The architect of much of Columbus today is credited to four-time mayor Michael Coleman, who continues to influence the direction of Ohio’s largest metropolitan area.
We’re talking with him, as he steps away from his lobbying role, after helping to seal the deal on the city's National Women’s Soccer League, a move that was both cheered and criticized.
Coleman has also spent time recently helping to plan Ohio’s celebration of America's 250th anniversary.
Guest:
- Michael Coleman, former Columbus mayor
Transcript
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Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. Former Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, the city's longest serving mayor with 16 years in office, has retired from the law firm he's been working for, but he's not retiring from life. In a recent interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Coleman said he still plans to be active in the city, mentoring leaders, serving on boards. He might even write a book or a play. To find out more about his next steps and to reflect on Columbus, past, present, and future. Joining us on all sides today we have former mayor Michael Coleman. Welcome to all sides.
Michael Coleman: Thank you, Amy. Great to be here this morning.
Juravich: All right, so you left public office and went to work for a law firm, the law firm Ice Miller for the past about decade or so. And you've been a lobbyist there, but I know you don't like that term lobbyist. So if not lobbyist, what word do you like?
Coleman: Advocate.
Juravich: Advocates all right, so you've been an advocate
Coleman: And that's what lawyers do, they advocate. They advocate for their clients. A lobbyist, you know, when I was mayor, I didn't like lobbyists. I didn't like to talk to them, don't like them in my office, you now they, but an advocate is their lawyers that advocate on behalf of their clients, I tried to only accept and do client work that I thought was in the best interest of the city.
Juravich: So you bet you do when you when you register with the city to do the work you have to register You have to use the word obvious there. Yeah So your recent act as an advocate for using that word Was to help broker the deal to secure the national women's soccer league franchise for columbus Now, did you work for the city or the private side of that?
Coleman: Privacy.
Juravich: All right, so according to the Columbus Dispatch reporter, Jordan Laird, you registered with the city to lobby on the legislation on behalf of the team's private investors, so that's the Haslam Group. Is that, did I have that right? Right. So I know that you mentioned that you don't really wanna talk about the work you did for a private client. You are a lawyer, I get that. But can you at least say, you know, are you happy that Columbus got the team?
Coleman: Yeah, I can't talk about that whole situation as a lawyer, former client, but I am happy that women's soccer at a big time level is coming to Columbus. It elevates the city, it engages us in so many wonderful things, and sports is a part of our future, and women's sports is important to our future.
Juravich: OK, so if I ask you anything about McCoy Park, you're not going to answer me?
Coleman: No.
Juravich: OK, got it. Well, moving on. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. We're talking about the past, present and future of the city of Columbus this hour with former mayor, mayor of 16 years, Michael Coleman. So I mentioned earlier in the introduction that you're not retiring from life. You said you want to mentor leaders and you are the well-known mentor of two current leaders of the City. Mayor Andrew Ginther, City Council President Shannon Harden. What do you think of the job they've been doing?
Coleman: Well, first, I mentor a lot of younger leaders, everywhere from the prosecutor, county prosecutor, Shayla Faber, Nick Bankston, who's on city council, chair of finance committee, Shannon Harden, Erika Crawley at the county commission, Kevin Boyce, along with other folks around the country. And I also, work with Shannon Harden and the mayor.
These are the next generation of leaders that have come into play in our community. And I want them all to do well. Because when they do well, our city does well. And that's my biggest interest. I think they're all good people. They listen to me like about 25% of the time. Some less than others.
The exchange happens, and it's an honest exchange. Most of it's private, and we talk about things, and you know, what the hell are you doing? And other things are, good job. Have you thought about X, Y, and Z? And so, we are fortunate in this city to have this good group of folks come up in our city who have their own ideas, their own vision, and people that that care about the city.
