Fairborn Mayor Dan Kirkpatrick has a lot to say about the city and its residents. All of it good.
From the city’s unique festival offerings to the new schools built with support from tax-paying residents, Kirkpatrick is a true Fairborn fan.
But he says there are challenges, starting with affordable housing.
The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the full interview by clicking play above.
Dan Kirkpatrick: A lot of people, military, civilians, they're looking for communities that are friendly. What a lot of the people tell me is they're look for a community with a downtown. Downtown Fairborn has Foy's, and Mike Foy and I have become good friends. I love the fact that you've got Foy's and other downtown businesses. If you look at our downtown, what really makes it special is almost all of the town businesses are mom-and-pop businesses. They're not chains. Now, we've got the chains. We've got chain restaurants, the other businesses, the Kroger and the other business in town, but Fairborn's downtown is almost exclusively individual mom-and-pop businesses. And especially when I was the chamber director for that year, I got to know a lot of them walking around just meeting with businesspeople. And it's just a wonderful community.
"That is something that our city council and our city manager and our staff are looking at, is where can we have development that makes it affordable, especially for younger people. And that that is a challenge."
We are very, very fortunate that we have the Miami Valley Military History Museum, which used to be out at the Dayton VA. Mark Conrad is a curator, probably one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met about military history. If you have any questions, go in there, find Mark. He'll be happy to tell you anything about that museum. But it's one of things that really makes Fairborn unique.
And there's lots of other businesses down there that we're really, really proud of. The other thing we like about Downtown Fairborn is all the festivals that we hold. The 3rd of July Block Party, which is coming up, obviously on the 3rd of July, and then the 4th of July Parade. We like to brag that we have one of the biggest 4th July Parades in the whole Southwest Ohio. And I think we do. It's a wonderful parade. We encourage people to come out. It runs the length of Central, turns right on Main Street and goes down to Broad Street but it's a lot of fun. We get a lot of participants and the big thing about this year in Fairborn is this is Fairborn's 75th anniversary. Fairborn as a city came about when the governor signed the paperwork to make us a city on January 1st, 1950. So this year, in 2025, we are 75 years old. We've got a lot extra things planned; The parade's gonna be bigger, the block party's gonna bigger.
We're having a UFO festival in June 6, 7 and 8. That's going to be partly in Fairborn, partly in Yellow Springs. You know, there's a tie to the base with UFOs. If you know about the Roswell UFO way back in the mid-1900s, supposedly the aliens from that spacecraft that crashed at Roswell and the spacecraft, the story is it ended up at Wright-Patt. Now, Wright-Patt won't get involved in that discussion. Understandably so. We're going to have a UFO festival. We have UFO experts from across the country coming to Fairborn. They'll be at the Holiday Inn that whole day and they're going be talking about UFOs. Who knows? You know, with all the stars that are out there, who knows? But there's going to be a UFO festival.
We also have a number of other festivals in Fairborn. Bluegrass and Brew, which has turned out to be very popular, that's going be Aug. 1. That's also right downtown. We set up a stage right on Main Street and we have bluegrass bands and a beer garden. We block off part of Main Street and we get a huge crowd for that.
To attract the younger folks, we have what we call Hairborn. Instead of Fairborn, it's Hairborn, which is more, heavy metal, rock bands, and that's gonna be Sept. 19, and that also downtown Fairborn. So a lot of different festivals in Fairborn during the summer, the 5/3rd Commons area, we have a farmer's market, we get a huge turnout for that. Again, it all about bringing people downtown.
