Step inside the dynamic growth of Union, Kentucky, as we sit down with Mayor Larry Solomon to uncover how this once-sleepy town transforms while clutching tightly to its cherished small-town charm. Mayor Solomon walks us through the balancing act of development, where Union's strategic approach caters to the influx of professional households and retired individuals, all tempted by the area's sterling educational resources. It's a story of a city crystallizing its vision for the future, and we're here to share every insightful chapter.
Union's blueprint for the future, the Union Town Square Development Plan, comes to life in our riveting conversation. Mayor Solomon provides a detailed narrative of the city's infrastructure evolution, the creation of a pedestrian-centric town square, and the intricate dance of traffic management along Route 42. The episode showcases the harmonious merger of public interests with private partnerships, highlighting the collaborative land venture with the Grammas family that's key to shaping Union's central hub. Discover how the city's leaders are stitching together progress and tradition to sew a fabric of community and success.
Venture into Union's Entertainment District with us, where the city commission's commitment shines through in upholding design intentions and architectural standards. The episode reveals how the city strategically welcomes businesses that enhance the district's allure and setting high expectations retail, service and dining experiences. We also celebrate the success of Union Point Center's businesses and tease future projects that promise to align with the city’s overarching vision. Join us for this enlightening narrative as Union sets the stage to become the beacon of growth and prosperity in Boone County.
Step inside the dynamic growth of Union, Kentucky, as we sit down with Mayor Larry Solomon to uncover how this once-sleepy town transforms while clutching tightly to its cherished small-town charm. Mayor Solomon walks us through the balancing act of development, where Union's strategic approach caters to the influx of professional households and retired individuals, all tempted by the area's sterling educational resources. It's a story of a city crystallizing its vision for the future, and we're here to share every insightful chapter.
Union's blueprint for the future, the Union Town Square Development Plan, comes to life in our riveting conversation. Mayor Solomon provides a detailed narrative of the city's infrastructure evolution, the creation of a pedestrian-centric town square, and the intricate dance of traffic management along Route 42. The episode showcases the harmonious merger of public interests with private partnerships, highlighting the collaborative land venture with the Grammas family that's key to shaping Union's central hub. Discover how the city's leaders are stitching together progress and tradition to sew a fabric of community and success.
Venture into Union's Entertainment District with us, where the city commission's commitment shines through in upholding design intentions and architectural standards. The episode reveals how the city strategically welcomes businesses that enhance the district's allure and setting high expectations retail, service and dining experiences. We also celebrate the success of Union Point Center's businesses and tease future projects that promise to align with the city’s overarching vision. Join us for this enlightening narrative as Union sets the stage to become the beacon of growth and prosperity in Boone County.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, mike Murphy. Thank you, charlie. Yes, I'm Mike Murphy, the host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We tell the stories of businesses in the community so that people can know business owners as the humans that they are and not just a logo on a business card. And in this case, today with me my guest is somebody who kind of touches all local business on some level. He's a friend, he's somebody who I have really come to respect. He's got a big job and he does it well. And with us today is the mayor of Union Kentucky, larry Solomon. And so, mr Mayor, thanks for joining us and say hi to the people, and it's nice to have you here.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and everyone. So let's get it on, so let's go.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to talk about. I mean, you know, I live here in Union and I drive up and down 42. I drive all through the city. I see evidence of the growth that's happening, heavy growth, growth that sometimes people would say is surprising. Many of us would say that's awesome and some will say what the heck? So part of why we're here today is to just kind of make sure that we're letting people know truth and reality and why the growth.
