It’s been about a month since the Village of Yellow Springs welcomed its newest staffer — Nía Holt has stepped in as the new planning and zoning administrator.
The Dayton-based planner fills a vacancy left open since last November when former planning admin Meg Leatherman left the Village for the private sector to work as a planning and construction manager for Premier Health Partners.
Still getting settled in her Bryan Center office, Holt’s already gotten an earful from village residents — that we need more downtown parking, that we need less, bikes should be better accommodated, rentals are too expensive and the for-sale homes are in bad shape.
“I definitely want to hear from people and learn from each person’s perspective, but be patient with me as I’m learning,” Holt said in an interview with the News earlier this week. “I know there are going to be competing points of view, but there’s also going to be some overlap. How can we work together to find that?”
Holt comes to the Village with more than a decade of professional planning and economic development experience.
For nearly four years following grad school, she worked as a planner for the Louisville Metro Government. There, Holt helped the city meet some of the charges of a recent housing report. Along with others, she conducted a major review of Louisville’s zoning code and made adjustments to such provisions as minimum lot sizes that made new build costs prohibitive.
“It was a balance in preserving the character of neighborhoods, but also allowing those who live there to get additional income,” Holt explained.
Then, in late 2020, she returned to her hometown of Dayton to reunite with her family, and served as the City of Riverside’s zoning administrator for three years. After that stint, she ascended to the role of the city’s community development director.
When she got to Riverside, the city had just updated its land use plan. Holt was tasked with facilitating a change in the way the city enforces its property maintenance rules — what she described as a swing from proactive enforcement to an approach that was more resident-friendly.
Holt said that meant giving homeowners a little grace — as opposed to imposing an immediate penalty — on cutting their overgrown grass or painting their homes if they could show they were at least working toward a solution.
The best part of her job as Riverside’s planner: “Engaging with people and the community — having open houses, going to schools to talk to students about zoning.”
The latter bit included reading the children’s book “Ava Tanner the City Planner,” by Corrin Wendell, at all four Riverside elementary schools to get kids jazzed about the wondrous world of municipal design. Holt said that something like that could be possible here in Yellow Springs, but cautioned that it took a great deal of work and coordination.
When she became the community development director of Riverside — overseeing the planning department — she focused more on the city’s economy writ large: business retention, connecting residents to development grants and more.
Though Holt said she’s still parsing out the nuances between approaches to urban and rural planning, she sees a number of parallels between her past experiences and what’s ahead of her here in Yellow Springs.
“People want to be heard,” Holt said. “And you can’t just hear what someone said and move on. You need to actually respond to their concerns. Does a project need traffic mitigation? OK, would speed bumps work? A different traffic pattern?”
She continued: “That was a lesson from a neighborhood plan I helped with in Walnut Hills community [in Dayton]. It’s the people who live in and have an understanding of a neighborhood who are the experts about their community. You need to get Grandma Josephine and the small businesses and the developer and the neighbors to come together to make decisions and come to a consensus. Then you can move forward on a plan.”
And a lot of plans are in motion here in Yellow Springs that will soon call for Holt’s scrutiny:
There’s Columbus-based real estate developer Windsor Companies’ intentions to build more than 100 apartment units on properties formerly associated with Antioch College; the final plat plans for those apartments are anticipated to be submitted within the year.
In the northwest quadrant of the village, there may soon be a 190-unit subdivision expansion to Spring Meadows, involving the proposed construction of 120 attached single-family units — 12 condos with 10 dwelling units in each — and 70 detached single-family homes. Planning Commission approved a preliminary plat application for those plans in November.
In the western-most part of Yellow Springs is the 35-acre Center for Business and Education — a good majority of which is unoccupied, and which the Village has sought to commercially develop for more than a decade.
Empty storefronts, Airbnbs, vacant homes, costly rentals and accessibility are also not infrequent topics brought before Planning Commission and Village staffers.
Holt will make her first stab at helping the current Village Council address some of Yellow Springs’ housing-related ambitions at a day-long retreat on Thursday, June 25 — which had not yet occurred by press time, but will be covered for next week’s issue of the News.
According to documents made available before Thursday’s housing retreat, Holt will give a “SWOT analysis” of the Village zoning code — honing in on the code’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
“Basically seeing what in the code is salvageable,” Holt said.