That really matters to me. How do you feel about the folks of our city? Are you interested in progressing the city or progressing yourself? That is always an issue that I always lay before them. You have to have the passion and the strength to do the right thing all the time. Now you can debate, can debate what the right things is. And that is a frequent topic. But. To have the core beliefs of doing the right thing and not the political thing is important.
Juravich: So it's one of the worst kept secrets in Columbus that Shannon Harden is looking into running for mayor against Andrew Ginther. Andrew Ginether is gonna be going for his fourth term. What do you think of the potential of that race?
Coleman: Well, first, Shannon Harden hasn't declared anything.
Juravich: I know. Yes, he's fundraising. It's been talked about. That's why I called it a secret. Here's what I'll just tell you.
Coleman: It's a hypothetical and until it's real, I mean, just nothing for me to talk about. Right now it's not real, it's not a situation that's there. It's all a hypothetical, and if the hypothetical was ever lifted, I'll be glad to talk about it.
Juravich: All right. So, but do you think overall it would be good for a little competition in the city? You know, having a Mayor's race, you know with multiple candidates in it. Do you like a healthy competition? Well
Coleman: You know, nothing wrong with competition, but I just don't know what's gonna happen here, and neither do you.
Juravich: I do not. Right. But you've mentored both of these men, though, Ginther and Hardin. If the race did come between the two of them, you know, would you endorse a candidate?
Coleman: Am I or am I not? We'll see when and if there is a candidate, a second candidate running for mayor.
Juravich: We'll see. Well, so Mayor Ginther did announce that he's running for a fourth term. Did he ask for your advice in deciding to run for a 4th term? I mean, you did the same thing. So he would tie you for 16 years as mayor if he wins. Did he ask for your advice about a fourth term?
Coleman: He asked for some input. I wouldn't call it advice And I'll leave that between me and him
Juravich: Okay, all right. So you if he wins though, he'll have 16 years. So he'll tie you for that 16 year record Are you glad you did 16 years in retrospect too long? Do you wish you would have gone for a fifth term? Do you look back and think about that?
Coleman: About that. Oh gosh, I look back and I, you know, sometimes I say I should have gone for a fifth term. Other times I say, I should not run for a fourth term.
Juravich: Which one's stronger between the two?
Coleman: You know, it's not, one's not stronger than the other. It's just that you wonder what would have happened if I ran for a fifth term and if I had not run for a fourth term. The reality is I didn't do either of those. I ran four fourth term, and it turned out the way it was supposed to turn out. And, So You know, I'll just leave it at that
Juravich: All right. And has Shannon Harden reached out to you for any advice on whether he should run for mayor or not?
Coleman: I talk to all people interested in running for this and that, sure I've talked to them. I've talk to candidates and elected officials and Columbus and around the country about policy issues and about whether they should run for this or do that, how to do it. And yeah, I've to every.
Juravich: You talk to everybody about everything. Something that was talked about after you finished your fourth term was whether you would run for a higher office, maybe like a statewide office or something, and that never happened, right? You spent the past 10 years being an advocate, not a lobbyist. Did you ever think about running for something else besides mayor?
Coleman: Not in the past time, 10 years. I'm done with politics. Threw with it. I put it all on the field and In my time I knew it was time to pass on the torch to someone else. I did consider running for governor Okay
Juravich: Back, I don't know in the day back in the back back in a day
Coleman: And I started actually doing some campaign fundraising, started traveling around the state. And I realized that my heart was with the city. And I did not like traveling around a state. And in communities, some of them, at that time, they didn't wanna see nothing of me in that community. You know, I was the wrong kind of person in many ways. To be in their county, for example. There was a tension, there was sometimes a racial tension in some parts of the state that I didn't like.
And I came to the conclusion that, You could impact people and policy in the community better as mayor than you could as governor. And that the governor's role was more managing a large bureaucracy. And the ability to impact the direction of a state is very difficult. It is likely in a city where you're you can impact everything that goes on in that city. And everybody expects you to on top of it.
Juravich: Is that the all politics is local situation?