Speaker 2:Well, it's an interesting statistic is that we are the second largest city in Boone County. Okay, so I tell that to the mayor of Florence and she says to me Larry, are you kidding me? Our population of Florence is around 35,000. Yours is 8,000 to 10,000. Walton is like 5,000 to 6,000. I said, yes, we are the second largest city in Boone County and we always say that as an attitude. It's not the numbers, it's that we are now a larger city. We're not that bedroom community that we used to be a larger city, we're not that bedroom community that we used to be. And it's an attitude that I think is starting to prevail throughout the city that we are the second largest city in Boone County, we are the fastest growing city in Boone County and we are the eighth wealthiest city in Kentucky, and so that's some really nice statistics and it's really like some problems to have. It's good problems, right.
Speaker 2:But growth people say to me sometimes we need to stop growth. Well, you can't stop growth. Growth is like a flowing river. You know it's going to flow. You can't stop a river from flowing, but you can channel it to different directions so that you can keep the water from getting into your crops or whatever. You can channel the water, and what we do is we try to use. If we can't stop growth, you can't, but you have to manage it, and what we try to do is manage growth, channel it, manage it because you have two choices you can manage growth or it can manage you, and for the past eight and a half years, we have been successfully managing that growth.
Speaker 2:And how we do it is that we know our demographics. How we do it is that we know our demographics. Our demographics are professional households meaning husband and wife or both, are professionals that are 30 to 55 years old, that have incomes from $100,000 to $250,000 a year and have kids, and the reason that they're coming here is because we have the greatest school system ever, in my unbiased opinion now, ever in Mann, gray and Ryle High School. And so that's our primary demographic. Our secondary demographic are retired professionals, who come here and, believe it or not, people retire to live in union, and I am one of those individuals, and those retired professionals have grandkids or, like me, they run for mayor one or the other. So, but those are our professionals and our strategy is to target that segment or that demographic and provide goods and services for them, and that's what we've been trying to do, and I think that, as a result of we've been our, this administration has been around for eight and a half years and I think we're doing pretty well.
Speaker 1:Well, I personally agree and I know you know, based on everything you've just said, you're focused on the big picture, You're focused on the future, Like you said, you know, a river can decades ago. Okay, there's a grand vision in that moment that those people have for growth and growth doesn't just stop at a certain point. If it does, then that's called stagnancy, you know, whatever Any city wants to grow kind of has. You know, the residents have a vision for themselves as a city, so thinking big picture. I know that there's been in place for a long time, kind of a grand plan for the growth of Union and it's kind of at our doorstep now and we're seeing evidence of it as we drive down the road.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting yeah, it's interesting is that back in 1999, that they developed this thing called the Town Plan and it's been around for a long time, and the town plan was to build a town center and the original vision for the town center was a town surrounded by green space separating between Florence and Union. And that was the original plan and as time went, they tried to initiate that over the years and we were really too small at the time to really put that original plan into place, so nothing got done for many years and in 2021, we developed a strategic plan to really tackle just to make that town plan turn into a town center.
Speaker 2:And our original strategic plan was to develop a villages kind of place, like in Florida, where there's a seat owner in the room and then there's small retail around and it'd be a gathering place for the city. That was in our 2021 strategic plan. One of our commissioners said that's not going to work, and the reason it's not going to work is because we're growing the city and the promenade and then all the other projects and I can explain those later, what status of those but they're all growing and what we really need to have is a green space in this development. We need to have our town center to be a park, you know, and you're going to have that green space there, and so what we've done was to divert that from that original strategy. It's still a gathering place, like we still still was originally planning and what the town center was supposed to be as well, but it's a park and what was funny is that we met on Monday and we went through all of that and provided an update and there was a publication, our communications, people put out about our decisions that we made on Monday and what we did was we decided well, let me go back In 2022, we bought the Gramas property, which is 23 acres next to Brilliance Avenue, and so we purchased that product and Gramis was gracious to provide that at a good price to the city.
Speaker 2:So we purchased that product or that land and now we're going to start developing it. And then that was our original plan to develop it as a small retail space. Plan to develop it as a small retail space. But our real question was how can those retailers compete with all the other retailers around? Okay, so the idea of the park, as I just mentioned, made a lot more sense to us, and so we started moving in that direction. And then we also, in addition to that, if you've been over to our city building, you can realize that that city building was built in 1990s and it was built for a mayor and a clerk in a meeting room, and we've expanded that city building as much as we could. I mean, we're tripping over ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are. You're on top of each other in that building Every time we visit you're.
