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In a tale of resilience and community support, local resident Patrick Harney — known affectionately by villagers as “Brother Bear” — recently shared with the News his story of overcoming health challenges while grappling with the financial strain it has placed on his coffee business.
A longtime microbatch coffee roaster and wholesaler — you might see his coffee blends for sale locally at The Emporium, Tom’s Market, Sunrise Cafe and Clifton Mill — and owner of Brother Bear’s Mobile Espresso Bar, Harney has also practiced as a licensed massage therapist for over a decade. He told the News that he was in the midst of a routine massage session in January when he incurred an injury.
“I’ve got one move that I slide my client’s body and help stretch out the trapezius on the back,” Harney said. “And when I did that, I went to go take my arm out, and I heard a pop on my shoulder.”
Initially, Harney said, he looked to massage therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic measures for relief, but the pain soon escalated. Harney was later diagnosed with a herniated disc, in which one of the rubbery discs between the spinal vertebrae is injured — in Harney’s case, an MRI revealed that a disc in his neck was pinching a nerve. The injury caused ongoing pain and led to limited mobility in Harney’s right arm.
As his health deteriorated, Harney said he faced the daunting reality of closing his massage practice, unable to fulfill his obligations at the Humanist Building due to his difficulty with movement. With mounting medical bills and the burden of a monthly loan payment for his mobile espresso trailer, Harney began to feel financial, as well as physical, strain.
“The coffee business is definitely feeling the financial burden of me not being able to do massage,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Harney said he has found solace and support within the tight-knit Yellow Springs community. Through social media outreach, he received a stream of encouragement and assistance, with friends and family rallying to lend helping hands. His partner, Phoenix Fyre, along with his brother and nephew, stepped up and helped him with bagging roasted coffee.
While physical assistance has been readily available, financial concerns continued to loom large, prompting Harney to temporarily halt online coffee sales to alleviate the pressure of managing wholesale accounts and website maintenance. However, following an outpouring of donations from local residents, Harney was able to reopen his website last week.
“Thank you to everyone who has donated and sent positive vibes and prayers,” Harney wrote on his Facebook page. “I’ve been able to order a little bit more coffee to roast and have the website back up for ordering.”
In the midst of adversity, Harney told the News he remains grateful for the unwavering support of Yellow Springs residents, who have been steadfast patrons of his coffee business since its inception in 2003.
Those interested in donating to Harney may do so via Venmo at @PatrickHarney70.
The community push for mediation between former Wellness Center employee Guy “Tron” Banks and Antioch College continued Friday, April 5, when several dozen local residents held a demonstration on college grounds.
As the News reported last month, Banks was fired from his position as a personal trainer at the Wellness Center in January following allegations of “threatening behavior” from Wellness Center Director Kathy Kern Ross, who was hired days before the firing took place. Banks has denied displaying threatening behavior, and Antioch College administration has not publicly commented on the details of the allegations made by Kern Ross.
Since Banks’ firing, dozens of letters to the editor in the News’ “Community Forum” section have outlined positive experiences with Banks and, noting that he is a Black man accused of misconduct by a white woman, have questioned the motivation of the firing. Letter writers have also cited an apparent lack of transparency with regard to the termination, and have called for mediation between Banks and the college — a charge initially led by local group The 365 Project, whose stated mission, in part, is “responding to public issues related to racial equity 365 days a year.”
Antioch College President Jane Fernandes wrote a brief response to letter writers and the wider community, published in the “Community Forum” section of the March 8 issue of the News, in which she stated that she was “open to the possibility that mediation and conversation will move forward in the not-too-distant future.”
Bearing signs in support of Banks, on the morning of April 5, demonstrators met outside the Wellness Center — which, according to a since-deleted post on the center’s Facebook page and a sign posted to the door of the building, was closed for the day due to “public safety concerns.” Also posted on the door, by demonstrators, was a timeline of events since Banks’ firing, which stated that there has “not been a decision to bring the issue to mediation” since Fernandes’ March 8 letter.
“We demand that President Fernandes act on Antioch College’s professed values of due process, equity, fairness and justice and agree to impartial mediation now,” the sign read.
