered to handle 1 million gallons a day, and on average, it takes in 330,000 gallons. As a caveat, Burns said that adding hundreds of homes or apartments could impact water flow, and would potentially spur the Village to erect a third water tower.
Wastewater is a different story, Burns noted. According to him, the Village is between 60 and 70% capacity; should it reach 80%, the Environmental Protection Agency would impose stricter regulations and processing policies.
“So we need slow, smart growth,” Burns told Council members. “As an administration, we’re doing the best we can to keep our heads above water.”
Burns added that moving forward, the Village ought to consider and consult with the Miami Township Trustees and the YS Board of Education regarding growth.
Police Chief Paige Burge’s remarks on future growth were straightforward.
“More people means more [officers] needed and more stuff needed,” Chief Burge said, implying the police department’s need to keep pace with any uptick in population.
Council President Stokes insisted on continuing municipal and intergovernmental discussions around local growth.
“The time to do it is now,” he said. “We need to make efforts to shape or reshape the community, and we need to have a real serious effort right now. The results will be apparent.”
The next Village Council meeting will be held Monday, July 7, at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers on the second floor of the John Bryan Community Center.
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