Speaker 2:Well, the really fun thing was I came into the meeting room one time one of our conference rooms and there sits a wheelbarrow and I'm going, what's that wheelbarrow doing there? And Amy, our city administrator, goes. Well, paul needed a place to put it. He's our public works director. Well, paul needed a place to put it. He's our public works director. He says he needed a place to put it. So we just put it there for a little while. We have to get out of here. I mean we have to get a new city. I mean we have to.
Speaker 2:And so what we did was we looked around for places outside of the park area for city building, couldn't find one. We fell upon the best place to put it was on the corner of Brilliance Avenue and Route 42. And we agreed on Monday, or we agreed before, but we finalized the, we looked at the plans for it on Monday and so we're going to build it on the corner of uh, on two acres on that corner, uh and uh. So hopefully we'll we'll get to that. So we started that process and then they're going to start developing the uh, the park, and it's going to be really cool because the preliminary ideas that I've heard about it. They're going in definitely in the right direction, and so, if you marry the two, that's going to be the Union Town Square and that's the name that we provided for that on Monday. And I think it's a perfect name because what it does it tells us that this is still our community center and it provides the green space that people want.
Speaker 2:Now, remember I mentioned that the original plan was a town with green space around it. That was 1999. In 2024, we're going to end up with green space with development around it. So it's sort of the opposite of what that vision was, but I think that's perfect for union right now. The plan back in 1999 was perfect for union back then. This is for 2024. So we're going to have to revise the town plan to to be. One of our commissioners wants to call it the town square plan, the union town square plan 2024, something like that. So we're going to have to update our our planning. But, uh, I think it's. It's going to be really cool when, when it all gets done, it's going to be really neat well, one thing you mentioned is the villages in Florida.
Speaker 1:Now you know, I'm 61, so I'm very familiar with the villages. It's on my radar, I've been down there many times. And one thing that they're doing is they've figured out how to bring people together. And so we here in Union are creating our own version of that. We are bringing business together, people together. We're just kind of creating community. And if we had built something in 2000, we would be right now saying we wish we had done it differently. And so here we are with our ability to do it differently, and so there's tons of opportunity. I think we're blessed that we've had the ability to find the land, through the Gramis family and others, to be able to execute the vision as it exists now. So that's something that I know is one of the moving parts. There's many, many moving parts. It's not just a matter of somebody sitting down and deciding. Here's what we're going to do, and let's start it tomorrow. It's much bigger than that. It's so much bigger than that.
Speaker 2:Well, it takes a lot of cooperation. It takes a lot of cooperation.
Speaker 2:And I thank the Grammis family for working with us, because we bought that property for $4 million and they had an offer on it for $5.5 million and they sold it to us. So you know that's a nice degree of cooperation. And in 2021, we had to purchase land, or otherwise other developers would have bought everything up in Union and there wouldn't have been anything left. So we made that decision in 2021 to purchase that land at that point in time and now we're going to have to start. Now we're starting the process of developing it and it's going to be kind of neat when it gets done along with all the other developments that we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you say all the other developments, I mean there's so much. And when people drive up and down 42, or when they log on to their Facebook page, they keep seeing different terminology, there's different projects and I think there's maybe some confusion. I don't know. Just if you're not close to it, you know, like, what are the different projects. I know that there's the Union Point Center, there's Union Town Square and there's the Promenade and there's there's, let me go through them, okay, sure, all right, let's start's the promenade.
