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Donzell’s Flower and Garden Center offers important tips to winterize your …

AKRON, Ohio – Much of Northeast Ohio has experienced the first snowfall of the season. However, that doesn’t mean it’s too late to winterize your lawn and garden beds.

Wayne Kollman, general manager of Donzell’s Flower and Garden Center in Akron, offered tips for folks fitting in yard word over the next few weeks.

Kollman said now is a fantastic time to plant spring-blooming bulbs such as tulips or daffodils. The bulbs must go through a 10- to 12-week cold process in order to blossom in the spring.

“The bigger the bulb, the deeper they go. A tulip, you want to put in about five inches. Smaller bulbs, like crocus, maybe a couple of inches,” Kollman said.

He also recommended cutting back perennials, such as hostas and black-eyed Susans, to prevent overwinter disease from spreading.

“There’s always some kind of blight that can overwinter in the ground and come back and affect your plants in the spring.”

Similarly, Kollman suggested cleaning debris from vegetable and rose beds.

“You might have to dig out maybe tomatoes because they have good root systems, but other than that, if you can pull them out, great… Typically, roses you’re going to just pretty much clean the leaves, maybe trim them back a little bit.”

When it comes to your lawn, Kollman said the fall and winter period is one of the most important times to fertilize.

“It’s just a good health benefit. It sort of puts the lawn to bed, so to speak, and it’s a great time to fertilize,” he said.

He added that homeowners who didn’t aerate their lawn in the spring should do it before the ground freezes in mid to late November.

“It’s a messy process because there are cores that you’re taking out of the ground. It’s a little easier in the fall because the rain and the snow will sort of wash that back into the soil.”

House Haunters

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“This looks better than I thought it would,” Mr. Kopelman said. He pointed to the spiky fangs and horns with their creepy decay and added, “I didn’t like the color, so I had my painter go back and add cracks and stuff.”

Mr. Kopelman is a professional haunted house producer and designer, or “haunter” in industry parlance. He opened his first haunted house 30 years ago in Phoenix, and promoted it by driving a huge Frankenstein head around in a truck, making sure it broke down on the city’s busiest corner during rush hour. (“I read P. T. Barnum’s book,” he said.) In recent years, he has designed or promoted multiple “haunts” across the country every Halloween season.

A genial, salt-and-pepper-haired man of 56 who lives in Houston, he isn’t a big fan of horror films or Goth culture — or, for that matter, dressing up on Halloween. He sees haunted houses as a profitable business, and likes the theatricality. “I always had the dream of producing movies,” he said.

He was at the Fairplex to oversee construction of Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare, a collaboration with the rock musician and horror-film director, based on the gory Rob Zombie oeuvre. The production, Mr. Kopelman said, is the biggest of his career: a $2 million budget; three haunted houses encompassing 33,000 square feet; a “Bloody Boulevard” outdoors; and 150 employees, including three seamstresses and “a guy that shoots you with CO₂ as you go through.”

Great American Nightmare may be the best example yet of the upsizing of haunted houses over the last decade, in the vein of “mega haunts” like Netherworld in Atlanta and the Beast in Kansas City, Mo., which have elaborate sets and are staffed by actors and the prop and makeup artists who have found themselves out of work in a C.G.I.-dominated Hollywood.

There are now more than a thousand such large-scale attractions around the country, said Larry Kirchner, editor of Hauntworld.com, and haunting has become a sophisticated, $1 billion-a-year industry. Even the season itself has expanded: many haunted houses open in late September and extend past Halloween to early November. This year, the National Retail Federation’s annual Halloween survey found that more than 31 million Americans plan to visit a haunted house, often paying from $15 to $30 each.

Ray Kohout, who created one of the first large-scale, themed haunted houses in St. Louis in 1991, marveled at the evolution. “Now there’s animatronics and realistic props,” said Mr. Kohout, who franchised his project, known as Silo X, to nine cities at its peak before getting out of the business 10 years ago. “Back then, it was much more primitive and simplistic, a lot more about blood and guts.”

For Rob Zombie, who remembers the lame haunted rides at carnivals in his ’70s youth, the goal is a Disney-like level of art direction. “Going into the Haunted Mansion as a kid, your jaw drops,” he said. “The attention to detail at Disneyland is outrageous. That’s what I want to be able to do here.”

As with his movies, however, he wants visitors to leave with a vague sense of revulsion. “My approach has been to create that weird, unnerving feeling that you can’t shake,” he said. “I like to screw with your head.”

THE MOST COMMON TRICK haunted house designers employ is the startle scare: the man who jumps from behind a corner; the animatronic skeleton that drops from the ceiling, its jaw clattering; the sudden, bloodcurdling scream. Timothy Haskell, an owner and the creative director of Nightmare, a popular and long-running haunted house in Manhattan, said startles are necessary but “ephemeral.”

A veteran theater director, Mr. Haskell writes a 20-page script every year and “plays upon people’s empathy,” he said, to induce a more lasting bout of heebie-jeebies. Last year, for his serial-killer theme, he designed a set where visitors executed Ted Bundy. “They had to actually flip the switch,” he said. “And feel in their hands the electricity pulsing through.”

