EDITOR’S NOTE: Today marks the fourth day featuring a series of stories over four days that examines the issues surrounding public transportation in Richland County.
JOHNSTOWN — In a dozen years as the village manager of Johnstown, Ohio, Jim Lenner learned to think outside the box.
How about $75 million outside of the box thinking in federal money for a proposed transportation hub? But more on that later.
He has also learned the key to bringing in funding for his community to the tune of about $20 million in non-local funds over the years to the community of 5,000 residents in northwest Licking County, about 30 minutes from Columbus.
“You will hear ‘no.’ If you take that as answer, you’re not going to get what you want,” said Lenner, who left his village post earlier this month to begin a private, municipal consulting company in eastern Muskingum County.
“You have just to keep asking. You have to ask the right people. And then you have to deliver when you do get the money. Keep turning over rocks and thinking outside the box,” he said.
Lenner helped preside during a time of great growth in terms of population — and expectations — in Johnstown. Then a village, Johnstown had 3,440 residents in 2000. Two decades later, it officially became a city when its population grew to 5,182.
During his tenure, new schools were built, one industrial park was filled and another one started. Water and wastewater plants were improved. A half-million water tower was built. New housing projects are underway.
But the potential single biggest coup could be achieved if a $75 million federal grant could be earned to create the Innovation Center Mobility Factory that could benefit multiple communities in three counties.
Lenner said the idea was born when Licking County began the kind of transit development planning process that Richland County will launch in 2022.
“The seed was planted in my head, mobility was an issue serving the under-represented population,” he said.
“It kind of developed with business retention efforts and interviews with existing businesses in Johnstown,” Lenner said. “If we can’t get people to and from jobs on a stable basis, we can’t retain businesses.
“Those conversations started the whole thing.”
According to a story Oct. 17 in the Newark Advocate, the factory would be a “transportation center and a mobility industry incubator, a job creator of its own with 100 to 200 employees, and a conduit to redevelop brownfield sites in Licking, Delaware and Knox counties.”
The story said “a mobility hub brings together public transit, bike share, care share and other ways for people to travel without a private vehicle. It could connect Licking County Transit to other mobility providers for one seamless trip. The T.J. Evans Bike path could be extended in Johnstown to the mobility hub.”
If the $75 million was obtained, $45 million would go to Johnstown for its location and $5 million each would go to Newark, Heath, Granville, Mount Vernon and Sunbury. Utica would get $3 million.
Funds would go to site redevelopment, creation of a mobility hub, water and sewer infrastructure, and broadband.
Key to the effort was the planned move of Tech International, a long-time Johnstown company, to the city’s industrial park. That would leave its 10-building, 35-acre site available for redevelopment.
Obtaining this kind of funding through the federal Build Back Better Challenge Grant was, and is, a longshot, at best. It doesn’t appear this initial effort will be successful.
But it’s the cooperative effort among multiple counties, cities, villages and private industries — and even the willingness to try to think boldly — that makes the idea worth examining.
“We had something like 50 partners or contributors to the project, start to finish, over a two-year period,” Lenner said.
“I think everyone shared the same concern of transit options being sparse,” he said, adding that individual charitable organizations and healthcare providers were having to buy and use their own buses for transportation.
“In Johnstown, we were just kind of the catalyst. No one was really doing anything on a grand scale for the entire county,” Lenner said. “We just needed a lead entity.
“We weren’t going to wait on (Licking County Transit). They didn’t have the time, staffing or bandwidth to do it.”
How did he manage to get all levels of elected officials and private economic leaders to check their egos at the door in a cooperative effort such an undertaking required?
It likely helps he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public affairs and had a decade-long track record of success in government administration, community planning and economic development.
“There was a little push-back here and there. But once everyone understood what we were trying to do in Johnstown, it all kind of went away in terms of fiefdoms.
“It really wasn’t a huge issue once we took the time to explain the project. We went to a lot of board meetings and council meetings to make sure all of the decision-makers were on board. I think everyone did a good job,” Lenner said.
He said Johnstown and others are still working on finding funding sources to make the project a reality.
“We put together a plan, but what is needed is a champion of the idea from start to finish — someone who really believes in it. That’s critical with the planning process,” Lenner said.
In his private role now leading Neighborhood Strategies, LLC, Lenner wants to continue to help smaller communities succeed.
“I assist private businesses, governments, and non-profit organizations navigate the sometimes complex process of government operations,” he said.
“Specializing in community planning, grant writing, economic development and government strategy, I leverage my 18 years of local government experience to get results for clients.”
Funding for public transportation projects is flowing like never before, according to Lenner.
“The Biden presidency is focusing on money for transit like no presidency in my lifetime,” he said.
“I have found the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We have been told ‘no’ before, but we continue to push.”
Join Richland Source City Editor Carl Hunnell at Relax It’s Just Coffee, 105 N. Main St., for “Coffee and Transit Talk” on Thursday, Jan. 6, at noon. Read the series and join Hunnell for an informal, hour-long conversation to offer your thoughts on what improvements the public county bus service should consider.
Can’t make it? Email your thoughts to carl.hunnell@richlandsource.com.