In a memo to Council for the group’s consideration on Thursday, she wrote, “Several modest amendments to the zoning code could address housing attainability without fundamentally changing the village’s development character.”
She continued: “Examples of potential amendments include permitting accessory dwelling units by right when objective standards are met, reducing or eliminating parking requirements for smaller housing types and mixed-use developments [as well as] allowing greater flexibility for pocket neighborhood developments.”
As Holt suggested, these amendments would heed the recommendations outlined in the Village’s last Comprehensive Land Use Plan updates in 2020 — many of which called for additional housing, and few of which have been fully addressed.
“Making more housing a reality was up front in every interview with the Village I had,” Holt said. “I’m excited to get back into that realm.”
How best to do that, Holt believes, is to focus on in-fill — “probably the better way for Yellow Springs to grow and grow responsibly.”
Yellow Springs will host a “July 4 Community Celebration” with traditional activities during the day and evening that Saturday.
The annual parade through town will step off at noon, with the lineup beginning at 11 a.m. behind the Miami Township fire station. Individuals, families, groups and organizations are welcome to join the festivities; no registration required. The parade route is down Xenia Avenue from the fire station, through downtown, concluding at Corry Street.
The evening celebration will begin at 6 p.m. at Gaunt Park. Food trucks will be on hand, and the Community Band will perform. The annual fireworks display will begin after dark.
Last summer, one of the things Mira Carpe brought home from Antioch College’s Roots and Wings day camp was a recipe. The campers had made what she called “monster ball things,” rolled together from M&M’s, peanut butter, honey, oats and chocolate chips.
“You just roll them up into a ball and then put them in the freezer,” she said. “And then you get to eat them.”
Carpe said cooking was one of the parts of camp that surprised her; she already liked the idea of learning to cook, but “liked it a lot more” than she thought she would.
This summer, Carpe will return to Roots and Wings for five weekdays filled with yoga, crafts, games, farm time, campus walks — and another helping of snacks made in the Antioch kitchens.
Roots and Wings day camp will be held Monday–Friday, July 6–10, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. The day camp, now in its second year and recommended for rising second through sixth graders, aims to bring young campers into its educational hubs — including the Wellness Center, farm, kitchens and the Coretta Scott King Center — for varied activities that touch on movement, arts, cuisine, agriculture and social awareness, within a connective web of cross-camp collaboration.
Wellness Center Director Kathy Kern Ross, who leads the camp, said Roots and Wings began as its own kind of collaboration among Antioch’s hubs as a way to connect more deeply with the village: “The College wanted to outreach to the youth in the community,” Ross said.
Ross has experience with event management and youth camps, and previously worked as a waterfront director at YMCA Camp High Rock in the Berkshire Mountains, where she helped oversee watersports and arts and crafts activities for hundreds of campers each week. At Antioch, though the registration numbers are smaller, the days are still filled with activity, she said.
“We’ve tried to have some structure that we repeat for the campers each day, so that they have a schedule they can get used to,” Ross said.
Each day begins with yoga, led by philosophy professor Lara Mitias, who Ross said often builds each session around a story or theme. After a morning snack, the day opens up, with rotating activities; this year, it might be a Black history walking tour led by history professor Kevin McGruder, or campers might get a visit from Miami Township Fire-Rescue and learn about fire safety.
Next comes lunch, which campers bring from home, and then recreational time — ping-pong, gym play, pickleball, board games — before heading into afternoon activities. Depending on the day, those might include heading to the Coretta Scott King Center to work with faculty member and center Director Queen Zabriskie on social development activities, interactive games, crafts and collaborative work.
Or students might visit the Antioch kitchen, led by Dawn Richter, to meet staff and learn new recipes. Last year, in addition to the “monster balls” Carpe remembered, campers also made pickles, strawberry jam, and yogurt bark — and if campers didn’t finish their treats on-site, they could carry them home at the end of the day.
“They loved that part,” Ross said.
The camp also includes time at the Antioch Farm, led by Farm Manager Bruce Linebaugh. Ross said campers enjoyed visiting the farm’s chickens, watering plants, making crafts with seeds and tasting fresh carrots and tomatoes.