Coleman: All politics is local, and that's a true statement. And I remember, you remember Richard Daley? I was considering running for governor. Richard Daly, the mayor of Chicago. He was the longest serving mayor of chicago. And we were hanging out together, talking about the future. I said, you know, I'm thinking about running for governor. What do you think? You say, why the heck would you do that? Why would you want to decline your influence, reduce your influence by running for Governor? You can't get anything done as governor, but you can do everything. You can get things done as the mayor.
Juravich: Well, maybe because the Ohio Democratic Party needed a name like yours on the ticket.
Coleman: I don't know, it's really, it came down personal preference. I felt that my future and the ability to do things that I felt were important was focused on the city of Columbus and not on the state of Ohio. And so I just stayed with the mayor's office.
Juravich: Well, speaking of city politics, you know, we've seen some disagreements between city council and the mayor's office. It hasn't all been nine zero votes in support of the mayor is agenda. Are there any you know there's been disputes over money. There's been to speech over several things. Are you surprised that there's been some disagreement?
Coleman: No, not really. I think it's healthy. I think it is healthy. It's good for the conversation and the dialog and the disagreement. There's always, it's important to have checks and balances in government and in this case we have you know a council sometimes not agree with the mayor and sometimes the There is not agreement of council. And I think once it ends up, it comes out the end of the funnel, it's usually a better product, whatever it is.
Juravich: Yeah, I know you don't want to talk about the McCoy Park deal for the women's soccer deal because that was an area of disagreement between council and the mayor. But there are other disagreements, you know, how money is being spent, whether or not to buy a fire truck, a program called Columbus Promise that offers tuition money to Columbus City school graduates to go to Columbus State. So there's been multiple disagreements. Do you think we're moving away from that time when everyone in city government was kind of in lockstep on issues.
Coleman: I think we're moving away from the time in which the movement that folks aren't always in lockstep is becoming more public. What happens behind closed doors is, has been, that there hasn't always been agreement. And then sometimes there have been significant debate about issues before the public. Privately. I think it's good to make sometimes go public and talk about those issues so that people can, you know, see what's going on better. So when you So, transparency is good.
Juravich: Yeah, when you were mayor and like Andrew Gunther was city council president, you guys didn't always agree.
Coleman: That's correct. All right.
Juravich: This is all sides on 89.7 NPR news, and we're talking this hour with former Mayor Michael Coleman. Coming up, we're gonna talk about what Mayor Coleman plans to do next, and that includes mentoring, board service, and perhaps working on civic engagement in the city. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. After 16 years at the helm, he holds the record as Columbus's longest-serving mayor. While he just stepped away from his subsequent career at a local law firm, he is far from stepping away from the public eye. Former Mayor Michael Coleman promises to continue his work for the city through board service, mentorship, and more. Still with us to share his next chapter and share his unique perspective on the past, present, and future of Columbus, we have former Mayor Michael Colman. Thanks again for being here.
Coleman: Great, thank you.
Juravich: So before we jump into your future plans, I wanted to ask you about one more thing about changes in the city. So there's this phrase that started when you were in office and it continues today. It's called the Columbus Way, right? So the idea of the Columbus way is everyone working together to move the city forward. Public private partnerships play a big role in that. But over the years, there's a lot of people in the City who feel a little left behind by the Columbusway. There's groups of people without the money, without the influence to get the ear of City Hall. They feel like they can't get ahead. Do you think it's time to alter the Columbus way?
Coleman: Well that's a good question. First, you know Columbus Way means different things to different people. Some people it means the corporate community sitting in a room making decisions. I know where Columbus Way started and how it got started because I started it.
Juravich: Yeah, didn't you say it first?
Coleman: Yes, but here's here was my meaning and it evolved over time. Okay, and Columbus way can evolve over time It's okay to evolve. In fact the city that doesn't change falls behind That's been something I've said as well. So we're going to evolve as a community over time that Columbus way will evolve over time
Juravich: You define it.
