Now the 490 with Gretchen de Bakker might kill them.

And Kevin Mullin from.

Welcome into the 419 Powered by wheat and presente by which draw wealth management.

Im Kevin Mullen, Gretchen Becker, Matt Killen It's mayor Monday and we are in Ottawa Hills, literally in Ottawa Hills at the junior high and high school.

We are inside the foundry.

Beautiful.

It is a much more sophisticated and lovely breakfast club feel here.

I feel like we.

Are going to do the dance.

Yeah.

That's how I came int the building, as I do most days.

And you're here because you know the place.

To go, no other place.

To go.

We're going to be talking with the mayor of Ottawa Hills, Mark Thompson.

We'll also have the principal.

Yeah, the school here, Ben McMurray, will join us and tell us a little bit mor about this space that we are in.

But it is it is incredible.

And I think, you know, this is you know, my my brother lives here in Ottawa Hills.

His kids go to school here.

Yeah.

Mine too.

Yeah.

But they don't go to this building.

They'll never be allowed in this.

Yeah.

At least.

To the ground before they left.

That's right.

Yeah.

But it's an incredible community.

I know they love.

They love being here.

And so I'm excited for a chance to get to.

I've had some conversations with the mayor over the years just at community events.

He will not remember me at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And of course, Ben McMurray is a is a friend and incredible leader.

And so I'm excited to hear his perspective on on the schools and, and innovation and some of the challenge that face a principal in 2026.

What are you doing with this summer?

That's what I want to know.

Does he even get one?

Probably not.

Probably not.

He's mailed it in for you.

So yeah.

That's right.

So it's going to be an exciting show.

I love that we've got a different, different change of locale there.

I'll ask Mayor Monday.

I would think this is our final mayor Monday as we enter our final week.

Pressure on.

Mayor Thompson.

That's right.

He better not screw this up.

That's right.

And then we'll take a break fo the summer, and we'll be back.

God willing.

And the creek don't ris for season two later this fall.

I'm going to keep saying it.

Yeah, Ken it still doesn't make any sense.

I love it.

Yeah.

How does it.

I mean, if the crisis wipes us all out.

Yeah.

We're not going to be here.

You bet.

If you say.

Yeah, I like.

Okay.

God willing.

In the creek.

Don't rise.

Love it.

Sure.

Be back for season two.

Go to my boots.

This is.

I mean, inevitably this is one of my favorite days.

Mayor Monday and a chance to see the village of Ottawa Hills through the eyes of.

And today, not just one, but two people that absolutely love this community.

I know we.

Beaten this to death, but it just.

I'm stopped with.

Absolutely almos a daily occurrence for someone.

Makes mention of.

The.

Last mayor Monday and enjoyin it and learning more about it.

We had the Bowling Green mayor, if I had the chronology that's right recently, and it became part of a text thread and people are chatting about it.

So people like the idea of who is involved in these communities, and there'll be no difference here, I'm sure today these are people who spent decades here in the families are embedded in the tapestry.

We're going to release a list of our and rank the mayors at the end of the season.

Greg is going to do that.

I'm not going to do it.

We're going to take a break.

We'll be right back with Mayor Thompson here on the 419 on a mayor Monday.

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Thank you.

Welcome back into the 419 powered by.

We are here at Ottawa Hills High School, junior high and High school in the foundry.

Joined now by the Mayo of Ottawa Hills, Mark Thompson.

Mayor, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Welcome.

Let's start by defining Ottawa Hills.

So what are the geographic boundaries?

Tell us about the demographics of of the Ottawa Hills community.

Ottawa Hills is almost exactly two square miles.

Pretty small.

What's your favorite square mile?

Just northeast.

That's my favorite.

Especially in the fall.

Yeah.

Bounded by Secret Roa on the east and Central Avenue on the north.

That's the, I guess, the two easy ones.

The Norfolk and Southern railroad tracks.

Kind of a boundary along the south side.

So virtually surrounded by the city of Toledo with a little bit of contact with Sylvania Township.

How many?

How many people live in?

40.

700 people?

Roughly.

So we're a village.

If you're under 5000 peopl in Ohio, then you're a village.

So that's why it's the village of Auto Hills.

Okay.

And what's the history as to why this village exists in the middle of the city of Toledo?

Sort of in the middle.

Well I wasn't here when it started, so I couldn' only tell you my understanding, but in many respects, it it started with a couple of well-known peopl in, in the Toledo history as a, as an opportunit for expansion, home expansion.

E.H.

Close and John North Willys and some other folks.

Willys from the Jeep fame shorts started real estate development company as I understand it.

As I said, I wasn't here.

Yeah, sure.

So I guess the question we ask most commonly on our Mayor Mondays is wh have you done this to yourself?

I mean, of all of the things that you could d with your time, of all the ways that you could serve your community.

Well, I ask that question myself.

This morning.

Right.

Including this morning.

Yeah.

Especially this morning.

And my.

Wife asked me.

Morning as well.

I, I worked for the village for 28 years as the village manager here.

And my family and I moved here in 1991.

And the community has been wonderful to my family and to me.

And from where, Mr.

Thompson.

I was the city manager in a in a Dayton suburb.