One of the biggest things I wanna brag about and Fairborn are our schools. We have an outstanding school system in Fairborn. And we are very, very fortunate that the citizens of Fairborn over the last, we'll say within the last 10 years, have approved levies to build all new buildings. We opened the primary school several years ago, and then the intermediate school. This last August, we were very, very fortunate to have the grand opening of our new high school and people that have seen our high school, it's an absolute wonderful facility. And we're getting ready to have the groundbreaking for the new middle school that will be located right next to the new high school - similar architectural design, but it's really a testament to the commitment of our citizens that our kids are very, very important. And the old school buildings, some of them were in pretty bad shape. The new buildings are fantastic. Wonderful academic programs. I'm an educator for the Air Force. I was a director and supervisor of our mental health technician course. So I taught a lot of mental health stuff, anatomy, physiology. What the capabilities they have to teach that stuff now at the high school for kids in biology classes just really outshines anything we ever had. So it's a fantastic educational opportunity. We have a beautiful new football stadium. Tennis courts, performing arts facility, is truly state of the art. Really again, it's a thanks to our citizens for supporting the Levees. We have wonderful schools, and when the middle school gets finalized in the next three years, we will basically have all new schools in Fairborn, and we're really proud of that.
The other thing that really attracted my wife and I to Fairborn was the park system. I've never lived anywhere, and I lived all over the United States. I've ever seen a community that has dedicated so much effort to making sure that our citizens have outdoor opportunities for parks. Fairborn Community Park, the neighborhood parks that are scattered throughout Fairborn. We just dedicated another park, Amy Carter Park, a week ago. We really want our citizens to know that being outdoors and having the opportunity to enjoy the trees, the grass. And as part of that, we are working now to become a Tree City USA. We're in the midst of getting that, the people that are on that committee have been trained. Now we're just fulfilling the rest of the requirements. We really want our citizens to enjoy the fact that we have wonderful parks, and we really do.
Kenney: It's interesting that you mention downtown, because I may be in the wrong here, but I don't think people, when they think of Fairborn, think of a downtown. They think of the base (Wright-Patt), they think some larger industrial complexes. And then you talk about everything you have going on downtown, and the quality of the schools and we did some outreach before we started this series, and people were generally concerned within their cities all over the Dayton area about the esthetics of life in the city and the challenges and potential problems with overdevelopment. It sounds like you're striking a pretty good balance here.
Kirkpatrick: I think we are and that's a great comment because I've talked to people who say we want Fairborn to be the way it was 50 years ago. Well, no community is the way that it was fifty years ago, we want to do development correctly. And I'll say one of the issues that we've got in other communities talking to other mayors is trying to come up with affordable housing and that is an issue, the cost of building materials has really gone way up.
"We have 34,000-plus people in Fairborn and we're trying to do what we think is the best for that majority of people."
If you can find them and then land, the prices for land has really gone up. So one of my personal Commitments is to look at how can we make sure that younger people will have the opportunity to achieve that American dream of homeownership. So we are looking at that the price of a new home nowadays for just about anywhere is at least $200,000 and for for many people like high school graduates or recent college graduates, that puts homeownership, really makes it tight for them. So we're looking at opportunities for that. Fairborn is somewhat landlocked in that regard. We have the base on one side, Beavercreek on another, Bath Township on another. We don't have a whole lot of open land to develop. Now we have a new development up on Armstrong Road that's newer homes. But it's a challenge for us. And that is something that our city council and our city manager and our staff are looking at, is where can we have development that makes it affordable, especially for younger people. And that that is a challenge.
Kenney: It definitely is a challenge, and even besides home ownership, rental properties are going up as well. I know several people who are on the verge of being basically priced out of their apartments and don't know where they're going to go. Do you have problems like that here?
Kirkpatrick: Well, I'm sure we do. I mean, every community does. We have to remember, Fairborn is the merge of the village of Fairfield and Osborn that occurred after the Great Dayton Flood of 1913. Osborne physically moved up from where it was located, which was down at the end of the flight line for Wright-Patt, and physically picked up buildings, houses, businesses, and moved next to the village at Fairfield.