Coleman: But here's how I started, when I first mentioned it, and I won't say I started it, but I first mention it was two days after 9-11, when our nation was attacked and thousands and thousands of people were killed in New York City. We were in jeopardy and fear, everybody was in fear from top to bottom, and our schools were in fear, our children were in. And were terrified. And if you recall during that period of time, there was folks who had attacked, spray-painted Muslim businesses. And the point of view was at that time, if you're a Muslim, you were a terrorist. If you remember, do you remember that?
Juravich: I do.
Coleman: Yeah, I do and so people assume that if you're of a different religion or Muslim or look differently that you were anti-american and you were a terrorist and So what I did was I pulled together every conceivable religion politician, Republican, Democrat, the Ohio State University president, his administration, and on the steps of City Hall came together in unison Republican, Democrats, all offices, judges, civic leaders, and several hundred people on the step of City hall and said, accusing a group of people because of their religion. Is not the Columbus way.
The Columbus way is that we embrace all cultures, all people, all things, and bring everybody to the table, and have our discussions. And it's okay to be Muslim. It's okay to be Baptist. It's OK to be black, white, gay. We can all sit at the same table at the same time and figure it out. And It's gonna be hard. That's the hardest thing to do, is to bring everybody to the table. The easiest thing to will be to divide us.
You go on your corner, you go on you corner, and we can point fingers and divide the city and everything we do, and just do, you know, the group in power does what they wanna do. The hardest thing is to get everybody to table. And have a discussion about how we move forward. And nine times out of 10, you're gonna have a better result than if you didn't have those people at the table. And so that's the Columbus way in my view. So that part hopefully will never change that you bring disparate and different people to the table and have the dialog and the discussion.
Juravich: I didn't know that origin story, but I like your definition of the Columbus way. I feel like over time, the Columbus Way has morphed a little and a lot of people view it as the public-private partnerships, the influence of developers, the influence with the people with the money. Do you feel like maybe we've gone a little too far with the influence the developers? There's a lot tax abatements to the detriment of Columbus City schools, which could certainly use the money, they could certainly the tax money. Do you think we need to pull back on some of these tax incentives?
Coleman: I think, I mean, we're at a point now we just need to look at them very, very carefully and determine which ones are, we don't eliminate them. I think we just have greater scrutiny over them. And it requires more of a light, a flashlight to look each deal and understand is it really gonna have a dramatic effect on jobs and opportunities? But tax abatements are not putting schools out of business. It's the legislature that's putting schools out of the business.
Juravich: I, the, the statistics show Columbus city schools could have had like something like 8 million, $80 million if their tax abatements didn't exist, you know, they could use $80.
Coleman: I think that may be a valid issue, but in 10 years that loss of $80 million results in $500 million of revenue because of the jobs created during that period of time. I think the battle with schools is that I think there is a deliberate and intentional goal in the state legislature to eliminate public education. And that means rolling back every possible funding opportunity for public schools.
Other forms of education are more invested in. And it's troubling to see what's happening with public education around the state in the city of Columbus and elsewhere for the lack of funding that exists. And it's, you know, I think people need to wake up that we can't, people blaming on tax abatements need to blame on people who vote against funding for schools. Yes, tax abatements require greater scrutiny. But to say that $80 million is equivalent to a billion dollars in lost revenue is, you now, It's playing the blame game. There's no blame game here for tax payments, I don't think.
Juravich: You helped secure the merchant building, which is where the North Market is. I mean, would that project have happened without that 15-year tax break? No. No? Wouldn't happen. What do you think of that building? Are you excited about it? I mean it's taken longer than planned, but it's almost there.
Coleman: I think it's a good thing for our city.
