LEXINGTON — Robert “Bob” Jarvis starts every day with a 3.25-mile walk. It’s a habit he plans to stick to even after assuming a new set of responsibilities as the next mayor of Lexington.
Jarvis, a 17-year member of Lexington Village Council, ran unopposed in November’s mayoral election. His four-year term begins Jan. 1, 2024. He’ll succeed Brian White, another long-time council member who was elected mayor in 2019.
Richland Source sat down for a conversation with Jarvis earlier this month to talk about his plans and goals for the village. Below is a transcript of that conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
Richland Source: Why did you decide to run for mayor?
Jarvis: I’ve been on council for 17 years, I think close to 10 of them as president of council. I really like the team that we’ve got working at the village and I look forward to having an opportunity to lead that team and see what more we could do for the village.
Richland Source: What do you think some of the biggest challenges facing the village are right now?
Jarvis: It’s always good to be fiscally responsible. We are fortunately in pretty good shape on that standpoint right now. Our current mayor Brian White got the ball rolling with the (Leverage Lexington) comprehensive plan, which is kind of looking out at Lexington’s future, 25 years out.
(Richland County Regional Planning’ Executive Director’s) Jotika Shetty presented an active transportation plan for the county. That’s more about getting around without vehicles. The reason I bring that up is one of the big things would be a universal path that would go to the new schools, connect up with them from downtown. It could accommodate walkers, bikers and that kind of thing. It’d be something to look at.
All this stuff I’m about to say just takes one thing — money. We’ve employed The Edge Group in Columbus to see what we could do to beautify Lexington from U.S. 42 and State Route 97 all the way up to the village hall. I think they want to put a grant application in by this Friday. There’s an extra $700 million available in state funding next year for capital projects. Nobody seems to know exactly what the $700 million is for — it could be for development of the big companies coming in like Intel and that. But we’re putting in a grant request based on their concepts for our square area.
One of the things that was very popular at the meeting was our depot area where they can build a retaining wall, kind of an overlook looking out over the Clear Fork Mohican River. Everything looks good on paper, but again, it’s going to come down to money. They haven’t presented their final proposal with budgetary numbers on what it would take to do all this. We know we’ll have to do it in pieces. It will be like eating an elephant one bite at a time because it’ll be expensive for all of it. We’re gonna go for about $3 million in the grant request and that should do the village depot area and the square.
So those things and just keeping up with the services that residents are expecting and have been accustomed to. As simple as it sounds, they love their leaf pickups. They love having the streets plowed and salted. I remember when I was working in Lexington, people would say ‘How are the roads coming in?’ and I’d say, ‘I have no idea. I live in Lexington. They’re never bad in Lexington.’ We’re trying to keep up with things in the parks. We’re putting in the pickleball courts down at Bicentennial — those are brand new. Things like that.
Richland Source: So this beautification on the square, are you hoping that’s completely grant funded?
Jarvis: It would be nice, yeah. We’re going to have to raise money somehow for everything on that. That’s the object of our grant proposal.
Richland Source: Would there be new taxes involved?
Jarvis: No, we’re not going to raise any taxes for it.
Richland Source: What about the Ohio 42 corridor?
Jarvis: Same thing. We knew we’d have to do it in pieces. We’re just hoping we can get a good jumpstart on it. If we can get the square and the depot done, maybe there might even be contributions people would want to make.
Richland Source: What about the vacant lot next to Nickel and Bean?
Jarvis: Mr. (Andy) Meade and the village have had discussions and haven’t yet been able to come to any agreement. It is private property. Some things have been done. We alerted Mr. Meade that all the weeds growing there were an eyesore and they took care of them. I’m sure more discussions will take place. I just don’t know how they will manifest themselves in the future.
Richland Source: Lexington’s planning commission and city council voted to deny an application to put a gas station on that lot. What do you think would fit well in that space?
Jarvis: Any type of small business. We want them to be successful, but with traffic, the gas station was going to be too much. Maybe something like a bakery or restaurant, professional services, doctors, medical services, attorneys — that kind of thing.
Richland Source: Let’s talk a little bit more about the Leverage Lexington plan. You were on council during the development of that. What’s some of the progress that has been made on that plan so far?
Jarvis: Right across the street from village hall, the Decker’s Depot Area, we made that look a lot better, I believe. So that’s been our biggest one.
Richland Source: Are there aspects of that plan that are a priority for you to tackle next?
Jarvis: People wanted to do something with the village to make it look a little bit nicer for people driving in, so our employment of The Edge Group to look at that was also part of that comprehensive plan.
Richland Source: What about zoning?
Jarvis: That’s a great question. One of my goals is to get a review going of all zoning starting in January. We’re looking to employ a retired attorney, one of his expertises is zoning, to help the planning commission go through and review all that. I don’t know how fast we can move. I would love it if we could take one section a month and go through it, make recommended changes for the council to approve.