Moving between spaces is part of the experience, too; Ross said staff try to turn walks across campus into nature walks, where they might notice deer, squirrels, plants and other wildlife. And one of those trips across campus yielded a lesson in American Sign Language, or ASL, from Antioch College President Jane Fernandes — a detail Mira Carpe’s mom, Kelly Carpe, remembered with some surprise.
“She came home one day and said, ‘Oh, I was learning sign language — we learned it from some lady named Jane,’” Kelly Carpe said with a laugh.
And nearly a year later, Mira Carpe said, she still remembers part of the ASL alphabet.
Roots and Wings also features a performing arts component, which brings another piece of Ross’s background into the camp: “I’m actually a professional clown,” she said.
Last year, under Ross’s professional clown eye, campers tried juggling scarves and bean bags, miming and interactive games. This year, Ross said, she may add balloon twisting and spinning plates to the curriculum.
The camp is staffed in part by Wellness Center lifeguards, who act as counselors. Ross said the arrangement gives campers attentive support and gives the lifeguards a chance to work with children in a different capacity. This year, Roots and Wings is also adding a counselor-in-training role after one camper aged out of the program but wanted to return.
Kelly Carpe said the camp appealed to her first on a practical level; last year, she was working full time, and as a single parent, she was looking for somewhere enriching where young Mira could spend part of her summer. Roots and Wings stood out, she said, because it was nearby and offered a range of activities in an atypical setting.
“When you’re a working parent and have limited options, it’s nice to know there’s an option at Antioch,” she said. “And after the camp was over, I felt like, because there weren’t so many kids there, she got a lot of attention and learned a lot. She came home with a lot of crafts that she wanted to show me, and she was just always in a good mood when she got home.”
This year, Kelly Carpe said she’s teaching and has the summer off — but Mira still wanted to return.
“She’s still going back because she liked it a lot,” she said. “I think it’s a really good way for Antioch to do more outreach to the community.”
Ross said what she ultimately hopes all campers will take home after the week of Roots and Wings is, of course, memories of the fun they had participating in movement, art, cooking, history and outdoor time.
But the larger goal, she said, is helping children develop “life skills” within a community setting. In that way, she said, the camp offers youth a kind of early introduction to the values of a liberal arts education: hands-on learning, collaboration, social awareness and moving between different kinds of inquiry over the course of a single day.
“You need those team-building, social life skills, no matter what you do later in life,” Ross said.
Registration for Roots and Wings is requested by Tuesday, July 1; scholarships are available. For more information, or to register, go to http://www.antiochcollege.edu/event/roots-wings-youth-camp-2
When we go to the theater, we all know the drill — we keep quiet and we stay in our seats.
Little Art Theatre patrons in the mood for some music might just be tempted to ignore those typical guidelines during an upcoming double-bill performance from electronic duo Extraordinary Twins and local rapper and artist Tronee Threat.
The show, billed as “A Multimedia Extravaganza!” is set for Wednesday, July 1, beginning at 7 p.m., and will feature visual elements, including a light show, and a pair of acts who are joining forces based on a shared vibe rather than a shared genre.
Tronee Threat — Guy “Tron” Banks — has been making music in and around the village for four years, and is well-known about town for dealing in vibrant hip-hop, with lyrics that often lean into political and social justice themes.
Extraordinary Twins — Caleab Wyant and Andrew Halsey — with long pedigrees in the Dayton music scene, held their first live show as a duo in April at Dayton’s Tooth Lodge, debuting a danceable electronic sound rooted in nu-disco and what Halsey called “that old ancient bloghouse stuff” of the mid-to-late 2000s, and older “French house stuff,” as Wyant said.
Wyant, who manages the Little Art, has been booking live music at the theater for the last couple of years, with help and curation from Dayton-area musician Kyleen Downes. When Extraordinary Twins was looking for someone with whom to share the bill for their second-ever show, Downes suggested Tronee Threat.
“As soon as she suggested him, I was like, ‘Of course,’ because it’s super high-energy — thick beats, and loud — and really perfect in combo with what we’re doing,” Wyant said.
After Tronee heard a sample of the Twins’ work, he said, he was on board, too: “The hip-hop and the EDM feel with that bass is gonna hit, and then for the theater itself, with that cinematic vibe, we’ll be creating that cinematic type of energy.”
In other words: Folks should expect a good show, and if they’re able, they should get ready to move.