Juravich: Well, back to Columbus City Schools for a second. I feel like I read somewhere and I did a lot of reading about you yesterday, but I read that you kind of called Columbus City schools and you basically, a couple years ago, you told them like, get it together, right? Yeah. Yeah, you told them to get it. Do you feel like they're getting it together a little bit? Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Coleman: I do think they're on the right track. I think Angela Chapman, the superintendent, has a great vision. She's accountable. I think the shakeup at the school district board level has been a good thing for the city. And I was just seeing so many things that I was not supportive of coming out of the district. And I said, look guys, get it together. And get it together now, and they're moving in the right direction, I think. They got all kinds of challenges, lots of challenges.
Juravich: Do you think they need more support from the mayor's office or Columbus City Council? Like should the city government be a little more hands on with the school district?
Coleman: I think that a partnership between the school district and the city is important to have because it overlaps so dramatically. I remember back in my day where I would sit down with the school board frequently and we'd talk about issues of truancy. We'd talk issues of education, safety, what they need that I could help with, sidewalks, you know, getting sidewalks to the schools was like a big topic. A lot of the schools didn't have sidewalks leading from neighborhoods and they walked to school, all kind of things.
Juravich: I feel like this dialog you're talking about that you had has been missing for like a chunk of years because City Council just recently had this, this summit in City Council chambers where City Council was there and members of the school board were there and they said they're going to meet quarterly and have these meetings. I don't remember those happening, you know, for the past, I don't know, five, ten years.
Coleman: Well... I think that's a good thing. They're starting it up again. Yep, starting it out. Starting it up, and I think there's so many things that they have in common. It's the same people, same youth, that you represent outside the school building, inside the school buildings, the same People. You gotta work with all of them. Truancy issues was a big deal. I mean, I remember having a time frame when kids had to be home.
Juravich: Curfew.
Coleman: Curfew.
Juravich: Yes, the city council just passed a curfew this week. I think it's a good thing.
Coleman: Yeah, I think it's a good thing. I think it's good thing it's not attacking them but here's what I did. We had drop-in centers, I don't know what they're doing now, I just don't now, but drop- in centers where police would pick them up if they're out, you know, one o'clock in the morning. I would personally call the parents.
Juravich: Oh wow.
Coleman: Personally, this is Mayor Mike Coleman. I'm talking to your kid, Joe, right here standing next to me. Mom, did you know that your child has been out? No, I didn't. And you know what? Don't need police action. You got mom action. The mother would come down, and I'd feel sorry for the kid. I mean, oh my goodness.
Juravich: The mayor had to call me on it.
Coleman: The mayor had to call me about you sneaking out of the house.
Juravich: Oh, man.
Coleman: And, um...
Juravich: That would do it. Yeah, that would do.
Coleman: There's nothing like a mother or father's wrath on a kid that snuck out of the house hanging out. Oftentimes they didn't know, other times they did know and didn't care and that was a problem too.
Juravich: But then you took then you're talking to the parent, right, you know, yeah
Coleman: Yeah, yeah, then we figure out what's going on with that house and what's going on that situation. Sometimes we failed, sometimes we succeeded in creating a better environment for the kid in the house, but we brought out our social workers, we brought, you know, and I personally in the middle of the night called parents and met with them right there on the spot with their kid.
Juravich: I'm picturing you in your pajamas and slippers. Not exactly. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. We're talking about the past, present, and future of the city of Columbus this hour with former mayor, mayor of 16 years, Michael Coleman. We talked about your mentorship. I know you plan to continue serving on some boards, but you also told the Columbus Dispatch in a recent article that you're interested in getting involved in voter registration efforts. Yeah. Tell me more about that who's not voting or I guess not even registered and that you want to try to reach
Coleman: Two problems here, and I haven't figured out how to deal with it yet. I've had some conversation with Stacey Abrams from Georgia about how she's dealing with it in Georgia, what she worked on, she was committed to for years and has improved voter registration and voting in Georgia. What I've seen in Ohio is that there's fewer people voting. And what I would like to know is are they not voting because they're not registered? Or are they now voting because the don't think they can impact the political system?