Ben Armstrong, of Netherworld, strives to incorporate new forms of technology, he said, which he often finds at the Halloween and Attractions Show, an industry trade show held every spring in St. Louis. Lately, he has been experimenting with projection effects. “I found a particular material that you can see through, but it grabs light,” Mr. Armstrong said. “You see the ghost, but you see past him to the background.”

DECOR & DESIGN: Gardening: Growing a living canvas

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THE French impressionist Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny is famous for many reasons — the water lilies he painted, the wisteria covered bridge and the Grande Alleé with its carpet of nasturtiums.

Visiting the garden in autumn meant missing out on the water garden’s spring show but the abundance of autumn flowers made up for it. It is the measure of a great garden that in every season there is something to see, and Monet’s late summer into autumn garden is no exception.

The wall surrounding the garden gave only the slightest hints of what was behind: tips of greenery, and overhanging trees. Even the visitor’s entrance blocked any sight of the garden until one stepped through the gate and there it was — an Alice through the looking glass experience.

The first impression was of dazzling yellow rudbeckia reaching for the sky, airy cosmos and luxuriant dahlias with flowers the size of dinner plates and mauve asters on steroids.

The garden and house, which took almost 10 years to restore and was opened to the public in 1980, faithfully recreates Monet’s layout and choice of plants.

Monet did not like organised or controlled gardens, but wanted plants to grow freely and naturally. The gardeners that look after the gardens today remain faithful to his original vision by mixing common flowers planted together according to colour.

This is most evident in the series of overflowing borders on either side of the Grande Alleé. Gravel paths separate the borders and, being autumn, the perennials were at their best. The effect was one of bold, almost overwhelming colour in the foreground that softened to smoky purple and ethereal blue into the distance.

Besides the rudbeckia, there were tall-growing sunflowers, purple asters, dahlias and golden rod with lower growing daisies, dwarf campanula, bedding dahlias, pelargoniums, fuchsia, salvias, snapdragons and zinnias massed around them.

It was like being in an impressionist painting, with new vistas opening up with every step.

The Grande Alleé, which is one of the famous features, doesn’t disappoint. The series of arches runs almost the full length of the garden, framing the view from whichever side you view it.

Pale blue morning glory creepers twine up and around the green steel arches, with yellow and orange nasturtiums tumbling across the gravel at the bottom.

Closest to the house are beds of white and postbox-red geraniums that stop you in your tracks, especially as they are backed by the salmon pink and green trimmed house. It should clash, and it does, but somehow gets away with it.

Underneath its wild profusion, the garden layout is symmetrical and ordered.

The Grande Alleé forms the main axis with the same number of borders on either side and beyond them a cool breathing space; two small meadows shaded by trees planted up with bulbs.

The second part of the garden, which is now separated by a road that runs through it, is the Japanese-inspired water garden. It is accessed via a bamboo forest and in contrast to the exuberance of the flower garden is green, serene and cool.

Neither the wisteria nor the water lilies was flowering but one can still imagine Monet launching his boat into the lily pond and spending hours spellbound by the changing light on the water.

What makes this garden such an inspiration is that it is an original vision and the passion with which Monet created it continues to communicate itself to visitors. That is what a great garden is all about — a passion for plants and an artist’s eye for colour, texture, proportion and form.

Giverny is 78km outside Paris and is reachable by train but it is easier to book a half-day tour or a full day combined with a visit to Versailles.

• Book through the Paris Tourist Office, 25 rue des Pyramides, or via the internet on http.//giverny.org/gardens or www.parisinfo.com. Tours cost from €58 per person.

• This article was first published in Home Front

Speedway continues to revitalize itself

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SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WISH) – The town of Speedway is taking another step in its ongoing effort to revitalize itself.

An old motel is about to bite the dust.

It sits at 6330 Debonair Lane, just north of Crawfordsville Road near I-465.

This old Motel 6 had been an aging problem property. Not what the town of Speedway wanted at its front door says Scott Harris, Executive Director of the Speedway Redevelopment Commission.

“I think this is the gateway to the town of Speedway and it’s a very significant gateway to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” he says.

A gateway to a town that since 2009 has been remaking itself.

Main Street was the first part of the makeover project and it’s already been rebuilt. New landscaping, new restaurants, and new anchor tenants have turned it around.

It hopes for that same success at the old Motel 6 site.

“This is a high traffic intersection. Good view from 465, 74 comes in here. It’s close to downtown and close to the airport,” he says.

It’s the kind of property Harris hopes will be attractive to developers.

“We’re acquiring the property. And later this year we’re going to put out a request for proposals for development. Hope to get some in, consider our various options, and select a developer, absolutely,” he says.

Probably retail says Harris, but the town is open to ideas. Any idea he says that will help with the ultimate goal of making Speedway more than a day in May.

“We’re going to work to revitalize it and I think we’ve made a good start on Main Street and we hope to do something special out here,” says Harris.

There is another motel property right across Crawfordsville Road from the one being bulldozed, that the redevelopment commission would like to buy. But the land it sits on is owned by the city of Indianapolis. So Harris says, that will take more time and work to get a deal done.