Okay.

And before that, city manager a couple other places in Ohio.

Anyway, we moved here in 91.

In that period of time, it's been a great place for us to live.

The community was very welcoming.

It just so the mayor position is an opportunity, in my estimation at least, to try to.

I don't want to say give back.

That sounds kind of trite.

I think maybe I have something to offer, and certainly it's been a wonderful place for my family and me.

There's so many different types of government organizations township, you know, city, obviously village.

Some have full time mayors, some don't.

What's the relationship or the difference between a city manager and a mayor?

Well.

City manager is an appointed position, first of all, typically someone who has some training or experience in municipal government.

The mayor is an elected position, could be someon who also has a lot of training and experience in municipal government.

But that's not that's not a necessity.

Municipal government is complex.

And now that I'm the mayor, I can see it differently than when I was in the manager's position.

But my point is, this complex operation.

Absolutely.

And people with training and experience might be valuable, as opposed to someone wh is elected by virtue of having.

And you have to have a pretty good relationship, I'm assuming, with the city of Toledo.

I'm certainly with so many township, but because many of the services that this are provided to the village by by the city of Toledo water.

Certainly.

And police, I mean, not police, but fire.

Is that right?

And so what ar the other shared services?

Well, water is interesting.

The water that we drink here in the foundry comes from the City of Toledo water treatment plant and a network of pipes that here Rangeley enough are operated by the cit of Toledo and by Lucas County.

So it's kind of a mix.

Yep.

Whenever you've got three governments working together, it's the best of scenarios, right?

We're hoping to get a fourth involved.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

I've always I work for the government an I've always found it to be true whenever we can around Robin that.

So.

Yeah.

And what about fire rescue?

Fire and rescue.

We contract village of articles contracts with the city of Toledo for that service.

Probably for the last, I don't know, 15 years or so.

There was a time when we provided it ourselves, and long term, it just made sense for a host of reasons, to contract the service as opposed to providing it.

But the other services that the village provides that again, cities provide safety and security cleanliness, water.

Right.

You.

Everything else is done by I'm assuming, village employees.

You have your own police force, you have your own trash pickup, that kind of thing.

That's correct.

And and while we're on that subject, I guess a couple of things I'd like to say, number one is that we're very proud of the people who wor for the village of Ottawa.

Both.

We try to have high standards in terms of professionalism, and I think we we get there.

Our relationship with the community, I think, is pretty strong, particularly with the police departmen and our our service department who plow streets.

But what they do twice a week as they come to every house and pick up refuse and recycling.

I guess from my standpoint.

The other noteworthy point i that we have about half as many people working for the villag now as we did say, 25 years ago, in part because we have contracted some services with the city of Toledo, which you mentioned earlier.

And we've done more of that, not just the fire department, but other things as well.

And we've automated some of our systems so we're a little less people intense and more capital intensive.

I'm always curious, Thompson, you know, your path to administration.

When you were a young man, you were always interested in how things work.

You're interested in civics.

You're an engineer, how your folks were leaders or teachers or how did you how is this sort of wired into your DNA, if you don't mind me articulating in that way?

Well, actually, you touched on it to a certain extent.

My my father was in the community that we lived in in northeastern part of the state.

My father was in the water and sewer business for that community.

In another community.

His father was in the water and sewer business in northeastern Ohio as well, so that may be part of it.

Sure.

And I'd like to tell you that I was a great student and loved government and civics classes.

None of that's true.

Sure I was I was a poor student and but maybe probably came from my my father and grandfather kind of hanging around this sort of work.

When there is an ease indiscriminate of what your vocatio or occupation is to complacency.

Right.

If it ain't broke to som degree, don't even look at it.

What does benchmarking look like?

How do you stay ahead and not make and not and make sure, I guess, tha you're not just checking boxes.

But to your point about complacency, that is a I don't want to.

Maybe it's a disease that maybe we all have, but government.

To be great.

Did it.

Yeah.

Now we're now we're just mailing it in, I can tell you.

So you're you're coming out.

Complacency is important.

And I've tried to make sure that we don't get complacent because it's easy.

Absolutely.

In so frankly, that's one of the reasons why we have half the people working for the village that we used to have.

That was my thought.

And using the.

In using the fire department as an example, that was a big change and was frankly controversial in the community.

Sure.

And at least from my perspective, the real question is why didn't you do it sooner?

Not why did you do it?

Sure.

Why didn't you do it ten years before?

Yeah.

This is a math exercise, essentially.

Yeah, I get it.

I had an.

Experience a couple of years ago.

I think folks that follow our show.

No, I live across the street from Ottawa Hills and I'm driving down Secord Road.

I don't know if I was having University Toledo where I was going, but I saw a bicycle u against the side of the road off the side of the road and a you know, what appeared to be from a distance, a young person sitting there.

So naturally in my head I'm like, oh, I wonder if somebody needs help.

As I get closer, I realize it's my niece who' sitting there in a folding chair at the corner of seeker in something with a notepad.

And so I, you know, pull into a side street, go out to talk to her, to say what in the world are you doing?

And she was tracking demographics of drivers.

Do you d you know why she was doing this?