And I think it's a little bit of both. I think people are staying home even if they are registered because they don't care what the outcome of the election is Yeah. They don't think they can impact the result of that election, and that it doesn't impact them. Well, we all know, just looking at today's environment, how voting has impacted our nation, and when you don't vote, this is what we get in the White House. A criminal enterprise, essentially. I know it may be controversial for you, but it is, that's my view of what's going on now. So.
I think it's time for Ohio, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, kind of to come together and figure out why aren't people voting and what does it take to, number one, register them and number two, get folks to believe that that vote counts. If you don't vote, there's no hope for tomorrow. And, but if you do vote, you have a chance to impact your life and the life of your neighborhood and your kids.
Juravich: Do you feel like the lack of voting is a certain demographic? Are we talking about young people or is it just across the board?
Coleman: I think it's across the board I am what I'm suspecting though that folks aren't voting in poor communities communities that don't have the racial diversity, because they feel they just gotta get from one day to the next, and nobody's listening to me. And so if I vote for whoever, it's not gonna matter. My life condition is not going to change. And we have to change that thinking. By performing on the other side.
So, elected officials have a duty and obligation to take care of folks, particularly those who have a hard time, and make their lives better. And that's the role of government, is to make people's lives better, you know? When I was mayor, I said to my staff all the time, and it's like ingrained in their head, even today when I see them, you now, The role of the city is to make Columbus the best place in the city, best place, in the country to live, to work, and to raise a family. That's our goal.
Juravich: I remember that phrase. Yeah, it was all coming back to me.
Coleman: Yeah, me too. I haven't talked about it in a while, but yeah.
Juravich: We are talking with former mayor Michael Coleman who recently retired from his law firm job but promises he has no plans to retire from the city coming up. We're going to talk about the former mayor's recent work helping to plan the America 250 Ohio celebration that is when all sides continues on 89 7 NPR news.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Shifting from 16 years of city leadership to private legal practice is a major journey, but former mayor Michael Coleman is now turning the page on yet another chapter. He just retired from his law firm and Michael Coleman is with us today to talk about the past, present, and future of the city of Columbus. From mentoring the next generation to board service to civic engagement, we're talking this hour to former mayor, Michael Coleman. Thanks for being here.
Coleman: Um, thanks for inviting me.
Juravich: So when you look at the list of those involved in planning America 250 Ohio and all the events, your picture is front and center on the website.
Coleman: I didn't know that, by the way. You gotta look at the website, yes. Yeah, I need to look it up.
Juravich: Big picture of you. You have been serving as one of the co-chairs. What has your time been like working on this project, this America 250 Ohio Commission?
Coleman: Well, I'm operating as a co-chair and there's a staff so I operate the highest level Not at you know, every little specific thing and and I like it that way Because this actually started a couple couple years ago at least
Juravich: The commission formed in 2022. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been awhile, yeah.
Coleman: The governor asked me, Republican governor Mike DeWine asked me to co-chair this and I said
Juravich: Are you happy to say yes?
Coleman: Well, I didn't need anything more on my plate, but I decided to do it because I ran the 2012 bicentennial of the city of Columbus. And back in 2012, I viewed that period of time as a seminal moment for our city to not just celebrate the past. Plan for the future. And I use it in a way to expend our capital dollars, to create back paths, to really focus on the youth of our community, to engage folks. In fact, in preparation for that 2012 effort, I held the largest community meeting ever held in the city of Columbus. Almost 2,000 people came to it.
Juravich: I don't know if that's a meeting, that's a conference, but okay. Yeah, but it was, you know, neighborhood folks.
Coleman: You know, people just interested in the future, the future of their city. And we held it at the Columbus Convention Center and we had a big, long discussion about the future the city. And I put some of my gripes out there too. And one of my grips was that we viewed ourselves, the city itself, the residents viewed themselves as a cow town. And it drove me nuts to hear it. I said, we're not a cowtown. What does that mean?