Speaker 2:And there's, there's, uh, let me go through them. Okay, sure, all right, let's start with the promenade. That's the number one project. That's everybody's seeing right now. They're seeing on on route 42. There are now two more traffic lights on route 42. Okay, we reduce the speed limit of route 42 from 55 miles an hour from Raleigh High School to Kroger's to 45 miles an hour from 55. Ok, slowing down that traffic, because one of the things when I was campaigning last year, especially the people in Harmony, they wanted that traffic slower and so we successfully got the traffic slowed to 45 miles an hour. In addition to that, with the development of the promenade, we got two traffic lights put in, so that slows the traffic down somewhat. Ok. Now in regard to the, the promenade itself, obviously there's going to be townhomes in the back end of the promenade and apartments in the other side, and those are being developed now and you can see them going up, especially the apartments going up In the front part of it is.
Speaker 2:There are 11 lots for retail. Okay, the first lot, lot number one, is the UDF and that's already built and operating. The other 10 lots were designed to be an entertainment district. That was the promise that the developer made that it be an entertainment district. Now let me explain what an entertainment district is in terms of the development. Each of the 10 lots were designed to have buildings on it that have 6,000 to 12,000 square foot a building and appropriate parking for each lot. A building like that is conducive for a restaurant, for an office building, and we have a whole list of approved types of businesses that can go in there. Ok, so there's an approved list for that that the developer needs to work with, an approved list for that that the developer needs to work within. In addition to that, there in that plan there's allowed two drive-throughs and two pickup windows.
Speaker 2:But the point is is that if you stick to that plan, you end up with an entertainment district, and we had an issue last few months ago pertaining to a grocer that wanted to come in that the developer wanted to change that structure from the 6,000 to 12,000 square foot building to a different structure where one building would be 19,000 square feet and take up a whole place and use a parking lot for another, and they wanted an exception for that thousand square feet and take up a whole place and use a parking lot for another, and they want an exception for that. And the commission decided that there should be no exceptions to that, because if we grant that exception, then what would then happen would be the next guy come along and says you gave it to them, you need to give it to us. Therefore, the entertainment district would go away. So what the commission decided to do uh, despite the vote from the planning commission was to stick to the entertainment district, grant no exceptions, and that's what we're doing right now for that. Okay, so by doing that, union residents want that to be an entertainment district. It's been advertised, they're expecting it to be an entertainment district and because if we stick to our guns and make sure that it is that entertainment district, then we're keeping union uniquely union and we're not turning that into a random retail thing. And I'm not saying this to any disrespect for Florence, but they have their own ways of doing things. But the city of union wants that and expects that, and that's what the recent decision that the commission made to stick to our guns and keep that an entertainment district. We made that decision and that's what the recent decision that the commission made to stick to our guns and keep that an entertainment district. We made that decision and that's what we're doing, so so hopefully that that that lends to it to be fulfilled as an entertainment district.
Speaker 2:Now what we're going to do is any of the developments that come in and we're going to keep working with the developer to get the higher end restaurants that we want using them, using the restaurants that we got, and let me give you one example One of the requests that they had was for Chick-fil-A, and one would say, wow, that's going to increase the traffic quite a bit in there. Yes, it is, but two things. One is that the developer made a long deceleration lane to get into the promenade, which will increase traffic flow and so people that come in and out of there will be getting in and out quickly. And what that does do is increase increases exposure for higher end restaurants to say we can go in there because people will know who we are, we get greater brand awareness and when people come in, maybe next time we go in we're going to try that restaurant, okay, so so this is, it's a reason for bringing in more hire.
Speaker 2:We'll use what we got to bring in higher end restaurants, and let me give you an example the Outback over on Mall Road is next to a Chick-fil-A. Ok, it's doing very well, their business is doing quite well and there's cars there all the time. So so you know, it's it's. We see that as an opportunity to get to the types of restaurants that we need, and so in the end, when all those spots are filled, we'll be at the goal that everybody in Union wants, and it'll be a nice blend of all the types of restaurants and entertainment district that we had and we're going to hold to it being an entertainment district.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so there's a method to all the madness. You have the greater good of union and the residents in mind. People that see a decision being made, seemingly made in a vacuum, may wonder. They scratch their head and say, well, why is that? I think you've just done a good job of explaining why some of those decisions are made. Of explaining why some of those decisions are made, it's you're thinking there's a lot of tentacles that reach out to other parts of the machine.
