Plans for Yellow Springs’ longtime, downtown grocery store Tom’s Market to change its business model are pressing ahead.
A press release from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, Monday, Feb. 23, said that the foundation struck an agreement with Tom’s Market owner Jeff Gray with the goal of “transitioning the business into a form of community ownership in approximately two years.”
During this “transition period,” the statement reads, “Tom’s Market will continue operating as usual.”
The announcement means Tom’s Market is one step closer to becoming a co-op, a cooperatively-owned grocery store in which individuals could buy ownership shares, engage in decision-making, vote on operational matters, share in profits and receive discounts on products.
The sale price and exact terms of the agreement are confidential as dictated by the agreement, Project Manager and village resident Kumar Jensen wrote to the News.
“That being said, I can share that the purchase will include all assets owned by the business including such things as: inventory, equipment, vendor contracts, supplier agreements, licenses, business name, etc.,” Jensen said.
Having signed a letter of intent, both Gray and the foundation have entered into a 90-day due diligence period.
According to Jensen, that period allows the buyer — in this case, the Yellow Springs Community Foundation — the opportunity to “do as thorough business operations as possible and complete any critical business transition tasks before the sale is finalized.”
Specifically:
- Conducting an equipment inventory and evaluation to ensure that equipment including things like refrigerators and freezers are operating as described;
- Conducting an inventory audit of all goods that will be included in the sale of the business; and
- Identify which licenses, permits and certifications will transfer with the business, versus needing new registrations.
“For example,” Jensen wrote, addressing the latter point, “We do not want to see a lapse in the grocery being able to accept SNAP, so the due diligence period gives us time to work to get the new owners authorized to accept SNAP.”
Once this 90-day due diligence period is completed, Jensen said, and if both parties are satisfied, then the sale will be completed, at which point the ownership will change hands. Until then, ownership will remain in Gray’s hands.
“During [the due diligence] period], Jeff Gray will remain actively involved in management while YSCF recruits and trains new leadership,” reads the foundation’s press release. “YSCF has enlisted the support of local and national experts, including participating in the Food Co-op Initiative’s Co-op Conversion learning cohort and support from Co-op Dayton, to assist with transition planning and community ownership exploration.”
It continues: “Throughout the due diligence period and into new ownership, the top priority is to ensure continuation of smooth operations at the grocery store, including investing in necessary business operations, and supporting the existing staff, which are and will remain one of the biggest assets of the business.”
The foundation said its project team for the transition of Tom’s business model is committed to keeping the Yellow Springs community informed throughout the transformation process, and intends to hold a town hall in April.
Further coverage can be found in the Feb. 28 issue of the Yellow Springs News.
At the group’s most recent meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 17, Village Council members approved a resolution to authorize Village Manager Johnnie Burns to purchase a new police cruiser — a 2026 Police Interceptor Utility Hybrid — for $67,576.
The purchase was expected; Council had appropriated $80,000 in the 2026 budget for this purpose, answering Chief Burge’s insistence last year that the police department was long overdue for a new cruiser to replace one of several aging fleet vehicles.
Of YSPD’s six total automobiles, two are entirely non-operational — a police cruiser and the community outreach specialists’ vehicle. The forthcoming new vehicle will bring the department’s operational fleet of police cruisers to four.
The purchase also gets the Village back on track with a prior two-to-three-year replacement schedule.
At a 2026 budget-related meeting last fall, when Chief Burge petitioned Council to include new cruiser money in the year’s municipal expenses, she said that a 2023 Council decision to forego purchasing a new cruiser set into motion a series of costly consequences for the local department.
“It had a tremendous domino effect,” Chief Burge said of the 2023 decision. “The delayed replacement has caused additional maintenance costs on our vehicles — amounting to about a third of what it would have cost to buy a new vehicle.”
