Editor’s note: We asked listeners to tell us what questions they would ask the mayor of their community. Over the next few months, WYSO is speaking with local mayors to answer those questions.
The city of Centerville has a population of about 25,000 people, and is one of the higher income areas in the Miami Valley. We asked Mayor Brooks Compton about the issues readers and listeners identified, including the city’s approach to development and possibly over-development.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Centerville Mayor Brooks Compton: Well, I think one of the major things that we have going on right now is we do have strong partnerships, strong partnerships with, the parks, the libraries, the schools in Washington Township and Sugar Creek Township. And I think that's led to really solid development within the city of Centerville or Uptown. Development is moving along in a very positive way. Cornerstone has been very positive. We also have Cross Pointe, it has been a good economic engine for the city of Centerville. And we're moving forward in a very positive direction, adding some residential locations over by Yankee Trace. And so we feel very good about the direction of the city.
But at this point, I think we feel good that Centreville is headed in a direction, we're working within the strategic plan — our second strategic plan. We had our first strategic plan that went from 2018 through 2023, and we're now we're in our second strategic plan, and I think it's going along very well. We have strong support from the community. We've had strong support for the improvement from an economic development standpoint throughout the community. Cornerstone has been very strongly supported. As I say, Uptown has been very strongly supported. We're getting a lot of interest from businesses to locate within Uptown and they've already located in there a number of new restaurants and businesses located there. So, yes, we feel very good about how things are moving forward right now.
Jerry Kenney: You mentioned current and future development. Some residents in Centreville are concerned about the rehabilitation of older development spaces and how some of the partially empty developments and large parking lots could be refurbished and move forward as well.
Compton: Yeah, I think that that's always an economic development issue. And as an example would be Cross Pointe. Cross Pointe is doing extremely well, and they take tremendous care of their development up, their parking standpoint from landscaping, etc. Cornerstone is an example. Cornerstone has been a very successful development, and they do an outstanding job of taking care of that development also. And if you look to down here at Centerville Place that we have, Kettering Health is located there. They did a great job of renovating that site.
And you know, there could be some renovation that's forthcoming with respect to the whole Centerville Place, the development, which is good. But we have the (Kroger) Marketplace there on the south end of that, which has been very successful. And then we've added obviously we have some restaurants in there, but Kettering Health Network has been a big player in that. We're extremely pleased with that and the outlots have developed very nicely. We obviously have a coffee place there, but we have a Wendy's there, we have a new Chipotle and they all have renovated their own sites there. So we're really pleased with how that's going. Also, I mean, that's a work in progress. Always economic development is not done all at once. It's something that develops over time and the city is committed to its economic development program to support businesses. And we have a Centerville Community Improvement Corporation and JoAnne Rau, the president of that entity, and they support businesses in Uptown with landscape designs or building improvements.
Kenney: Another resident raised concerns over what they termed visual blight, with power lines being above ground. And they felt that some of the visual appeal of Centerville could be enhanced by burying those power lines. What actually does the city have control over toward that issue?
Compton: I think the PUCO, and probably the utility itself, control that, too. To the largest extent, the city has an opportunity to review development plans and see when they come in. But the city does not have the ability to tell the PUCO how you're going to locate your lines and where they're going to locate them. But the city, through the engineering office and the development department, has coordinated those types of efforts through any of the new developments. If you go to Cornerstone, that was a great deal of work associated with working with the utilities to properly locate what power and water and those utilities that went with that. And in Uptown, we're working collaboratively with the owners of those businesses to make them look as good as they can, recognizing that that's an older area and you're not going to be turning around and relocating everything underground.
But the new developments or working with the utilities to reduce what would be the look of those utilities and the new parking lot that was associated with the uptown area, that did a great deal of work at reducing what one might consider to be utility blight or whatever. And that's gone extremely well. I think if you would look at the uptown development from a parking standpoint that looks really nice, and you don't have that look of utilities running everywhere throughout. So we have something that's obviously part of any development plan.
Kenney: Another concern that was raised on social media is perhaps the city of Centerville's budgeting process and potential disparity between rental properties, especially older rental properties and owner occupied homes, and how that might affect the city's budget. What can you tell me about that?