Speaker 2:And we got good commissioners that think strategically. Each one of those guys thinks strategically.
Speaker 1:I'm very proud of those guys.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they have different opinions but we work it out and we make good, good, solid decisions. The other project that we're working on is, you mentioned, union Point Center. You want to finish with that one first, that that has that's doing really well too, and it's across Morale High School. They have a beauty salon there and liquor store and several other businesses that are doing doing well and I think that it will be fine. It may be hard to get in there a little bit, but I think that the businesses that are going to do well there are the destination purchases, like the beauty salon, doctor's office and so on. So I think that project will do well and, um, it's a, it's an asset to the community and, um, people from from all around can go there for convenience and stuff. So so that fills in that corner.
Speaker 2:Uh, the other project that I wanted to mention to you is, uh, graders, braxton, dewey's and a four. Okay. So what I mentioned is remember I mentioned earlier that if a business targets, if they match our demographics, they will do well. Okay, so, like I said earlier, we know our demographic and we try and get businesses in that match that demographic, and I'll give you a great example of that, graders just opened up and I've been after graders to come here for for a while, and everybody knows that Rich Grader is my lodge brother and you know I've been pestering him for several years to come to Union.
Speaker 2:We compared his demographics to the city of union demographics and they match and so therefore that was one selling point for him to come here because, uh, it matched the his user base and when that store opened, okay, the first week that it was open. Now Graders has 56 stores. All right, that store outperformed all 56 stores the first week it was open.
Speaker 1:I had no idea that was the case.
Speaker 2:That is the case, and every time I see him I go how's it doing? He goes very strong, and so I thank the residents of Union for supporting it. And I mean Grater's Ice Cream, you know. I think that that store is doing well, and when you match the demographics of your base, businesses will do well, and Grater's is one of them.
Speaker 2:Now, the next part of that development will be the Dewey's and Braxton building, and they were already approved, but they wanted to add an additional building. Now remember that that additional building is there'll be Dewey's and Braxton here, and that right next to it, away from the center between Graders and Dey's, will be that little building that they're going to be putting in there. They just wanted an exception for that. They were never going to put a building between Grater's and Braxton, not at all. And the reason for that is that it's not going to be so much green space, it's going to be an event center. If you've ever been to Braxton down in Covington, okay, and they have all those tents there and they got all these. They call them pop-up events and they get these huge tents out there and they have all these events there. That space between Graders and Braxton there's going to be used for a lot of events that are going to go on in there. In Braxton there's going to be news for a lot of events that are going to go on in there.
Speaker 2:And I was talking to Jake Rouse, who's the CEO of Braxton, and they're heading over to Germany to kind of learn as much as they can about Oktoberfest and I said to him I said well, I expect to see an Oktoberfest in Union and get back and then hopefully that that could be one of their events too. So and and I also asked him, I said when you do the grand opening, graders can have their grand opening at nine o'clock in the morning. Braxton has to have it at four 30 in the afternoon. Right, right, right. Liquid refreshment goes at four.30 in the afternoon, ice cream can go at 9 o'clock in the morning. So they're going to do that I've already got a promise on that one but expect for them to open in the fall. That's going to be kind of a fun place and there will be a lot of events there and the city will also participate and will help them wherever they can to promote their events.
Speaker 1:So there will be the ability for the community to have some interaction there as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah. So to me that's going to be really a lot of fun. So that would be good, that'd be good. So the other, the other project that we're working on and you're going to see movement in about a week or two, for Brilliance Avenue extension.