That was in the late 20s, early 30s, and then in the 40s, they talked about, gee, we've got two villages, two police forces, two school districts. So again, as I mentioned earlier, on January 1st, 1950, we merged. And the base, after World War II, when the base got really tied into becoming the Material Logistics Base, they built a lot of lower-income housing to house people that we're going to work in warehouses and stuff like that. Well, those houses that were very affordable back then are now approaching $200,000. And they're not huge homes, and they're on small lots. And so the vast majority of people that live in those homes take great care of them.
The old saying, your home is your castle. I really believe that. And I'm very happy that in Fairborn, we have what we call the Mayor's Beautification Committee. And it's a committee of residents who go around and during Christmas, Halloween, we go around looking at yards and decorations during the summer. We have a program for people who really take great care of their yards. And a lot of the winners of those are people living in those houses that were built way back then. They're smaller, but the vast majority of people in Fairborn are very proud to take care of their castles and it is an issue trying to find affordable housing, whether it's apartments or housing. And that is a challenge for every community. I meet regularly with the other mayors in the area and we talk about that, that how can we all have more affordable housing. Talking to my daughter this morning, again, her husband and her own a housing business down in Tennessee, they build houses and they struggle with that also.
Sitting L to R: Tana Stanton, Dan Kirkpatrick (Mayor), Clint Allen,
Kenney: Anything else you want to pass on to our listeners.
Kirkpatrick: I just think the whole Miami Valley is a wonderful place to live. As I mentioned, I've lived all over the United States. I can't imagine living any place else and I'm not talking about just Fairborn. We're right next door to Yellow Springs. Yellow Springs is a whole different community. Beavercreek is a different community, Riverside, Xenia. This whole area, I'm very happy to be living here. And if I wasn't living in Fairborn, I wouldn't have any problem living in any of the other communities. They're all great communities to live in. And I know having been a chamber director, talking with the other chamber directors. They all, they get together, they work well together, they share ideas. The mayors, we all get together, city managers get together it's a wonderful collaborative area of the country to live in. And I cannot think of a better place I'd rather live than in the Miami Valley.
Kenney: In some cases, there's a push and pull between the residents and city government and what the residents need and what the residents want and what the city's able to provide. So how do you feel that that's going in Fairborn?
Kirkpatrick: Well, I think one of the important things, and my background's working in mental health, I was taught a long time ago that you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion, listen twice as often as you speak, and I really think in Fairborn we are trying to do that. We've been doing citizens' forums, monthly we're going to change that format a little bit, you'll be seeing more of that coming out, but we're trying to provide more opportunities to listen to citizens. Now, listening to a citizen doesn't mean we're always agreeing with them, and we've had citizens come to us with a disagree with this development or that development. One thing I give our city manager, Mike Gebhardt, credit for is that he really works hard at bringing in people to talk to us about why we want to do a certain thing. We don't make decisions lightly.
We've been accused of city council sometimes just blanket voting. We don't do that. Every vote we make there's been a background to that decision we look at "Why are we making this kind of requirement or why are we doing that kind of requirements." We really do make an effort to listen to people doesn't mean we always agree with them but what we try to do is get the opinion of the experts - people that work in that particular area they give us feedback they give his guidance we listen to the citizens and then council tries to make decisions based on that. We have a wonderful planning board that typically looks at some of the things that are going to end up coming to city council and they give us feedback on some of the thing that they're doing. And we listen to them too. I think the important thing is we do listen to our citizens. Again, doesn't mean we always agree with them. But we try to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they say something that we kind of go, well, maybe we need to look more into that, we look into it more. And there's been some decisions that people haven't agreed with us. But I talked to the other mayors, it's true everywhere. The goal is to do what we believe is best for our citizens as a whole.
We have 34,000-plus people in Fairborn and we're trying to do what we think is the best for that majority of people. There's always going to be some folks that disagree with what we've decided. And we try to listen to them and meet with them. I meet with citizens all the time. Our city manager and I meet with citizens frequently. We really do make an effort to hear what people have to say.