She added: “I can’t stress enough how important it is to get back to our rotation. If I’m being completely realistic, we should have put in [YSPD’s 2026 budget requests] for two cars. But I understand that’s not feasible. You’ll be seeing me come back to Council next year for that second replacement.”
Burns said as much at Tuesday’s meeting — that his ideal fleet is five functioning cruisers. He said he also hopes to integrate all-electric vehicles into the local fleet, but for now, the Bryan Center’s infrastructure can’t accommodate that goal.
More closely on the horizon for YSPD are new body-worn and dash cameras; officers have been getting trained on the new technology all this week.
As the News reported earlier this year, one of Council’s last pieces of legislation of 2025 was the authorization of Burns to enter into a contract with Axon Enterprise, Inc. to upgrade YSPD’s previous cameras that he and Chief Burge said had the potential to malfunction and pose bodily harm to an officer.
The new cameras from Axon — a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company that manufactures weapons and technology products for military, law enforcement and civilian use — will cost the Village $18,252 annually, or about $2,000 more than the Village’s previous contract with Digital Ally.
In other body camera-related news, YSPD was awarded a $32,111 grant through the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services. According to Burns’ manager’s report, delivered at the Tuesday Council meeting, those funds will be used to “sustain and support” the body-worn camera “program” in Yellow Springs through 2027.
Presently, the local police department is composed of 16 individuals: Chief Burge, four dispatchers, one dispatch supervisor, a sergeant, a property room manager, five full-time officers, one part-time officer, and two community outreach specialists/victim advocates. Without two additional officers, the department is not considered fully staffed.
To thunderous applause and cheers from the hundreds of villagers packed in the John Bryan Center gym on Monday, Jan. 19 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — longtime villager and Community Outreach Specialist Florence Randolph received the year’s Peacemaker Award.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you,” Randolph told the crowd, fighting back tears. “I say thank you to everyone in this room who has supported me. It has been my life’s journey to help those in need — to help all of you.”
Since 2018, Randolph has worked for the Yellow Springs Police Department as a community outreach specialist, providing social services to village residents, workers and visitors, and connecting individuals to material and mental health resources.
“Florence’s life and work are rooted in service, faith and a belief that every person deserves dignity, hope and support,” MLK Day Planning Committee Chair Linda Cox said before presenting the annual award.
“She brings a powerful sense of purpose to everything she does,” Cox added. “She is a voice of hope.”
By accepting the Peacemaker Award, Randolph joins the ranks of past local recipients, inclduing Bomani Moyenda, Joan Chappelle, Andree Bognar, Willa Dallas, Phyllis Jackson and other village activists and agents of change.
“Everything I do in my life is dedicated to Jesus Christ,” Randolph said. “Everyone I help is in my prayers — I pray for you all in the morning, when I’m with you, at night. You all are always covered by my prayers.”
According to the most recent Village Manager’s report, Randolph — as well as her co-specialist Danny Steck — served more than 160 individuals over the course of a single week earlier this month; the pair provided those folks with 44 food vouchers, four bus tokens, seven instances of advocacy for victims of a crime, rental assistance, utility assistance and more.
One of the individuals on the receiving end of Randolph’s aid approached the podium as she was delivering her “thank you” speech.
“Florence is an angel,” the man told the crowd. “She saved my life. She deserves everything she gets in life.”
Following the conferral of the Peacemaker Award, Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration continued with vocal arrangements by the World House Choir and a solo performance by Chloe Richardson; readings of student essays, (which will be published in a future issue of the News); a spoken word performance by humorist and oratory artist Phenom Brown; as well as a speech by the day’s featured speaker, activist and author Kevin Powell.
As is tradition for Yellow Springs’ celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the program concluded with a soup lunch. Owing to the morning’s frigid temperatures, the march that would have preceded the indoor program was canceled.
With longtime Executive Director Mike Montgomery having retired Jan. 9, Friends Care Community is stepping into a transitional period — one in which the nonprofit long-term care provider is asking itself, and the wider Yellow Springs community: How can Friends Care survive and thrive into the future, and what role will the community play in that effort?