Richland Source: Why do you think it’s so important to re-examine the village’s zoning code?
Jarvis: Because from my understanding, it hasn’t been looked at for probably 35 years. Things evolve, things change. It’s been recommended to us by a couple of different people that have done the work for us in the past.
Richland Source: Another aspect of the Leverage Lexington plan was investing in the light manufacturing sector and bringing more businesses into the downtown area. Talk to us about your goals there and potential strategies for boosting the local economy in Lexington.
Jarvis: For the light industrial, we would need to expand our corporation limits and annex some land into the village. The industrial park is nearly full. Depending on the size of the building, somebody could shoehorn another building in the industrial park around Charter Next Generation or they could do it themselves if they wanted. But after that, it’s going to be tough to fit anything more in the industrial park. We’d probably look to go east to annex, but another potential annexation would be to go west. There was talk a long time ago of the Lexington bypass. It’d be more like a connector now.
If you’re familiar with the intersection of State Route 97 and U.S. 42, where the Rite Aid is, a road going back there and out to Hanley, that could be a good area for another industrial park. That was something we’ve actually looked at once already in this past year with our engineering firm and they’ve very, very tentatively drawn stuff up as to what that could be.
Richland Source: Is that something you would support, annexing more land into the village?
Jarvis: Oh yeah. It’s a necessary thing. We want to keep growing, providing the services that everybody in the village enjoys. It’s going to be very important to be able to continue to welcome light industry to our area.
Richland Source: What about annexing more residential land? Is that a possibility?
Jarvis: It’s possible. It’s not something that I’ve been involved in discussions about. I don’t think there would be any issues as far as infrastructure. A few years back, we built a new water treatment plant and wastewater treatment plant. When they were built, I think they could handle almost three times what we were putting through them then. So looking towards the future, infrastructure-wise, we’d be all set on that. It would just be a matter of extending the water and sewer lines out, along with the roads.
Richland Source: How important is additional housing development to the village’s future?
Jarvis: It’s very important. I mean, there are a few areas where you can still buy land and build a house, but they’re quickly going to be gone.
Richland Source: Let’s circle back to non-industrial businesses. Do you have any ideas for how to fill in the downtown storefronts or over where the Happy Grape and Bucks Bar and Grill used to be?
Bob Jarvis: I don’t have any ideas for those right now. I’ve talked to people that are potentially interested in some of the stuff downtown. It would be wonderful if they can come to an agreement and come to fruition. Whatever the village can do to help with that, we’ll do, but it’s mostly private individuals. If there’s stuff that we can do, maybe through the state, to help make something more economically attractive, we’d be all in.
Richland Source: One thing council has discussed in the past is the village becoming a city. Do you think that’s something that could happen during your term? If so, how would you handle that?
Jarvis: It wouldn’t happen during this first term. It will be dependent on the next census, which will be in 2030. Since we’re less than 200 people away right now, I’d say it’s more likely that the village will become a city. Although we expected to become a city after the 2020 census, when we were only about 400 residents away. I think the downturn in the economy stopped the building of houses.
I think the village is going to continue to grow, especially with the development of things in Columbus, such as the Intel plant. We keep being told, ‘You guys need to prepare, you need to be ready.’ So we’ll try and do that. Come 2030, if we get over the 5,000 mark, we will be a small city, which is not a great place to be for a municipality. It’s all on you for the maintenance of roadways, state routes in the village limits — so it’ll just be more about continuing to be fiscally responsible in preparation.
Richland Source: Do you think you’ll be mayor in 2030?
Jarvis: I don’t know. In 2030, I’d be 70 years old. I’m 63 now. Somebody did ask me when I was running for mayor, ‘What are your political aspirations after this?’ I said, ‘Well in 20 more years, I could run for president.’
We’ll just have to see how it goes. It’s an elected office, so voters have a way of deciding on their own who they would like to have in there. If I’m doing a good job and people want me to continue, I’d certainly look at that.
Richland Source: What about Lexington’s future excites you the most?
Bob Jarvis: Two things. For me personally, I’m really looking forward to working with this great group of people down at the village. But the second thing is hopefully the state will release funds so that the school system can build the elementary school. I know they’re of the same mindset. They’re just as anxious as anybody, but it’s out of their control. Then we can maybe look at connecting the school campus with the downtown areas.
Richland Source: Have you talked to Brian White at all about the transition? Has he given you any advice?
Jarvis: Brian’s been very good about involving me in anything and everything that he’s coming across. He’s taken me into Mansfield, introduced me to some people in the county that I will need to know. The next big thing is just going to be getting me set up in the computer system at the village. The work Brian has done and the work that Gene Parkison before him, it set the village up pretty well. We have a charter form of government, so even when we do become a city, our charter is already set to handle all that.