Archives for January 2021

One Book – One Community Program at Bexley Public Library 

As part of its ongoing commitment to promote dialogue and facilitate community engagement, Bexley Public Library joined with other central Ohio libraries to execute an 11-week One Book – One Community program. The program kicked off on November 9th, and will conclude with a virtual author talk by Jason Reynolds on January 24, 2021 at 4:00 pm EST.

Let’s Talk About Race: One Book – One Community encourages friends, families and neighbors to share their personal experience while reading the same book. This endeavor hopes to engage our community in dialogue and seeks to bring the central Ohio community together by promoting tolerance and understanding about different points of view.

The 11-week campaign will be heightened through a social media hashtag campaign – i.e.: #onecommunityreads – aimed at amplifying the discussion and encouraging people to participate through posting and sharing of photos, reflections and resources. Central Ohio libraries have ordered hundreds more copies of STAMPED: Racism, Antiracism, and You to make available for checkout.

To get your copy, please click here! For more information, visit the Library’s website (link), or join the Facebook event (link) page.

Despite all of the trials and turbulence of the year behind us, our community celebrated some bright points of light. Join us as we recap this year, and review some of the progress and highlights from a year of resilience and determination!

2020 Bexley Retrospective – The Solomon Pickleball Courts 

If you’ve taken a walk near Jeffrey Meadows recently you might have heard the telltale thwack of a pickleball meeting a paddle. Ever since their opening this fall, the Bexley pickleball courts have been humming with activity, attracting a growing base of enthusiasts from within Bexley and surrounding communities. Pickleball has offered residents a safe, four-season outdoor activity during a year of social distancing, and Bexley’s new courts – made possible via a generous grant from the Bexley Community Foundation – arrived just in time.

2020 Bexley Retrospective – South Community Gardens

We applied all of our lessons learned from the award-winning North Community Gardens and brought them – and more! – to the South Community Gardens at Schneider Park. Thanks to support from the Bexley Community Foundation, the South Gardens provide a beautiful, best-in-class amenity to gardeners in central Ohio, and have already won some of their own regional and state accolades.

2020 Bexley Retrospective – Single Use Plastics, Composting, and Renewable Energy

After the state legislature targeted local rules regulating single use plastic bags, we worked with Bexley City Council to regroup and amended our local law. Starting today, January 1st, plastic bags will once again begin phasing out of Bexley, helping to cure the perma-litter associated with single use plastics. COVID has brought with it a whole lot of home cooking, and with it our curbside composting program has blossomed. Residents can join the program for free, and 2020 saw historic tonnage diverted from the landfill. For many years, we’ve been active with regional partners in exploring and strategizing over community-wide renewable energy. As our regional market has matured, we’ve been working in tandem on our own program for 100% renewable, local, additive energy to all Bexley households, and Council began taking action on the proposal in December. Stay tuned for more info to come this quarter, with a hopeful launch date of June, 2021.

2020 Bexley Retrospective – Justice and Equity in Bexley

As the national dialogue continues over the tragic effects of systemic racism and its role in inequities in policing, public health, housing, education, and so many other areas, we are committed to addressing inequities within our own City. We firmly believe that we have a moral obligation to ensure that all Bexley residents and visitors are treated fairly and equitably. People must feel safe in Bexley and feel that the City and the police force are committed to their well-being.

As such, we’re committed to identifying and adjusting our own practices to ensure that we’re living up to this commitment. This year, we finalized and added a comprehensive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion section to our strategic plan; reformed our complaint process to ensure greater accessibility to the process; created a Citizen Review Board; created a system to that indigent defendants in Mayor’s Court have the right to opt for community service in lieu of court fines and fees; announced a mixed-income housing initiative with The Community Builders; launched our police/community listening sessions program; and made key changes to police policy and practice in response to the insights learned through the listening sessions and other forums.

We didn’t start working on issues of justice and equity in 2020, and we aren’t anywhere close to finished. In 2021 this work will continue, and we’ve been reaching out to community groups throughout the City to ensure that their voices are an increasingly integral part of that process.

2020 Bexley Retrospective – The Jeffrey Mansion Project

A project that has been over ten years in the making broke ground this year and is slated for completion in early 2021. When complete, it will more than double the amount of available space at the facility, and provide the largest indoor public gathering, meeting, and event space in the City, under a beautiful glass atrium in the historic carriage court of Jeffrey Mansion. This project will prove to be transformative, and couldn’t have happened without the generous financial support of the Bexley Community Foundation, The Jeffrey Family, and the State of Ohio Capital Fund.

2020 Bexley Retrospective – Facing COVID Together

Bexley has celebrated numerous small victories through the pandemic, including helping to craft regional policy around public safety; mobilizing volunteers to assist residents in need; leveraging CARES funding for the community; learning and collaborating with COVID task force resident experts who have helped the city and schools; and celebrating our rockstar public health heroes here in Bexley. The sense of collaboration has been remarkable, and has been a silver lining this year.

Let’s not forget “43209 Together Day”, when residents from throughout the community joined in a mashup of “Lean on Me”!

In celebration of all we’ve accomplished together in 2020, and in hopeful anticipation of a brighter year ahead – Happy New Year!