The shift comes as Friends Care faces the same financial and structural pressures affecting long-term care facilities nationwide, but often intensified for nonprofit communities that are independent and not part of larger managed care organizations. Board President James Duffee told the News this month that Friends Care’s coming months will be focused on reassessing its services and, hopefully, deeper community engagement.
Duffee, a retired pediatrician who joined the Friends Care board a little over two years ago and became its president shortly thereafter, said the warning signs were already apparent when he arrived.
“When I joined the board, it was very clear that there was a developing financial crisis,” Duffee said. “But a crisis is an opportunity as well.”
Like many long-term care providers, Friends Care has been affected by payment rates, including Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, that have failed to keep pace with the cost of care; as the News reported last year, data from the CDC and health policy organization KFF reveal that Medicaid covers more than 60% of residents in nursing homes, about 20% of people in assisted living and more than half of all long-term care residents in the U.S. Duffee said rising costs and funding shortfalls have affected “all of healthcare, but long-term care in particular.”
According to a 2024 report from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, since 2020, more than 62,000 nursing home beds have been lost nationwide, and at least 774 nursing homes have closed, displacing 28,421 residents. In Ohio alone, 17 nursing homes closed in fiscal year 2023. Nationwide, 46% of nursing homes are limiting new admissions and 57% have wait lists.
Friends Care’s long mission of operating as an independent nonprofit, Duffee said, means the organization can’t respond to ongoing pressures by spreading costs across multiple sites or subsidizing losses in one area with profits from another, as would be the case if it were part of a large corporate health system. Adding to the strain, Duffee said, is managed care, an insurance model designed to control costs by steering patients within specific provider networks.
Particularly with regard to rehabilitation — a service offered by Friends Care — Duffee said managed care often means patients must actively request to recover at Friends Care rather than being referred there automatically, because corporate healthcare systems prefer to use their own, in-network, rehab units.
Duffee said part of the challenge is “right-sizing” the services Friends Care offers. In skilled nursing, census levels have lagged behind capacity; the facility currently operates 59 skilled-nursing beds, including 16 for rehabilitation, but Duffee said those beds are often underfilled. At the same time, Friends Care maintains strong demand for assisted living and independent living, with active wait lists for both.
That contrast prompted the organization to ask what services it should prioritize going forward. Friends Care circulated an informal community survey in late 2023, receiving about 100 responses. Duffee emphasized that it was a “survey of convenience,” not a scientific sample, but said the responses revealed some trends.
“What was important for the community were things like more independent-living units, more assisted-living units, memory care,” Duffee said. Respondents also expressed interest in home-based services for those who prefer to age in place, including home care and therapy programs.
“In general and particularly regarding memory care, in the words of one of the survey respondents, ‘the need will mushroom,’” Duffee said.
The Friends Care board also hired PMD Advisory Services to conduct a market feasibility analysis, aiming to understand what expanding services might look like. The study echoed feedback from the community, finding demand in the wider Miami Valley for additional independent living, assisted living and assisted living memory care.
The PMD study rated the Friends Care campus as a good location for continued investment, citing municipal utilities, zoning, vehicle access, proximity to Miami Township Fire-Rescue and YS Police Department, proximity to parks and recreation and churches and neighborhood safety as its strengths. It also identified weaknesses in the site, including limited public transit access and less-than-optimal proximity to a full-service hospital.
Friends Care currently maintains 11 independent-living residences and 20 assisted-living apartments. PMD recommended that Friends Care offer 20 additional independent-living duplex residences, 12 additional assisted-living beds and 24 assisted-living memory-care beds.
Another PMD study, focused on skilled nursing, recommended a shift toward a for-profit model — an option Duffee said the board rejected.
“We want to remain independent and remain community-based and not for profit,” he said.
The question, Duffee said, is how to move forward without losing that identity — and how to pay for it.