Yeah, we started that program years and years ago.

And frankly, it it comes from a a perception.

And I've been here since 1991.

So it's that's a long time ago.

We started probably doing that in 1995 or 96 or somewhere in there.

We're aware of the perceptio certainly then that this was a a predominantly white, affluent community.

It wasn't particularly welcoming to minorities.

That whole effort was part of an effort to make sure that our police department was not racially profiling.

We started even before then, keeping track of every every car.

We stopped.

We kept track of them, not just, hey, slow down and be on your way.

We had a written warning system to make sure we knew who we were stopping.

And then what you're describing was sort of the next generation of that.

And that was, well if in order for us to be able to evaluate who we're stopping, we have to have some idea who' driving through our community.

So the next generation of that process was to say, well, let's figure out who' driving through the community, get some statistical analysis of who's driving for the community.

How do you do that?

Well, the way we chose to do it is we had people sitting at busy intersections, visiting places and just keeping track of who's driving by.

So that's what your niece was doing.

And then we would take that information, compare it to who we were stopping.

Speaking of driving, let's talk about the the dreaded score road, which is has had so many concepts of a plan.

I'd say it's half shared, if I'm not mistaken, by Ottawa Hills and by the city of Toledo.

Really down the middle of seeker is that.

I think that's correct.

There's been conversations about traffic circles, about expanding it, about the property.

What's the current status of planning, about the improvement on Score Road?

If you know?

Well, I don't know.

I'll tell you what I know.

But the current plan, the current discussions are from Kenwood North to central.

Both sides of the street in that section are in the city of Toledo.

Got it.

So the but you're also correct.

The portion is adjacen to the village of Ottawa Hills goes to the center line.

The other half of the street is in the city of Toledo.

And to tell you that there are active plans to do anything with that righ now would would be an accurate.

My understanding about the area north of Kenwood or from Kenwood north to central, is that those plans are in a state of flux, but that's really better addressed by the folks at the city.

I've heard so many conversations around this, and I've got, you know, friends in in government and friends that are advocates for safe driving and all that, that, you know, the reality is seeker a nightmare when I'm doing 60.

Yeah, it's not that bad when I'm doing 25.

Right.

And so I think it's there's a there's a balance there.

And I think that's right.

I mean, I am a phenomenal cyclist.

We're talking with Mayo Thompson here at Ottawa Hills.

You know, whether it's checking demographics of drivers or doing any of these things.

I mean, data is so important to the decisions that that any leader makes.

How do you keep track of all of that?

How do you decid what data is worth collecting?

What data isn't worth collecting?

Well the driver counts were important for a host of reasons, but primarily, you know.

As a local government, we are in in the safety business, but we're also in the law enforcement and treating people fairly business.

And we wanted to make sure that we were we were treating people fairly, and we were aware of the perceptio that existed about the community wanted to address those beyond that.

More generally, our community, frankly, is pretty small, and it's pretty simple here.

So the the statistics that are driving decisions in the city of Toledo, they've got a lot more information.

They got a lot more going on than we do.

But.

I would say we have some advantages in the sense of being small.

And we have a pretty good feel for our community.

And Mr.

McMurray would say as, as I would, that if you're walking down the street here, you're likely to know you like to person walking down, you'd like to say known by name and that sort of thing.

So I'm getting away from your questions.

I don't think so.

I think that's a perfect way to answer it.

The the upside.

There's upsides and downsides to both.

But you can be inundated with data and you certainly should acquire it t make important fiscal decisions.

But there's something to be said for the data that you're receiving.

Buy from your neighbors, sure, from your constituents.

So I think that's a perfect way to answer that question.

Much of our a lot of our numerical analysis dollars and cents sort of thing, and we're pretty I think we're pretty good at that.

We've had good financial management for years in the village.

So we we're on top of that.

From a dollars and cents standpoint.

We're going to take a break.

We're talking with Mark Thompson, the mayor here of Ottawa Hills.

When we come back I want to talk more about that revenue side, because Ottawa Hills is uniqu in in how they generate revenue and how they don't.

We'll talk more about tha on the other side of the break here on the 418 powered by wheat.

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Welcome back into the 419 powered by T. It's Mayor Monday and we are in Ottawa Hills literally at the junior high and high school inside the foundry talking with Ottawa Hills Mayor Mark Thompson.

Mayor Thompson, I'm always curious.

We've had almost every mayor in the region.

And what if this and this might be an unfair question, but if you had to pick one persona or professional characteristic.

That.

Is the most important for a mayor to have, what would that be?

Well, I guess I would say you have to care about the community.

There's a sort of a foundational aspect to it if you don't care, an I would presume most mayors do.

In from my perspective.

There's a responsibility about being mayor.

And what that means is in some respects, you have to pu that professional responsibility ahea of your personal responsibility, whether that be a mayor or other elected officials.

You've been mayo for about two and a half years.

What how was the transition after being a longtime city manager and then running for mayor, an how did you enjoy campaigning.

And how drunk are you with power?

Well you'd have to ask other people.

That's a perception issue, I would say, in terms of being drunk with power.

Probably not.

I would hope not.

An answer to your question about campaigning.