We have no ambition? What does it mean? There's no cows on Broad and High. Or a big city. Yeah. Yeah, but we were incrementalist. We had the work. The working values of working hard every day, that's a good thing. But we didn't pound our chest. We didn't reach for the next thing and not, we feared failure, took little risks. And I said, we gotta change that mentality. We have to be competitive. We gotta really focus on what's gonna make us all better. And not fear failure. If we fail, so what? Let's go to the next thing and try to reach for the next things and be bigger and better as a community. So that all kinda came out in that discussion.
Juravich: I mean, I hear you about all that because it drives me nuts whenever there's like a national news story out of Columbus and they tag it and say, you know, reporting from Columbus, Ohio. And I'm like, yes, of course you're reporting from Columbus, Ohio. This big, big, huge story didn't happen in Columbus, Indiana or Columbus, Georgia. Like I want Columbus just to be known as Columbus. You don't need the comma Ohio or Columbus.
Coleman: So I remember once, I had states of the city. I would have thousands of people there. I remember, once we filled up Ohio Theater in a standing room only. We had thousands and thousands of people there in my state of the City. And they're normally pretty big events. One year, I can't remember where we were for that state of the city, President Obama, I called him and said, I'd like for you to do a video. So he did a video and he said in that video that all these great things about Columbus, then he said, it's the best, the biggest small town in America.
Juravich: Mm-hmm. I said what no
Coleman: So I literally cut that out of the video.
Juravich: Now you edited for the president
Coleman: I edited it, I said, you can't say that, you gotta say that. I cut it out and kept the rest of the comments.
Juravich: I'm with you on that. Yeah. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. We're talking about the past, present, and future of the city of Columbus this hour with former Mayor Michael Coleman. Just to pivot back to the America 250 thing for one more minute because we kind of got off track there, but it's an interesting time for our country to have a giant birthday party. Yes. There are some people who are very excited about America and there's others who are feeling discouraged, a little unpatriotic. Um, so I know you're on the commission. You're the co-chair, but how do you feel about celebrating America right now? Are you feeling patriotic? I am.
Coleman: Tell me more. I should feel patriotic. We got a lot of problems in the nation. I mean, I disagree almost every day of what's happening in the White House. I mean I guess I have that derangement syndrome that's often talked about because I am adamantly opposed to what's going on in our nation. Led out of the White House, the Trump White House. I'll just say that. But I have great optimism for the future of our country.
And I often say that with all our problems, we have plenty of them. We're the greatest country in the world. When I travel internationally, I come back home, I practically kiss the ground because as much as I don't like what's going on in our country today, I love our nation. And I don't like parts of our history. Big part of our history, from my history even, was based in slavery and my great-grandmother was a slave. She was born in slavery. She was freed at the age of 26 years old. She died only 10 years before I was born. That's how close it was. Yes, she lived to be a hundred and four years old.
Juravich: Oh, wow. Yeah. All right. You got longevity in your family.
Coleman: Longevity. Longeivity. But she was a slave. She was born, freed, and sold in slavery. And in the mayor's office, when I was mayor, we had one picture of her photographed in the late 30s, I believe. And I put that photograph in a big portrait outside my office. So when people came to see me, they had to walk past her. Often nobody really knew who she was, but the symbolism was that my great-grandmother never knew how to write, never voted, didn't know how to read. Her great- grandson, who was born 10 years after she died, was now the mayor of City Columbus. And you gotta walk past her to see me.
Point is, of all this, is that Many horrible things happened in our nation. But the truth is that we've all come to America in different boats, but we're all in the same boat now, the United States of America. Some of us came over in slave ships, some of us come over in fleeing countries, different boats for different reasons, but we are all here now, and so we have to make our country the best country we can possibly. Make it. And that's patriotism, to understand that we're all different, and we all have a different history.
But we... But we have to think and believe that our purpose is to make our lives better and make the country's life better and those who live here better and that we have work together to get there. And I have no problem working with folks. I may disagree with them, but we gotta work together. And so the promise of our country, We're not perfect. As a nation in the declaration of independence that all men and women are equal. We're not a perfect country but we do have a purpose and that purpose is to come together and make us as a better country and a better people to live in it.