“I believe that can happen, but the pathway isn’t clear at this point, and we definitely need community support to do that,” Duffee said.
To help navigate that pathway, Friends Care contracted with AQORD, a health and human services organization rooted in Quaker and Mennonite traditions; Duffee said the choice of AQORD reflects the board’s commitment to Quaker values, which have informed the mission of Friends Care since it opened in 1980.
In working with AQORD, Friends Care brought in interim administrator Sean Riley to step in following the retirement of Mike Montgomery as executive director. Riley is employed by AQORD and will work with Friends Care on a short-term basis while the board conducts its own search for a permanent executive director.
“[Riley is] a consultant to the board,” Duffee said. “He’s not just putting his credentials on the wall and keeping the lights on.”
Riley is expected to evaluate internal processes and help Friends Care assess new service lines, including whether home-based programs and expanded memory-care options could be developed within Friends Care’s capacity.
“I don’t know what I don’t know,” Duffee said. “So Sean’s going to tell us what we don’t know.”
Any future expansion, Duffee said, will require significant investment, first through renovation of existing space, and later through potential additional units and programming. Friends Care has seen a modest uptick in donations over the past year, Duffee said, but large-scale, dedicated fundraising is on the horizon.
“We’re going to need to do a capital campaign within the next few years,” he said. “But what I’m interested in right now is social capital rather than financial capital. We need people’s awareness.”
Ultimately, Duffee said, Friends Care’s future will depend on whether the community sees the facility as both an asset and a shared responsibility.
“Very frankly, we need to make sure that Friends Care is here in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years,” he said. “We want to remain not for profit. We want to remain independent. We want to remain community-based — but that means the community needs to be engaged more.”
The News will continue to follow up with Friends Care Community as it develops plans for the future.
On Wednesday morning, Feb. 18, at around 8 a.m., firefighters and engines from five area departments rushed to a farm on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, about a mile west of village limits, to douse a fire that erupted near a home that was being demolished.
According to Miami Township Fire-Rescue Chief James Cannell, workers taking down the structure had intentionally set fire to a debris pile near the demolition site.
The fire was extinguished entirely about three hours after responders arrived on the scene, using 3,500 gallons of water, Cannell said. No injuries were reported.
Since Wednesday, Cannell said the incident has been reported to the Regional Air Pollution Control Agency for investigation of an unauthorized open burn.
“Unauthorized burning will not be tolerated due to the significant risks it creates,” Cannell wrote to the News.
“When crews respond to what is believed to be a structure fire, firefighters must prepare for worst-case scenarios, including the possibility of trapped occupants,” he said. “Such responses require substantial manpower and equipment, placing firefighters in harm’s way and temporarily removing critical emergency resources from their home communities.”
Cannell continued: “In addition to safety concerns, illegal burns contribute to air pollution and may violate local and regional environmental regulations. Residents who wish to burn brush or other approved natural materials are reminded that they must first contact their local fire department and obtain an authorized controlled burn permit. Permits ensure that burns are conducted safely, legally and under appropriate weather and environmental conditions.”
The News reached out to the property owner, Charles DeLacey, who purchased the 185-acre farm — as well as the dilapidated barn and home on the property — late last year. At the time of the fire and demolition of the unoccupied structures DeLacey was away, but he regretted the consequences of his contractors’ actions.
“It was embarrassing,” DeLacey said. “We are very sorry this issue interrupted the daily commute on this main thoroughfare.”
As previously reported in the News, the DeLacey and Coppock families are working to retool the large swath of farmland — which went under a conservation easement at the time of the purchase — into a regenerative farm for free-range livestock grazing.
DeLacey said they intend to build a new barn at 136 East Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, which will house the farm’s general store and “other parts of the operation.”
ED. NOTE: The print version of this story that appeared in the Feb. 20 issue of the News incorrectly stated that the fire occurred on Tuesday, Feb. 17. The story has been updated to reflect the correct date.
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