I ran unopposed, so I didn't have to campaign.

I can tell you that I didn't spend a dime campaigning.

And would also say to you, though, while that was beneficial for me personally, I don't think it's good for the community.

That's well said.

I in fact, I, I have said repeatedly that that there needs to be some competition for these races.

So you want to beat somebody?

I want to be I want whoever's running for mayor to be challenged by someone else.

And held accountable.

What was the I mean, I know you didn't campaign, but certainly you probably still had campaign message.

As you're seeing people at the store, you're giving out walking the dog.

Okay.

I mean, but like, what what was the the the vision and the things tha when you went to the last guy.

Yeah.

When you went from village administrator to mayor, inevitably there's a reason why you wanted to make that move.

Well, I had I had retired an been retired for 3 or 4 years.

So your wife wanted you to get out of the house?

Well, that was part of it.

I think she did encourage this.

I would say that.

Let me ask what that conversation.

Was, just that transactional.

I mean, you had been retired for three years, four years, and you got.

And what was that?

If you don't mind me askin a relatively personal question, was it around the kitchen table or this opportunity came up, you wanted to make a change What was that conversation like?

There were conversations, first of all, with with Kevin Gilmore, who was a former mayor who wasn't going to run again.

And he and I spoke about whether I would be interested in doing that, and I didn't, frankly, as I said earlier, this community has bee very good to my family and me, and if I could continue to contribute I wanted to I wanted to do that.

So that was the nature of the of the discussion.

What's the day to day schedule look like for the mayor of Ottawa Hills?

Well, this is a part time job.

First of all, I'm glad you asked that question, because I think a lot of folks believe that, you know, the mayor has got an office at the village municipal building and is there all the time.

That's not the case.

That's the purpose of the village manager slash administrator.

And that's a. That's where the day to day decisions are made.

And April McDonald is the person who does that and does it very well for us now.

So if you were to go over to the village officer, have a question you're likely to be talking about?

Not not to me.

You know, almost every mayo we've had on has talked about, you know, two primary things in terms of needs in the community and priorities, and that is, you know, a need for more affordable housing and a need for economic development, growth, recruiting businesses to come into their community.

I imagin there's different conversations happening in Ottawa Hills.

Yes, there are, although the economic development question that you're talking about other communities is ofte related to a financial question, that the economic development generates a solid tax base.

But the community and I often relate it to the housing in our community.

It's a beautiful community full of beautiful homes.

Those homes are old and they are they are in need of maintenance.

And and that's expensive.

You could sort of take that same analog and apply it to the community.

Absolutely beautiful community.

A project is going to start in a couple of weeks on Edge Vale Road, and I only point that out as an example, because part of that projec going to replace the water line that belongs to Lucas County that has the Toledo Water in it.

That water line is over 100 years old.

And and frankly, when it was put in over 100 years ago, it wasn't big enough.

Then if you follow me.

So like like our homes, those the plumbing in those old homes is old and it's undersized.

So that's a challenge.

And that relates to the economics as we go to the future.

So paying for that.

Yeah I mean so I think that's I mean we look at all these other small communities and many of them pay for things because they've got large industry that moves in and and develops a vacant lot into a manufacturing facility that hundreds of people.

Yeah, that's that's right.

That's not going to happen here in Ottawa Hills.

So so how do you generate new revenue.

Well Hills.

Your point is a good one.

Frankly we are looking at and this is in the future.

But we're looking at the site where the municipal the municipal building is.

And that's the kind of the largest.

Assembled piece of property.

And we're looking at whether or not we can reshape our organization and our locatio and have that for development.

But many communitie expand their tax base by growing geographically.

Well, we're not going to do that.

So so if we're going to expand the tax base, then it's going to be a density issue.

The amount of groun we have isn't going to change.

Perhaps we can use it in a more dense fashion.

But as we look forward.

We need to fin additional sources of revenue.

We're here talking with the mayor of Ottawa Hills, Mark Thompson, here at the junior high and high school inside the foundry, this beautiful facility, as we as we walk around and tour this facility, we see a number of names that we recognize as as community leaders that have contributed to making this happen.

I noticed that there is a space sort of just behind us that has the Thompson name on it.

Tell me about about Tyler.

And this is a space that's dedicated to your son.

My wife and I had two children.

Tyler was our oldest son, and we have a daughter, Tess Tyler.

Both Tyler Test went to school here and benefite from the outstanding education.

I would say that they would both say to you that getting through high school here was more challenging than getting through college.

They were very well prepared, and I suspect most of the students who leave here.

Reach that conclusion.

Back to our son, Tyler.

He died in 2021.

He had a cerebral hemorrhage and.

Was actually doing the same kind of work that I did.

He was the village administrator in Georgetown, Ohio at that time.

So we were both had effectively the same job.

So we were talking about earlier about three generations actually there for generations here, at any rate.

Whenever I talk about our son and his death, I always try to conclud by saying that he was an organ donor in the nature of his death was such that his organs were harvested.

Sounds like such a terrible term.

But heart and lungs, kidney and all kinds of things.

So our loss there was some positive in there in terms of a host of people who have benefited from his his life and frankly, in his death.