Those gathered for the demonstration filed from the Wellness Center to the “horseshoe” outside Antioch Hall, where the group’s demands were restated. Fernandes met and spoke briefly with those gathered, but declined to comment further on the January termination of Banks.
Just over 56 years ago, on April 4, 1968, I was 13 years old and washing dishes after dinner when I heard my parents shout in unison: “NOOOOO!”
I rushed into the living room where they were watching the evening news to find out their horrified screams were prompted by the news that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered. My stepfather jumped, puffed out his chest, balled up his fist in the direction of the TV set and let out a litany of profanity that rang in my ears for days. It was a sad night in my house. King’s dream boomeranged, morphed into a nightmare and snatched his life away.
I didn’t get much sleep that night. I thought about that part of King’s iconic speech where he said he longed for the day when a man would be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. Maybe it was because by then I had read Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” and Claude Brown’s “Manchild in the Promised Land,” that I had begun to have serious doubts about the capacity of the white collective to atone for America’s original sin and learn how to treat her Black inhabitants like human beings.
Riots and fires raged in over a hundred American cities in the wake of King’s assassination, in stark opposition to his belief in nonviolent protest. As a matter of fact, after staying up all night, I plotted to start a riot at school the next day. I got out of bed, put on some old clothes that I used to mow the lawn in, and thought about how I was going to wreak havoc. Fortunately, when I arrived at school, I found it closed. I felt robbed of the opportunity to seek some sort of contorted justice for Dr. King. I was angry.
I have been angry about the maltreatment of Black people ever since those days. The longer I live, the more incidents of mistreatment, ranging from covert to blatantly overt, keep piling up. Sometimes it feels like I’m at the bottom of a pile of football players and they just keep jumping onto the pile. It’s difficult to bear this emotional weight all the time. It’s truly exhausting. I don’t say this to elicit sympathy. I say this because I must say it to survive.
I have done a lot of reading in an attempt to understand racism and white supremacy. One of the conclusions I have drawn is that there has been a tremendous amount of energy by white people to render Black people powerless, second-class citizens. This includes systematic eradication ranging from mass incarceration to state-sanctioned murder at the hands of police. There has been systematic backlash against the mere existence of Black people ever since the Emancipation Proclamation. However, I digress.
Two years ago, I encountered a white woman acquaintance in a parking lot downtown. I issued a greeting in passing asking her how she was doing. Her response was: “Well, I never thought I’d be living in a town owned by a Black man,” obviously referring to Dave Chapelle’s purchasing real estate property around town. I was caught off-guard, to say the least. While much can be said about her comment, I’ll leave that to the reader. It did, however, confirm one thing in my mind: Racist sentiment is alive and well in Yellow Springs.
This also became evident when I learned that teachers at the high school were having students debate the pros and cons of slavery. When I publicly shared that, it opened the door for Black students to share a five-page laundry list of racist incidents and eventually led to a student walkout in protest of a teacher slinging the n-word around and the same teacher calling the police on the student who confronted the teacher. The teacher was allowed to resign, avoiding discipline. More about that later.
Let’s move on to Antioch College and the recent incident of the firing of Guy Banks, known as “Tron.” Now we have a classic example of Jim Crow lynching tactics come to town. What happened to Tron is reminiscent of what happened to Emmett Till, and so many other Black men who had their lives permanently altered by the words of a white woman. Here we have a white woman, two weeks on the job, claiming that this young Black man threatened her, snatching away his livelihood.
I spoke with Tron about the incident. What stood out to me was that while he was sharing the details with me, he showed no signs of the anger or bitterness that one would rightfully expect. He seemed flabbergasted and frustrated, bewildered, that anyone could make such accusations about him. This, I thought, really rhymes with the sentiment expressed in the dozens of letters to the editor addressing the incident. The letters have expressed disbelief in the accusations and personal stories of how he has helped the people he has worked with as a personal trainer, including children and the elderly alike; you know, that whole “content of his character” thing. He is not angry, but I am angry for him. People have called for mediation. Yes, let’s have mediation. Do something!
