“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” — Socrates
Some call the start of a New Year a new beginning. Blank pages. Fresh canvas.
The reality is the turn of a calendar page into 2021 simply marks the man-made passage of time. Nothing is true today that was false on Dec. 31, 2020. We cannot check our problems and challenges at the door of the old year as we enter the new one.
If I have learned anything in my near 60 years on this Earth, the continuance of time and its ongoing issues are are incontrovertible facts.
My talented colleague, Katie Ellington, offered a wonderful year-in-review earlier this week, a piece that revealed the huge, caring hearts of this community, allowing us to weather the storm of the past 12 months together.
The best news coming out of an earth-shattering, tumultuous 2020 is the stage is set in north central Ohio for a much brighter 2021.
While fully understanding there are no guarantees in this world, here are some things I believe are worth looking forward to during the next 365 days. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just things to watch for as we move into the new year.
COVID-19 vaccines
“There is no illness that is not exacerbated by stress.”– Allan Lokos
Vaccines are not being rolled out as quickly as everyone had hoped. But the world’s scientists and modern medicine have provided the biggest tool yet in beating back the worst public crisis of the past 100 years.
More than 100,000 Ohio residents will have started the two-dose vaccine by the end of 2020, including almost 1,700 in Richland, Ashland, Crawford and Knox counties. These efforts will ramp up going into 2021.
Within the next several months, it seems clear anyone who wants the vaccine will able to receive it. These shots are not the end, but they are the end of the beginning, offering a potential return to normalcy.
Continued economic development
“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go. They merely determine where you start.” — Nido Qubein
It is clear the ongoing private and public partnerships that were developing in Mansfield and Richland County before the pandemic began have survived and are ready to grow during 2021. There seems no doubt the Mansfield Rising downtown reinvestment plan will survive COVID-19.
The approved two-way conversion of Diamond Street will indeed spur private investment in 2021 and beyond. This idea was broached by Mansfield City Council in January, but was shelved when the pandemic reached Ohio in March.
Thankfully, officials brought it back late in the year and the work is now expected to be done before summer. It mirrors a Mulberry Street conversion in 2019 and will set the stage for much-anticipated improvements to Main Street itself.
Growth at the Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport will continue. If you have not driven to the so-called “sleeping giant” of north central Ohio recently on Mansfield’s north side, then you need to do so. It is developing into the sort of business/industry hub once imagined.
Ontario officials have worked tirelessly to redevelop the former GM factory site, efforts that are now paying dividends at the Ontario Commerce Park. Charter Next Generation (CNG) will be the first company operating on-site, beginning in March, a project that could create 400 to 700 jobs.
Shelby is no different. In fact, the Community Improvement Corporation there has set the bar for public – private partnerships in many respects, raising over three million dollars for the Main Street Corridor project.
Local elected leaders — county, cities, villages and townships — took advantage of federal CARES Act dollars in 2020 to pump more than $2.7 million into local small business and non-profits through the Small Business Emergency Relief Grant Program. These are our friends and neighbors, and local efforts like these helped make a difference in 2020, and have set the stage for a more profitable 2021.
Richland Source praised the efforts of these visionary investors, resourceful public employees and local elected leaders in late November for not allowing the problems of 2020 to simply stop us all in our tracks.
Quality of life
“Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” — Helen Keller
Economic growth is essential, but there are also continuing signs of other improvement around the area, which will continue in 2021.
The West End Neighborhood Plan, with the blessing of Mansfield City Council, will begin in earnest in 2021. Improvements will soon begin in an area whose geographic boundaries are generally Marion Avenue/Park Avenue West to the west and north; South Main Street to the east; and Glessner Avenue to the south. The plan, another example of public and private partnership, was initiated in April 2020 and offers specific improvements in keeping with the principles of the downtown plan.
The Downtown Mansfield Imagination District, a collaboration between the Little Buckeye Children’s Museum and the Renaissance Performing Arts Association, will receive $1 million from the State of Ohio’s capital budget during 2021. The $6 million effort, already underway, will move forward and soon serve nearly 220,000 youth and their families, provide for as many as 15 full-time and 25 part-time staff, and have a total economic impact of $7.7 million.
“I’m hoping this project becomes a catalyst for that part of downtown Mansfield,” said state Rep. Mark Romanchuk, who helped lead the effort for the funding. “I think long-term we’ll look back and we’ll able to say it was a catalyst.”
The Mansfield City Parks now have an approved “master plan” for improvements during 2021 and the years ahead. The anticipated plan, approved by City Council in October, is a long-term, $29 million blueprint, or road map, for improvements that the city can tackle going forward as financial resources allow.
The project to build self-sustainable microfarms in Mansfield and Richland County will continue to push forward, led by The Ohio State University-Mansfield campus and the North End Community Improvement Collaborative. The year-round growing effort will be in the third year of a three-year grant and has clearly taken root in our community, including a 12-acre site on Bowman Street.
Mansfield will also see ongoing public works improvements in 2021, including new vital stormwater sewer projects, sidewalk construction and a long-anticipated $35 million overhaul of the city’s water treatment facility.
Work will be completed in 2021 on the upgrade, renovation and relocation of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, including a new 9-1-1 dispatch center, within the Peoples Community Center. The project is being done at the same time as the upgrade of the county-wide digital emergency radio system.
Leadership
“In city hall and in local government, you have to get things done without drama.” — Jim Gray
Our communities are blessed with a wide variety of private and public leaders. Unlike national leaders, who seem intent on the politics of party destruction, local elected officials have shown an ability to work together, regardless of political affiliation.
There will be important election decisions made during 2021, decisions which will likely have greater local impact than the presidential election of 2020.
One of those will be made by local Republicans next week when they select a replacement for county Commissioner Marilyn John, who is headed to Columbus and the Ohio General Assembly. That selection may create openings in other locally elected bodies.
It will be a year for voters to determine important local offices, including spots on Mansfield City Council; mayoral and council races in Ontario; council races in Shelby; village council races in Bellville, Butler, Lexington, Lucas, Plymouth and Shiloh; township trustees in every township in the county; and school board races throughout the county.
Mansfield residents will vote in the May primary on the renewal of key local taxes for Parks, Recreation, Illumination, Demolitions and Emergency Services (PRIDE) and the Pothole Haters levy. Neither represent new money, but the funds are crucial to ongoing efforts in the city.
Like you, I am more than eager to put 2020 behind me. But it’s good to know decisions made during this past, painful year have likely set the stage for a much better 2021.