Well, thank you for sharing as a as a family recipient of an organ donation, my father is celebrating, I think it's eight years this summer with a heart transplant.

That's that's a challenging decision.

But I, I appreciate you sharing that and sharing that perspective.

And thank you for that, for that gift.

That was a decision that he made, you know, and kind of consistent with who he was.

It's a beautiful memory.

And obviously it will live on for.

Generations that pass through the hallways.

Here is an awkward.

But I think it's a it's a timely segue to talk about the future, which Tyler's memory, of course, is in passing.

I guess I have a clinical question to ask in terms of some specifics, but I'm also curious about where and how you think about the futur of your beloved village, right.

Which housed your family and still does.

Is this something that you think about in a whiteboard at your house?

You've got a journal by the bed in the shower, when you drive.

I mean, you love it and you want it to move it.

And you talked a little bit about being stagnant.

And that is the antithesis of of what you want.

I think they talk about being in differen is worse than loathing.

Right.

And I believe that to be true.

How do you how do you vision the future here?

Is it is it an eterna do you bounce it off your wife?

And she said, I don't care as much to leave and go to someplace to work.

Well, she doesn't say that to me.

Direct.

Yeah.

She writes is on the whiteboard.

Yeah.

Well, we've got, you know, we've got a strong team of elected officials, and there are 2 or 3 things that make this community, I think.

Extraordinary.

And and we want to keep those things.

I like to sa that over the time, the changes that should have occurre in the community are changing.

The demographics being one.

And I spoke earlier about a perception of this being a kind of a an affluent white community.

Well if you and I had the opportunity a couple of months ago to come to a schoo assembly here in this building, and if you look at the students, it is it is that demographic has changed dramatically.

So my point is that some of the things that should have changed.

I think are changing and some things tha we would like to keep the same.

I think we're doing a pretty good job there.

One of them is the school, and obviously that's a critical part of this communit continues to be a strong school.

You can look at any major.

Yes, sir.

So it's one of the reasons why the village and school try to work so well together.

We recognize that how important that is to the community.

And the other thing is, it's got to continue to be a place where people want to live.

Right?

Because if you don't want to live here, there's not a whole lot else going on.

It's not like there's a large factory or anything like that.

So there's got to be a plac where people want to live, and it's an expensive place to live.

And so not only people have to want to live here they have to be willing to pay for those services.

Our job is to try to keep those costs down and efficient service.

That gets back to some of the things we've talked about earlier.

The good thing is that we we can find that peopl who move away often move back.

Families who moved away.

Someone gets transferred away when they move back to the area because they're working for a corporation.

They want to come back here.

We have lots of young people who have moved away, and when it's time to start a family or what have you say, well, you know what?

You know, where I want to have my family is is here.

So those things.

But we've got to keep that it's got our job is whether that be the school or the village.

We've got to keep this a plac where people want to live.

We're talking with Mark Thompson, the mayor of Ottawa Hills.

All right, buckle up.

We're going to put you on the hot seat.

It's now time for Gretchen's quiz.

There you go.

You know what it is?

It feels I don't know.

Okay, I'm going to ask you for rapid fire questions.

Gretchen's going to ask you to describe Ottawa Hills in one word.

And then Matt will work with you to list the nine best things in and around the village.

All right, that's the 419.

Here we go.

Question number one.

What's the best vacation you've ever taken?

Biking in Italy.

Oh, wow.

What's the last book you read?

Well, I am reading a biograph of Winston Churchill right now.

All right.

What's a food that you absolutely cannot stand?

I eat anything.

All right.

So he's apparently apparently never met brussel sprouts.

Yeah.

All right.

You are.

You become a superhero.

You've got a superpower.

What's the superpower that you would love to have?

Predicting the future.

I like that.

I don't.

Yeah.

What's the one word you would use to describe the Village of Hills?

Friendly.

Okay.

Okay.

We're going to do the nine favorites.

The hard part.

It is?

Yeah, well, just dealing with me makes it even worse.

But I can help you with it.

Nine things that you love about Ottawa Hills.

Or really, the region.

Nine things.

Nine things.

We'll do it together.

Ottawa Hills is a great location in the region.

Absolutely.

The school system here is certainly on this.

You don't.

Need to do it.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

That's right.

This is amazingly powerful.

Yeah.

School system.

I'll give you credit for the school system.

It's certainly a wonderful aspect of the community.

The idea that people have pride in this community.

Yes.

I have lived and worke in places where people didn't.

Tell.

People were proud to live here.

People are investe in this community.

That's true.

Mr.

McMurray would tell you that there are parents in this building all the time.

Yes.

And that's a positive.

That's a positive.

Yes, sir.

I think it's a positive.

I don't know what he.

Thinks about that.

Yeah.

Where are we?

Five.

Oh.

The Toledo hills.

Yeah.

She's not strong.

You get past five and Gretchen is really the best.

Yeah.

That's right.

Regionally, a lot of good things happening here, and.

And it's a good location for that.

I think many people don't.

And I didn't realize until we moved here what Toledo has to offer.

So that's a that's a positive.

Back to the community.

There is support in the community for the community recognizes what it takes to keep the community functioning.

They're willing to support th school system and the village.