Extraordinary Twins’ live setup is part musical performance, part technical choreography. Halsey triggers tracks and sequences live, while Wyant plays synthesizer; the two have worked to make their equipment speak to each other, so that changing a song or section can automatically cue synth tones, presets and lights. Halsey said that, though the duo has only performed live once thus far, they’ve spent a couple of years honing their sounds and sequences.
“We’re trying to come out of the gate and have something slightly more polished, rather than feeling like we’re just kind of winging it,” he said, adding with a laugh: “I’m tired of winging it for my first shows.”
Wyant and Halsey became friends by way of the Dayton music scene; Wyant, who has lived in Yellow Springs for 17 years, was part of the punk-prog-electronica outfit He Laughs He Learns He Loves, while Daytonian Halsey was, at the time, part of the prog-punk band Abertooth Lincoln.
The two later worked together when Halsey helped produce an early album for YIKES! (A Band), another of Wyant’s earlier projects. They started working on Extraordinary Twins in earnest in 2023, building on what Wyant described as overlapping tastes with just enough difference in approach to keep the collaboration interesting.
“I have more of a background in songwriting, and he has way more experience with recording and sound design,” Wyant said. “We complement different parts of each other — but I also feel like I’m learning more about the production side of things, and he’s been bringing in a tremendous amount of the writing stuff. So it’s all started to blend together.”
The upcoming show marks the Twins’ village debut; at the same time, Tronee Threat has become a familiar presence in town within the span of just a few years — though he said that stretch feels longer just because “it’s been eventful.”
To that end, Tronee has performed widely in the village and surrounding area, dropping new music regularly via online platforms. Earlier this year, he debuted a music-driven film project, “In the Bluff,” a meditative, dream-like short filmed in the historically Black Oak Bluffs community on Martha’s Vineyard.
With so much exposure in and around town, Tronee said he aims not to repeat himself; around the time of his interview with the News, he said he was gearing up for performances at Herndon Gallery and the Levitt Pavilion in Dayton and a Juneteenth show at the Bryan Center, and none of them will feature the same set.
“If somebody wants me to be with them in community in the spirit of music, I already made a promise that if I can do it, I’m going to say ‘yes’ to it,” he said. “And the good thing about my creativity is that I’m going to do all of those shows, and you’re not going to hear or see the same thing.”
He said his forthcoming album, “Hero Villain,” will delve into heavier material — including the way his own stage name references both affection and perceived menace. Taken from his middle name, Latron, he said “Tronee” was the nickname his grandmother called him “out of love.” “Threat” was initially meant in the same way one might use the term “triple threat” to mean multitalented — “but when I said it, everybody took it in a negative way,” he said, and he was led to explore why.
“So later, it became more about how people see me as a Black man in America — a threat, right?” he said. “So [“Hero Villain”] arises from my day-to-day experience, and talking about that.”
For the Little Art show, however, he said he’ll be in what he called “Summertime Tronee” mode — lighter, playful, a little bit of release.
“Summertime Tronee is all light, because it’s gonna get real heavy when his album comes out,” he said. “This is a trying time, and we have a lot of serious work we gotta do, so this is kind of like my summer vacation from the serious work.”
He added: “It’s like taking a quick breath, and I’m gonna do that through the music.”
That breath will still likely be loud, Tronee said — his Little Art set will include on-screen visuals, and he said he hopes to make audience members feel like they’re watching a movie. Wyant said the Twins have a similar goal, and that the theater lends itself to that kind of performance — focused, cinematic and big.
“It will be loud, but loud in the way that a movie is loud,” he said. “And it’ll sound good, too.”
The performers said they hope audiences come with an open mind — and perhaps a willingness to participate in the Yellow Springs way. Tronee described local audiences as ready to participate, but not pushy about it.
“They will if you ask,” he said. “And they won’t if you don’t, but it doesn’t mean they don’t like it.”
Wyant said he hopes the show opens the door for more like it: high-energy collabs based on shared feeling, but with a diversity of sound — acts that are game to team up and see what happens.