Speaker 2:Ok, brilliance Avenue extension is if you turn, if you're coming from Kroger, you turn left onto Bruins Avenue and you head and it's a dead end and you go into Harmony. What we're going to take from that dead end to Mount Zion Road, extend that road. Ok. First of all, for first, the number one reason for that is that road needed to be extended for safety reasons because people going out, if you want to go to I-75 and you live in Harmony and there's a lot of people live in Harmony it took me three days to campaign through Harmony it has to go from Harmony to 42 to light, through the roundabout and head to I-75, right With the Brilliance Avenue extension, they can go out that extension, hit the roundabout and head out to I-75. So it's a safety factor.
Speaker 2:In addition to that, it's coupled with the Grammis development that's going to go in there, which are going to be apartments and retail restaurants in there too.
Speaker 2:So that's going to be developed as well, and that's going to be starting this year sometime, but you're going to see that coming soon. So those are the key ones the Promenade, graters, the park, uniontown Square, gramas that's a lot going on. Those are our four big ones right now and over the next couple years. My term ends not this year, but two years, so I have two and a half more years and my focus is going to make sure that these projects get completed effectively and completely as possible. Beyond that, beyond these right now because people view our growth is like this okay, because of all of these going on right now, but beyond these, we don't see that much beyond that and we're going to try and slow it down to make sure that it's reasonable. But we want to make sure what we're doing is done well and that's important before we do more okay. So our focus, at least my focus, will be on on doing these projects as well as we can.
Speaker 1:So two years from now, when your term is up, union is going to look vastly different than it does when you began your and and um different than it does today.
Speaker 2:Right, I hope so. So that means that we can keep things moving and stuff, so you know you build it for the next generation, like you say, and hopefully that we can be the second largest city in Boone County and yeah, when we started this thing.
Speaker 2:We were just a small bedroom community and now not so much. Um, the other thing that I want to mention to you too, is that, um, we're also trying to bring in, uh, targeted businesses, and that's really important to us. We're going to be the only city in Northern Kentucky that has all three hospital businesses. We have Children's now in the Promenade, we've always had St E's and we're going to probably have the other one. I can't mention their name because they always tell me I can't say it, but they know who they are and they know who they are.
Speaker 2:We're going to have them too. So we'll have the three hospital entities with offices here and at some point in time I hope that we can expand that to hospitals. But you got to take one step at a time. But we're trying to focus on professional businesses to come to Union and hospital is a great area to be in healthcare is professional businesses and what that does is professional businesses and what that does is provides us the opportunity to have more people in the city during the day and go to restaurants and that stuff during the day.
Speaker 2:One of the things traditionally that people didn't come to Union was because it was a bedroom community, meaning that people lived here, went to work outside of Union and there was no lunchtime crowd, and so if we could bring these businesses into Union and develop that lunchtime crowd we're not a bedroom community anymore, folks, we are the second largest city in Boone County. You know what I mean. So we are an established city and that's what we need. Is that balance of that. But we also need to have, like we target our residential development, we need to target our businesses as well, so we have the right businesses and services that match the needs of our demographic here and provides greater service, not only for entertainment, but for business as well.
Speaker 1:I know I have a vision for my own business and that is to live in union, work in union and have a separate office in union. That is kind of in the community where I can take my lunch and walk, grab a sandwich, see some people, hear some music, whatever. That's just kind of my vision. That I'm, you know, seeing for myself. It seems to me like a lot of the business owners I'm talking to are excited for that same type of vision and it seems that's what you're building toward.
Speaker 2:That's what we're working toward and you can go to in the future. You're going to go, be able to go down to the town square and go out to the, to the center of the town square, the town square, the town square and, and hopefully we can have small venues for music. You can bring your lawn chair, you can sit and listen, enjoy the green space, and so it will be a well-balanced of work, play and living, you know, together in this city and that's what the balance that we're trying to seek and again build on needs and goods and services that our demographic calls for.
Speaker 1:So my wife's going to be a little mad at you, because she's always had the expectation that someday we would move down to the villages in Florida.