I like the people I wor with, the people who, frankly, the people do the work in Ottawa Hills.

The people provide the service to me.

I'm not out collecting the trash.

We've got good people going That police department, right?

How many more?

You got one left.

Have you been doing it in a local park system at all or go to.

Yeah.

Just feel free to ever go ou in any green space in the area.

Maybe.

Maybe a spouse or something like that.

It might be your favorite thing in Ottawa Hills.

Well, m my spouse was my favorite thing, regardless of Ottawa.

Hills.

To want somewhere else.

It wouldn't be.

That's fair.

Other places.

Mayor Mark Thompson from Ottawa Hills, thank you so much.

Thank you.

We're taking a break.

When we come back, we'll be joined by the principal here at Ottawa Hills, Ben McMurray.

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Welcome back to the 419 powered by.

We are out at Ottawa Hills High School in the foundry, this beautiful, creative, incredible space.

We're joined no by the principal, Ben McMurray.

Ben, thank you so much for joining us.

Truly our pleasure.

What I guess, you know, as the first person officially qualifie to tell us what this space is, what what is the foundry?

Foundry is a space meant and designed for student collaboration, but also a plac where students can get support.

So we tried to we have always had lots of support for students of all ability levels, but we wanted to create a space where students wanted to come and we made and destigmatize student support, make it a place where kids could come and get help and make learning how to read exactly like getting tutoring for an AP class.

And you know, the school is a old school added on many times.

It really had no sort of center of the building where students could hang out before it was all these kind of fragmented hallways, but this has becom kind of a hangout place as well.

What kinds of supports are offered for students in this space?

We have math intervention, reading intervention, peer tutoring for all subject areas, just about everything.

If student would need some help this is a place they could go.

Our counselors come down and meet with them to do scheduling or career and college counseling.

Again, it's a space where whatever they need, they can get.

I'll tell you in a spac that is supposed to, by design, feel not overengineered isn't easy.

Having a place that's within an institution that feels not institutionalized isn't easy.

We are friends.

I am proud to say that I have a lot of buddies who have children that are students in high school.

They've really embraced this.

Talk to me a little bit about the sweet spot of making something like this a success.

You know, one thing that's beautiful about Ottawa Hills is this the involvement of everyone, even people don't have children in the school, still have a vested interest in making sure what happens in the school is a great thing.

You'll hea more about that from the mayor, but the school is sor of the epicenter of everything.

We don't really have an businesses.

There's no downtown.

So I like to say the main hallway is Main Street.

Sort of people spill out of their homes during graduation time to support the kids.

Education is front and center.

The design of this space was highly collaborative, involved all kinds of stakeholders, and it was sort of an interactive process with the architecture firm that we chose, which was the collaborative and one of the lead architects.

There was a village resident, so had everything to do.

But initially we talked about renovating our library and he said, well, if you want to put learnin in the center of your building, put learnin in the center of your building.

And this was an underutilized courtyard.

And so he said, why don't you put a roof over the courtyard and you could have all kinds of space.

And so within this kind of big room here, we have all these collaboration rooms.

So we have an immersion room, 360 immersion room, a testing center a cafe that's run by students, a career in college counseling corner.

So it's pretty amazing.

I'll tell you as you walk through and see the names on these individual rooms.

One of the things I think that's really speaks to me is that there's a diverse group of people that have given back, not just by ethnicity or income or geography, but there's an age separation to it is to your point, a community is given back because it means so much.

That is the upside.

The downside is you're a resident also in this community, right?

Yeah.

And in full candor, you and I are friends, and I'm lucky to be able to say that.

You ar immersed in the community and, you know, are the mayor of education in the high school, that how do you disconnect?

What that you have to leave at some point, right.

You're walking through the grocery store or you're trying to go for a walk with the dog, and inevitably you're going to encounter a parent who's not happy about their kids math grade.

Yeah, or they are happy about it.

They want to talk about either way.

Yeah.

Well.

Truthfully, you know, community is something I always wanted.

Yeah.

There's 4800 people that live in Ottawa Hills, 1800 homes.

Walking through the neighborhood.

I see my students all the time and their families.

I actually like those connections.

I need a break every once in a while, but I mostly like those.

It's what what I want.

I want to feel like I'm par of something bigger than myself.

So tell us a little bit about the data system.

Facts about the school.

How many students go here?

What's the graduation rate?

What do people watch?

What's the college prep like that?

Those kinds of things.

We're 712 building about 500 students, 100% usually graduate, 100% have plans.

Most of the time it's I mean, the vast majority of students go on to a four year university or college.

It's pretty incredible.

I mean, our goal is to try to help students decide about the next step after high school and what that looks like and give them a lot of choices.

For some, it's a selective university that they're aiming to, and there's lots of support for that.

For others are really our philosophy is finding the right fit.

They may get into a selective university, but unless they've done their homework, it might not be the place for them.

So we really encourage from about seventh grade on, sort of thinking about the future, that career and college trajectory that they have.

So we're very fortunate.

100% graduation rate.

What's something that people wouldn't know about how to a Hills, right?

I mean, I think, you know, I don't live in Ottawa Hills.