One of the things that makes me angry is the use of the response that institutions hide behind to avoid accountability. “We can’t discuss personnel matters.” This was also used in the case of the n-word-slinging high school teacher. It has also been used in countless cases of anti-Black police brutality. We, the people, have been put in a place (once again) where we have to tolerate injustice (or not?) and those who perpetrate it. This flies in the face of what Antioch College purports itself to be, a hotbed for social justice, a claim that it makes while shaking hands with Jim Crow. This cannot continue.
Someone go help Horace Mann. I’m sure he’s trying to climb out of his grave over this.
Following unanimous approval from Yellow Springs Planning Commission members at the group’s most recent meeting, Tuesday, April 9, a 32-unit, senior-focused development is one step closer to realization.
At the meeting, Planning Commission reviewed a final planned unit development, or PUD, plan set forth by local affordable housing nonprofit YS Home, Inc., to construct its multi-family development — called “The Cascades” — on 1.8 acres between Marshall and Herman streets.
According to YS Home, Inc. Executive Director Emily Seibel, the nonprofit aims to break ground on the development later this summer; construction is currently out to bid. Seibel told the News that the budget for the project is $9–10 million.
Tuesday’s affirmative vote echoes the approval Planning Commission members gave the project’s preliminary plan application in March of last year. The vote was 4-0, with Commission Chair Susan Stiles recusing herself from the discussion and vote as a member emeritus of the Home, Inc. board of directors.
The plan for the new 32-unit housing development includes 22 affordable duplex and triplex rentals reserved for seniors — that is, those 60 years and older or those with a qualifying disability, per the Federal Home Loan Bank’s definition of “senior.” Some will be second-floor units, but most will be single story.
The remaining 10 two-story townhomes will be sold at low cost to qualifying buyers of varying ages and demographics.
“Those 10, for-sale townhomes along the residential corridor will not be age-restricted,” Seibel told Planning Commission members on Tuesday. “Based on public input, they are going to be designed to be multi-generational, meeting a variety of household needs.”
Presently, the 1.8 acres on which the development will be sited, located adjacent to the Miami Township Fire-Rescue firehouse on Xenia Avenue, are comprised of 10 parcels which are in the process of being consolidated into two parcels through a re-plat application that has been reviewed and approved by Planning and Zoning Administrator Meg Leatherman.
All 10 parcels are owned by the Morgan Family Foundation which, in 2018, entered into an agreement with YS Home, Inc. to donate the property “for the purposes of developing it with affordable housing” with the aid of a below-market-rate loan. The land was formerly part of the site that housed Wright State Physicians medical clinic.
Once finished, The Cascades will be across the street from Friends Care Community, one block from the Wellness Center at Antioch College and four blocks from the future site of the Yellow Springs Senior Center at the intersection of Livermore and East North College streets.
Pending county approval and the issuing of building permits — both of which Leatherman said are imminent — Tuesday’s Planning Commission approval gave Home Inc. the green light for all four phases of the development of The Cascades. As previously reported in the News, these four phases were established based on funding availability and award ceilings.
The first three phases involve building eight, six and eight age-restricted triplexes and duplexes. The first phase, costing $2.29 million, is fully funded. Phase 4 is the construction of the remaining 10 for-sale townhomes that are available to seniors and nonseniors alike.
While Planning Commission approved Home, Inc.’s final development plan for all four phases of the project, a landscape plan was only provided for the first phase. As Leatherman noted in a memo to commission members, Home Inc. will have to submit additional landscape plans prior to issuance of the first building permit for each phase. Each of those landscape plans must include a buffer area along the eastern property line to provide screening to adjacent, existing homes, as well as screening for the dumpster location and parking lot.
Whereas there was general favor among Planning Commission members for The Cascades, one local citizen, Steve Conn, wrote to the group before the meeting to express his staunch opposition to the project, suggesting that Home, Inc. ought to turn its focus away from the local senior population.
“We all know that the genuine pressing need is for affordable family housing attractive to younger people,” Conn wrote. “But at the moment, there is no money available for that. Hence the manufactured ‘crisis’ of senior housing. A classic example of tails wagging dogs.”