Speaker 2:You don't need to move there.
Speaker 1:We can retire right here and have the same experience.
Speaker 2:You can have the same experience and enjoyment that you can here in Union.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you and I can sit on a bench together midday and have a Braxton beer.
Speaker 2:Braxton beer and ice cream. I'm not going to drink beer and eat ice cream at the same time.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm sure they have beer-flavored ice cream or ice cream flavored beer or whatever.
Speaker 2:Or say it the other way around Braxton has have beer-flavored ice cream or ice cream flavored beer or whatever. Or say it the other way around Braxton has ice cream-flavored beer. If you try their black raspberry chip beer, it's very good. That's very good.
Speaker 1:Well, eventually I will work my way through all of them, I promise you so before we leave each other. I know that there are plenty of people in the community that just kind of feel like number one. They want to know what's going on, and this conversation today has gone a long way towards helping that. But if people feel like they want to have a voice in the discussion, if they want to just kind of add their two cents and feel like they're being heard, is there a way for them to do that?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:One is our commission meetings are always open, and when we build our new city building, we're going to have a larger commission room and it's going to be like twofold so that we can have a wall that can come up and down so that if we have larger issues, we can expand it to that.
Speaker 2:And attending commission meetings is a good way to get involved and we like doing that.
Speaker 2:One of the things is that we're also doing is expanding our communications efforts to providing more updates as to what's going on in the city and making sure that it's accurate. We want to make sure that all the information that gets out there is accurate and factual and right. So, in addition to hearing it from the press and relying upon that one source of information, we're going to work on getting our sources out there too, so that then you're seeing some more stuff coming from jamie lyons, our communications director, and you know jamie uh is to get more, more information out there and solicit stuff. She's building a database right now of of people so that we can interact one-on-one with them and and so that and my suggestion to to those is to get involved in that database and we will be getting communications out to people one on one and you can communicate with us that way. In addition to that, we want to try and listen to or try and have more community events and hopefully that we can do more.
Speaker 2:you know public hearings. You know listen to people. What I have to say there's two types of meetings. One is a public hearing, where we listen to people, but by law our meetings are commission meetings, where you come and you observe, and for our commission we allow part of that at the once a month to for people to express their thoughts and feelings and open it up to them. But by law we have to conduct our city business by the commissioners talking and people observing.
Speaker 2:So we're going to try and do more public hearings on issues, so that we can open that up some more.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds fair and I think that that's all people are looking for. You know, people are pretty accepting of change overall. I mean, as long as they feel like they're being heard. They want to make sure that their voice is being considered in the overall end result, and it sounds like you're doing that, and I thank you today for kind of updating us on everything that's happening. Right now. I'm going to tell you, go and sip on some hot tea and some honey, because you've done a lot of talking here today. But that's why I brought you on, because nothing better than getting it from the source of you know, like you know more than any of us what's going on here.
Speaker 2:I told John Strickle, our state senator, he goes yeah, you can talk a lot about union. I said, John, I can talk all day long about union, it's no problem problem it's kind of your job, part of your job anyways yeah, that's what I do so.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, thank you for everything that you're doing for the, for the city and for the community, and thank you. Thank you for your continued friendship and and for um fighting for all of us to have a greater community.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that sure, and and I'm let's do this more often I'll come back anytime you want me.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we'll do like a quarterly type of thing.
Speaker 2:Sure I'll be, happy to do that.
Speaker 1:As things change. Yeah, Things always change. We'll, you know, kind of knock on your door and say hey, tell us all about it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'd be more than happy to do that and I'm available anytime. So if anybody needs me and wants to talk to me and that stuff, call the office. I'll get ahold of them.
Speaker 1:So there you go Well, very good. That does it for this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'll say until next time. Everyone be good to your neighbor and we'll see you on the next episode, Thanks. Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor.
Speaker 2:Podcast Union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpunioncom. That's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.