My my brother and his kids are here and they absolutely love it.

But I think there's certainly some strong perceptions about the Ottawa Hills community and Ottawa Hills schools.

But those are largely uninformed, right.

So what's something that tha you've come to know about this, this school community that, tha you want other people to know?

Yeah.

Well, it's one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Northwest Ohio.

I think the the university, the hospital systems, the businesses in Toledo recrui people from all over the world.

And a lot of what people have in common and neighborhood is they want the very best education for for the children and their children.

So it's a very diverse neighborhood, and I love that aspect of it.

But I think another thing is, I think avoided some of the divisiveness that exists in the rest of the country.

People have to live next door to people in a very small community.

So like if you've got to complain about something, it's more of a kind of a dialog or a discourse in the best possible way, as opposed to kind of creating wedges in the community.

And I like that aspect.

Of it.

If you have any complaints, we'll make sure the cell phone number up on the website.

Talk to me a little bit about how you got to hear this was always when you when you were in school, you knew you wanted to be an educator and you wanted to be an administration.

But what brought you to this as a path or a vocation?

My parents were great.

They supported education.

Obviously.

I had some pretty remarkable teachers all the way through.

Where's Home originally?

I grew up in Plymouth, canton, Michigan.

Okay, yeah.

And my wife, Noreen is the French teacher here?

Yes.

She brought us to to Ohio and to Ottawa Hills 32 years ago.

How about that?

Yeah.

And I was actually commuting up to where I went to high school, working with my very favorite teachers that I always had.

And but that's a 64 mile, one way commute.

Yeah.

And the principal retired here, and I thought I could literally wor across the street from my house.

I had little kids at the time.

I love Ottawa Hills.

And yeah, it's a it's a wonderful place to be an administrator.

I'm passionate about school reform and education.

Some of that you can't just do in your classroom.

And I wante to give back to the community.

So although I get paid, I feel like I volunteer every day.

Yeah.

And how did you and she meet?

I was an undergra at Eastern Michigan University.

She went to U of M, she was in a graduate class.

She always looked down.

On you.

Yes.

Yes, I know her as she should.

When you're.

When she's mad at you.

Yeah.

Well Or do you understand it?

I do.

Okay, so that's not going.

To work.

She supports me and I support her.

We like to think of it that way.

Yeah.

So that's where I met at school.

Yeah.

And, yeah, she just finished her 32nd year out of a hill.

So that's amazing.

It's summertime.

It's quiet here in the building today.

But what does the summe look like for for a principal?

There's a lot of stuff we pushed to the summer to get done.

Lots of meetings, lots of paperwork, lots of training, lots of planning for the next school year.

It's busy and in a good way.

But again, there's not evening commitments.

During the school you had 20 varsity sports, an amazing theater program, amazin vocal and instrumental program.

So there's lots of thing happening all the time at Ottawa Hills, and it's sort of like a recreation center.

Again, we're not a place that has a downtown or workouts facility.

The school is a community hub inside and out.

What are some of those innovations you talke about being being in innovative when it comes to being an educator or an administrator, what are some things that you've done here that you're proud of?

Oh, that's a great question.

I think mostly it's about the attentiveness that the educators have individual students.

So no matter what your ability, we do a lot of meeting, looking at data, trying to kind of target students across all ability levels to make sure that they'r reaching their full potential.

And so it's called MTS Multi-tiered System of Support in schools.

So it's a highly collaborative process with teachers.

You know the hard part about being the principal here too is we're so collaborative.

And people people want to be engaged at every level.

Students need to be engaged.

Teachers need to be engaged.

Parents need to be engaged.

So it's sort of managing all of that conversation.

32 years.

Like most things, there's a lot of change in a lot of things that are the same.

Walk me through some of the things that have changed over the 3 or 4 year period.

Technology is like I mean, it's I think almost to the point where we're like rethinking some of the technology.

Kids are saturated with cell phones and laptops, and we were one of the first to be kind of a 1 to 1 school laptop for every kid.

But now we're finding kids need a break from that.

They want a break from that.

Our art classes were at the forefront of technology originally first to have laptops and now kids.

They'r sort of getting away from that.

They want some tactile experience and turn off that.

Leads that.

Do you do the students just say, do you find that they're just not as receptive to learning when they're on the computers all day or doing the the technology stuff and they want to go?

I mean, how does how is that determined that you need to go a different direction?

So are you able to tell it was an educated question from someone who calls it technology stuff?

Technolog stuff.

That's a technical term.

Yeah, that's what I thought That's why you don't work here.

I think student have some awareness of of that.

Certainly their parents do and educators do.

They have.

But it happens to the scheduling process.

They'll elect to have that.

So I don't know if they're as conscious about it, but they are taking breaks on that.

Our cell phone policy change mid-year this year, the governor put some rules in place.

Kids have to have it off and away pretty much all day long.

And I think kids actually really liked it.

We've seen that they like it.

Teachers really like it.

And so yeah, you're seein that more authentic connection.

They need that.

Yeah.

We're talking with baby Murray, the principal here at Ottawa Hills.

Talk to me about kids.

So we've talked about learning, but I think, you know, you see you've got a window into the future of our community.