Compton: Well, the city, the biggest part of the city's budget from an income or revenue standpoint comes from the municipal income tax. And the city draws a very small amount from its inside millage on real estate. So the valuation that's associated with property that impacts the city of Centerville budget, very little impact on the city of Centerville budget from real property tax. But I will say with respect to that, that the reevaluation of the revaluation that was done by the state and the auditor over the last three years, there was certainly no indication that there was any disproportionate valuation down for a rental property as opposed to a single family residential property. But the city, we have a department that looks at code enforcement, and that's always on the look out for any property that might be falling below what’s an acceptable standard to the neighborhood and to the community. So there are notices that go out if that's the case. But certainly we're not aware of any, as I say, disproportionate valuation associated with what might be considered a rental as opposed to what might be considered a single family owned home.
Kenney: And a final concern that was raised to us was crime. This was common between all the cities that we'll be reaching out to. What can you tell me about staffing for your police department budgeting process there? Do you have what you need? Is that department getting what it needs? And what can you say to people who are concerned about that?
Compton: I can tell you that the Centerville Council, through the budgeting process, fully supports the Centerville Police Department. We have a 24 hour emergency dispatch system that dispatches to all of Centerville . And we also provide dispatch services for West Carrollton for their fire/EMS and their police department. And every year for the budgeting process, the police department makes their review of what they think they need and that comes to us a recommendation through the city manager's office to the city council, and we then act upon that in our normal budgeting process on an annual basis. We do a five year budgeting program. But from the standpoint of analyzing our budget, we do act on that on an annual basis. But we are fully supportive. We have a nationally accredited police department that we have a number of police officers out on the street constantly who are patrolling our neighborhoods in a very coordinated manner. And we feel very positive about the response that we get from the community.
The police department has a great relationship with the community. Not only do we provide in neighborhoods and business support, but we also provide school resource officers for the schools and the Centerville schools and the schools in our community. So as far as the relationship, it's a great relationship. As far as what they would like to have and what they feel they need, we're very supportive of that. There is no effort to reduce the budget with respect to what the police bring to us, but they bring a responsible budget to us. They don't bring a budget that's unrealistic. They know what they need. We support them strongly. They provide an excellent service.
I think that's evident by if you would use Mystery Night Out as an example. Every year we have a larger number of people who participate. I think we had over 700 this year, participated in Mystery Night Out, which is a police department community event. And Americana is another example, how many people that stopped by the police booth at Americana to talk about what a great job they're doing. And I mean, if you're walking around in a late afternoon or any time during the day, you're going to see a police officer and a Centerville Police Department cruiser who's out and about. And every public event that takes place within the city center, they're there making the contacts with the people. And it's incredible how many people know the different police officers in our community. And I mean, it's truly community policing is what the Centerville Police Department brings to us. And I think people are very comfortable with the idea. They know that when they make a 911 call, that 911 call there's going to Centerville Dispatch. Those dispatchers know Centerville. And the same with West Carrollton. They know West Carrollton, too. And so we feel very good about that. We feel that's a strong part of our department.
Kenney: Touching on crime, but also it reaches into health and human services, is the presence of illicit fentanyl. What can you tell me about resources the city has and how it deals with a problem that is really common to a lot of cities?
Compton: Yeah, that's an area that the city spends a lot of time looking at from a policing standpoint. And we work with a crime suppression unit or TCSU, which is a combination of a number of entities around, through primarily the Miami Valley Communications Council, where they all get together and discuss and not just as one entity alone, but through all the entities as to what might be coming into the community, how to address those issues that are constantly and in contact with other entities. Because it doesn't just stop at a geographical border or a jurisdictional border. It's a wide problem everywhere. So they're in communication. Our police department is very conscious of that and keeping on a lookout for anything that comes in there. We have, I-675 that runs through here. Any community that has a large interstate system running through it has to be on the lookout for that. And our community is working with our partners — Kettering , Bellbrooke, Sugar Creek, Washington Township, Montgomery County — we all work together on this.
Kenney: Centerville Mayor Brooks Compton, thank you so much.
Compton: Sir. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the things that are going on in the City of Centerville. And thanks for coming out to talk to us.