Responding to Conn’s concerns, Seibel told Planning Commission that she’s seen “pent-up demand” for The Cascades, and said she wasn’t “at all concerned” about filling the senior rental units.
Seibel also noted that The Cascades may, in part, address the housing needs of more than just local senior citizens; she suggested that seniors looking to “downsize” by moving into a rental unit may free up additional homes in the local market.
“This will not only result in [generating] property tax revenue, thus improved infrastructure, but it will create more housing choices in Yellow Springs — movement that will free up existing housing,” Seibel said. “It’s a piece of a bigger puzzle in meeting the needs of our community around housing.”
As previously reported in the News, a 2017 Housing Needs Assessment conducted in the village by Columbus-based Bowen National Research identified affordable senior rentals as among the top housing needs in Yellow Springs. The study also found that, at the time, nearly 60% of senior renters in Yellow Springs had an annual income of less than $24,999.
Beloved local music festival Porchfest is likely on hiatus, according to the event’s organizers — though they hope it’s a temporary one.
The News spoke with Porchfest co-founder Brittany Baum this week; Baum said that the event, originally scheduled for September, is entirely organized and run by a group of volunteers — but the group’s ability to devote time and energy to the effort has begun to flag in recent years.
“All the volunteers we have, they’ve been volunteers for quite some time now,” she said. “Over the years, life has happened, with new jobs, babies, relationships, that kind of thing — it’s really starting to affect our availability.”
Porchfest debuted in the village in October of 2018, and was co-produced by Baum and Rachel Price that year. The very first Porchfest — a festival in which musicians give free concerts from porches, patios and yards around town — was held in Ithaca, New York in 2007, and the idea spread across the U.S. in the years that followed.
Baum told the News in 2018 that she first heard of the nationwide event at a meeting of the Arts and Culture Commission, when a fellow member described Dayton’s Porchfest.
“I thought, ‘What an awesome idea. Yellow Springs has so many musicians,’” Baum told the News that year.
The event has been a popular draw in the village since its first iteration, bringing both locals and out-of-town visitors into village yards each year since the first event, with the exception of 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Baum told the News this week that, in addition to personal roadblocks, the pandemic took its toll on Porchfest beyond the canceled 2020 event; as the world continues to rebuild itself post-pandemic, some resources — material, physical and mental — are harder to come by for small organizing groups.
“There have just been so many changes, even outside of our own hands and our own lives, that have affected the planning of Porchfest,” Baum said. “Before COVID, we still had a full-time director for the Chamber [of Commerce].”
Porchfest is a nonprofit event, with event-goers donating funds, if they so choose, directly to the musicians they see perform. Folks have also donated money directly to organizers in the past, with those funds being used to pay for advertising the festival and maintain the event’s website — beyond that, Baum said, any donated money has been distributed among the performing artists.
Because Porchfest’s organizers are not incorporated as a nonprofit organization themselves, they have enlisted other nonprofits to serve as fiscal sponsors in the past — first the YS Arts Council, and then the YS Community Foundation. Baum said she and other Porchfest organizers hope to pass the event torch on to an entity with 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in the future.
“If we could find an organization that has that status, it may streamline the entire process,” she said. “Having an actual home for [Porchfest] would be a huge relief — if it had a home, maybe there would already be some resources or volunteers built in.”
Baum added that, though it was a tough decision for organizers to put Porchfest on hold, they aim to use this year to attempt to find another entity that could help continue the local event.
“That’s kind of our key target for this year — finding a new home for Porchfest,” she said. “We’re ready to turn over the reins, and we’d love to help with a transition process — we have some really great systems put in place, with timelines. … I’m hopeful that the Chamber [of Commerce] can be involved, especially if they get a new director down the road.”
Baum added that, though another group of volunteers could potentially take over planning and running the festival, she hopes the event will ultimately be taken on by an organization or group of organizations with the infrastructure in place to keep Porchfest running at a sustainable level.
“We’d hate to hand it over to another group of volunteers who then run into the same issues,” she said. “We’ve put so many hours and years into Porchfest — we want to see it succeed in the long-term.”
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