There's been a lot of conversation this summer about kids and decisions and, you know, parenting and all of this.

And certainly you're in a unique space in a community like this.

But are you terrified about the future?

I'm not.

You know, this is my 34th year at education.

I think when if I go back to early on, there was sort of a doom and gloom mentality among many people.

Of course.

And we've gotten through that.

The same kinds of conversations are happening now but kids are pretty resilient.

They're innovative.

Their creative.

You just kind of need to give them the space.

They're acquiring skills an knowledge that we didn't have.

They're exposed to things They have their pulse on things.

I feel very good about it.

Our graduates get jobs and they do some very interesting things.

The job market looks very different.

I wish more of the would come back to Toledo.

Yes.

I think you guys are doing a good job of highlighting what is happening here and what an amazing place that is to raise families and to have.

We've had, as you can imagine, probably a handful, if not more, conversations about AI being the apocalypse or the new apocalypse being upon us.

Right.

And I think I mentioned the fact that when steel photography was introduced from a technology standpoint that quite literally introduced the Impressionist movement.

So, like most things, the world operates in a very general broad brush, like a thermostat, right?

When something else happens, there's a kick on or the inverse reaction to things.

I'd be curious to and I'm with you 100%.

I don't think the apocalypse is upon us.

As much as I don't believe that there is such a thing as the Greatest Generation, right?

I think that that is a unfairly and absurd way of referencing anything.

But in the 32 years, you've got to have a million thing that are your favorite memories or success stories, or help you get out of bed.

Because I know you find this work rewarding, but it still work, right?

And you're a big music fa and I know your lovely bride, so time with her is is wonderful.

I find it wonderful as well, but it doesn't have to be a kid or parent specific.

But is there a single on that you don't mind sharing of?

Something that when you look back on your career and say, that's exactly the kind of thing that kept me going for three decades?

Yeah.

There are many, I bet.

Most recently, you know, Pete Cadence, who was in Ottawa Hills graduate, challenged us to say, you know, you got two amazing high schools, Ottawa Hills and Scott High School.

Why aren't you collaborating Why aren't you working together?

And it was a great question.

And I think Pete is stimulated a lot of really important conversations in the Toledo area.

So we have a partnership with Scott High School.

Kevin's been a part of that.

You know, some of the work that we've done together, but essentially there were 15 or 20 kids from both school that get together once a month.

And we've done everything from just breaking bread together to traveling to Chicag to see Pete in his house.

Yeah.

And it kind of exposed the group to these conversations.

So when I see the conversation, the dialog that happen between them, I'm very hopeful.

When I see other people watch our group of students together and get curious, how are you?

What?

You're two high schools.

Why?

Why are you in Chicago together?

How is this happening that that gives me a lot of hope about bridges being built and kind of humanity.

It's Mayor Monday here on th 419 talking with Ben McMurray.

Talk to me about you know, at the very beginning you had mentioned, you know, that, you know, Ottawa Hills is unique.

There's not a major industry presence here.

Main Street, Ottawa Hills is the main hallway.

Talk to me about the relationship between the schools and an Mayor Thompson and his office.

Well, we are very fortunate.

Mark is a very hands on.

It was a very hands on village manager, very hands on mayor, lives obviously in the community.

The school is really important to him.

It's, you know, an asset to the community.

It's why people live here.

But we have so many other things that the neighborhood offers.

Raising a family.

We have green space.

I think the sledding hill is one of the most popular things that our kids experience.

My kids too.

It's a safe community.

The police force is amazing.

They keep an eye on everybody in a very gentle way.

You know, again, it's a walkable neighborhood.

It's close to everything you need.

The Metropark is right there.

Will our Wildwood shopping?

It's really.

It's a special place.

You know, tree lined streets, walkable neighborhood.

Kids can ride their bikes.

My relatives who come to visit, they still can't get over it.

Like they don't realize a place like this exist in the United States right now.

And people do know each other.

That's the best thing.

Marc has always been incredibly responsive.

There's lots of partnerships that have to happen.

I'll let him talk about some of those more recent partnerships, but some of our tennis courts are owned by the village, not by the school or baseball fields.

All of those things happen.

So, yeah, we have a great partnership.

Incredible.

Ben, thank you so much.

Thank you for welcoming us.

Yeah, thank you to Ottawa Hills High School and thank yo for joining us on the program.

We'll take a break.

We'll be right back.

To wrap up this Mayor Monday edition of the 419.

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Welcome back in.

As we wrap up a mayor Monday edition of the 419 powered by what?

Awesome conversatio with Thompson and Ben McMurray.

We're here at Ottawa Hill in this beautiful foundry space.

I love wha this space certainly represents.

And and Ben McMurray saying that, you know what's unique about the Village Auto Hills is that, you know, Main Street, right?

Downtown Ottawa Hills is really the main hallway here at the high school.

It's one of the only times I'v ever listened to Ben talk, and.

It was barely listening today.

If you missed any par of the show, you can catch it.

7 a.m.

on YouTube, 3 p.m.

on FM 91 or 6 p.m.

on what connects channel 30.4, of course online 20 473 65 at 419, it's the 419 powered by presente by which for wealth management.

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