“I would argue that what we’re doing and what he’s doing is more compatible than the punk bands we would traditionally have played with,” he said. “I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
Tickets for “A Multimedia Extravaganza!” with Extraordinary Twins and Tronee Threat at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 1, are $15 in advance and $20 at the door; for advance tickets, go to http://www.littleart.com
At its Wednesday, June 10, regular meeting, the YS Board of Education received an update on the district’s ongoing facilities project, which is entering its final summer stretch; the meeting was held at MVECA while both Mills Lawn and YS Middle and High School remain under construction.
Superintendent Megan Winston opened the facilities discussion by noting a false start earlier that day at the middle and high school campus, where demolition of the former high school tower had been slated to begin that morning.
“Well, it’s been a day,” Winston said.
Staff and community members had gathered at the school in anticipation of the demolition, she said, including a group of Mills Lawn students who sat nearby cheering for the building to come down.
However, demolition was halted soon after it began: The demolition crew’s excavator poked a large hole in the tower and revealed an insulation material with which workers were unfamiliar, and the crew halted work until they could determine whether or not the material contained toxins or carcinogens.
“Unfortunately, in phased projects, it’s very common for those to be rescheduled for many reasons, and safety is our number one priority,” Winston said.
The material was later found not to contain harmful substances, and demolition resumed Monday, June 15, again witnessed by a group of students, alumni, community members and staff; by Monday evening, enough of the tower had been deconstructed to reveal a cross-section of the rooms inside the three-story facility.
After Winston’s brief report on the demolition stall, Director of Operations Jeff Eyrich delivered the district’s master facilities update, beginning by thanking district staff, administrators, custodians and summer workers for clearing out classrooms ahead of the final leg of the project.
“What a year it’s been,” Eyrich said.
At Mills Lawn, he said, the district is currently in the third phase of renovation work.
The school’s kitchen has been demolished and is expected to be rebuilt soon. East-side classrooms are nearly complete, with carpet, ceiling tiles, cabinetry and sinks nearing completion. Eyrich added that work on the Mills Lawn gym is expected to begin within the next few weeks, with rooftop and gym work forthcoming. A larger “facelift” of the gym — painting, new pads and updates to the stage — is set to begin in early July.
At YS Middle and High School, Eyrich said, work has focused on preparing for the demolition of the tower and removing modular classrooms from the campus.
Two modulars had already been removed by the time of the meeting, and Eyrich said all modulars were expected to be gone this week, after the tower is fully demolished. He also noted that work has begun in the existing gym, which is being converted into the school’s new auditorium, and is expected to be completed in October; the rest of the school is expected to be ready for students by the time the new school year begins.
“I appreciate your support and the ongoing unknowns that we get through,” Eyrich said. “But we make it happen. We will be ready again.”
The June 10 meeting also marked Winston’s first as superintendent, following the retirement of former Superintendent Terri Holden at the end of May.
“Just finished Day 8 of superintendentship,” Winston said during her superintendent’s report. “I feel really lucky to be here in Yellow Springs with such creative students, dedicated teachers, committed family members and definitely the community.”
Exam exemption policy updated
During the latter half of the meeting, the board approved updated student handbooks for Mills Lawn and YS Middle and High School. The new handbooks reflect the shift in school-day start and end times for the coming year: Mills Lawn will operate from 8:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. for students in kindergarten through fourth grade, and students in grades five through 12 at YS Middle and High School will attend from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The updated handbook for YS Middle and High School also includes a new policy regarding exam exemptions; as the News reported previously, in March, a group of students spoke before the school board about the attendance-based exam exemption policy, which grants one or two exam exemptions if students maintain at least a 94% attendance rate.
The students asked that the district reconsider the policy on two fronts: first, that illness be taken into account, since sick days count against the attendance threshold for exam exemptions; and second, that the three excused days juniors and seniors are allowed each school year to visit college campuses should not count against potential exam exemptions.
The new handbook policy now allows those excused college visits without a penalty for exam exemptions.
“[YS Middle and High School Principal] Jack Hatert heard from the students and heard from the parents, and they have changed the policy,” Winston said.
Though the policy does not include new language around illness exam exemptions, it does retain previous language stating that “catastrophic student injury or illness may be taken into consideration when determining eligibility for an exemption.”
Owing to summer schedules, the next regular school board meeting will be held Tuesday, July 7, beginning at 6 p.m., at MVECA, located at 888 Dayton St.
Contact: chuck@ysnews.com
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