Juravich: We're talking with Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman here on all sides on 89.7 NPR News. Because we're running out of time, I'm just gonna pivot to another topic without a good pivot. One of the biggest issues facing the city right now is housing, there's not enough of it. What we do have is too expensive for a lot of people. If you were in charge again, what would you be doing right now to fix our housing crisis?
Coleman: I think. What's happening now is big steps towards fixing housing in Columbus. Couple things I think about, when I was mayor, I started the Affordable Housing Trust Company Corporation. I began it and funded it, a permanent source of funding. And it still exists to this day. And it has financed thousands and thousands and thousand of apartment buildings. And units in the city of Columbus. And that was the first year, that's 26 years ago.
Juravich: Affordable housing or apartments of all shapes and sizes.
Coleman: Affordable housing, affordable housing. Now, our community's grown in population, unlike other parts of the state, I think we're the only community that has any growth.
Juravich: Yeah, we're the fastest growing city in the Midwest.
Coleman: Fast currency in the Midwest and more people are moving to Columbus and not to other parts of the state. In fact other parts that a state are moving to Columbus. So we have job opportunities but not affordable housing opportunities. I think it's improving. I think the powers that be have come together and developed a plan to provide for affordable housing, but one thing I think is missing in all that. Affordable housing isn't just apartments, it's houses, home ownership. And we've.
As a city, as a state, we focus on providing shelter, and that's good, all good, apartments, that's great, and try to reduce costs associated with that. That's good. And we still got a ways to go on that. I think what we're missing in all this is home ownership. And Because that's where wealth is generated. It's too many, a lot of families, that's the only thing they own of, that's their biggest asset, not the only they own, the biggest asset. That oftentimes increases in value and goes from generation to generation. And home ownership creates wealth.
Juravich: A lot of yeah, but the houses that are here people can't people say, you know on on a living wage of you know One income salary they can't afford it and they can afford the houses. They cost half a million dollars I'll tell you a story
Coleman: Uh, I'll tell you a story. So, uh, I. Form the Affordable Housing Trust, and it was to develop more apartment units, essentially. And then I had a part of that organization say, we need to do housing too, I mean, home ownership. So I took a big piece of the west side, I don't remember the streets offhand, but I can figure it out later, but we bought up, Affordable Housing Trust, bought up. Many lots and we subsidized the recreation the renovation of those lots and we put in capital dollars to improve the streets and all that the lights everything and My recollection is that we spent, I'm just using a number, I'm not sure if this is a number but $300,000 to rehab a house and all this stuff around it to improve the street all right next door to each other. And we sold the house for 150.
Juravich: Hmm, that's affordable, yeah.
Coleman: Those aren't the exact figures, that was the concept. I was criticized by the local newspaper, or at least the writers at the time, that was... You shouldn't subsidize that way. And I felt totally different that we should do that, that we needed to subsidize because what happened was that the person that bought that house, we had made sure they had to live there for a certain period of time. But over time, 10, 15 years, that house would appreciate the value that would sell it or pass it on.
Juravich: And their family would have the equity.
Coleman: They'll have the equity.
Juravich: Well, unfortunately, we're only down to a minute left, so are you working on the book, the book of your career as mayor? Is that what's next?
Coleman: I, you know, part of it will be funny. Yeah. There'll be some comedy in it. It won't, I don't want to be a stay, fall asleep, last thing you read at night. Okay. You know, kind of thing. When I get around to writing it, it'll be anecdotal and sometimes comical. And I know where all the bodies are buried.
Juravich: Oh, gosh. And so you're gonna reveal that in your book. Yeah.
Coleman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll talk about all those things
Juravich: All right. Well, I look forward to it. Get to writing. You have time now, right? We have been talking with former Mayor Michael Coleman this hour. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. And you have been listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.