Designing the possible future of Binghamton – WBNG

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October 24, 2013

Updated Oct 24, 2013 at 11:27 PM EDT

Binghamton, NY (WBNG Binghamton) Some members of the Binghamton community got a glimpse into the future of downtown with the final presentation of Blueprint Binghamton.

Blueprint Binghamton ended Thursday night with a final presentation of possible new zoning laws for the Main Street – Court Street Corridor.

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Code Studio, a company out of Austin, Texas, worked with Third Coast Design Studio from Tennessee.

Their ideas include more landscaping, increased residential areas up and down Court and Main Streets, and adjusting lanes to help create a stronger and financially brighter community.

“If you look at the fabulous buildings that are here in Binghamton, they’ll be here another 100 years from now, and we need to treat the rest of the area the same way,” said Lee Einsweiler from Code Studios.

Code Studio has been collecting ideas from residents and neighbors since Saturday.

Now, Code Studio will give their preliminary designs to the city of Binghamton, in hopes the city will use their hard work as suggestions for the future.

Popular Landscape Design Photos On Pinterest

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The landscaping ideas to be found on Pinterest are almost endless, but there are some photos that are pinned over and over. Here are more of the most popular designs on the photo sharing social site.

Click on images to see larger versions.

Hardscapes are just as important as the plants that accompany them. This herringbone pattern walkway was a favorite of 771 Pinterest users.

From Drummers Garden Center Floral, take a look at this corner landscape design. Have you thought of pinning landscape designs? Almost 200 users have pinned this to their boards.

Outdoor rooms, like this one, are hot. The fire pit is an inviting centerpiece of this backyard.

Check out the water features and fireplace in this outdoor room. This photo has been pinned 176 times by Pinterest users.

Traditional is still popular. This more understated backyard landscaping was appealing to 130 Pinterest users.

A modern take on a landscape staple, look at these bushes arranged in a checkerboard pattern in this landscape. More than 60 Pinterest users liked it.

Incorporating stones and crotons, this landscaping idea was saved by more than 200 users.

Combining several elements, this cozy outdoor room with raised beds is also a favorite of more than 200 Pinterest users.

Gardening Tips: 5 Things To Do This Fall!

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Gardening Tips: 5 Things To Do This Fall!

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Published on Wednesday, 23 October 2013 14:06

Written by EarthwormTec

Here are some gardening tips to help you prep for fall from EarthwormTec, an environmentally-conscious business seeking to reduce food waste via composting and sustainable garden practices.

Given the busy spring and summer season, we all might be getting a little tired right about now when it comes to our yard work. However, if you can muster up the energy to get out there you might save yourself a lot of work when next Spring arrives. Besides, the weather (especially, in Connecticut and the rest of the Northeast) has been absolutely gorgeous this October…what a perfect time to go out there and dig our fingers in the dirt!

Here is a top 5 list of Gardening Tips we recommend you try to do this month so you’ll be smooth sailing next Spring:

Do make sure you are cutting back spent flower heads from infamous flowers known to re-seed (such as Brown-eyed Susans or Morning Glories).

These particular flowers are dropping a tremendous amount of seeds at this time of year. The seeds are also very winter hardy and come Spring, you will be throwing out your back pulling out all those new shoots.

You can also cut back some of your spent perennial flowers / shrubs in the Autumn or leave them if you want some winter interest (picture snow resting or icicles forming on your favorite evergreen Azalea, like ours below). Ornamental grasses are also very serene in the winter when the feathery seed heads are covered with snowflakes.

Some gardeners use “Preen” in the soil to stop seeds from germinating but at Earthworm Technologies we don’t condone the use of any chemicals in your land. Instead, we encourage you to use organic products or implement more preventative / sustainable methods. (Keep in mind, if you use Preen in any planters where you grow annuals from seed, you will be hindering the germination of those “good” seeds, as well as the bad ones you don’t want. Preen is not selective).

Do harvest those seeds from your favorite annuals in the garden so you can enjoy them again next year.

Many annual flowers can be harvested – Zinnias, Marigolds, Cosmos and Celosias are among the easiest to harvest seeds from.

Make sure the flower has completely faded, turned brown and crumples in your hand – this is a good indication that the seeds will be ready to harvest. Pluck them too early and they’ll be too green (not ready) and won’t germinate for you.

Want to know another trick: We actually harvest some of our favorite Rudbeckias as we are walking around the garden. We then dig some seeds into the soil of our favorite spots and leave them there to overwinter. Poof – green shoots in the Spring!

Do put those annoying dead leaves in your yard to good use – why pay good money to have them hauled off?

You are actually paying someone to get rid of something that is organic and very beneficial in your garden.

Either mow the lawn yourself (including the leaves) or tell your lawn guy to do it and let the natural decomposition process take over for the next few months…allowing the nutrients of those dead leaves to seep back into your lawns (the leaf mulch will also be a nice added buffer for your planters during the winter months).

Do clean up those leaves and twigs in your flower planters!

Especially if you have any rhizome-type flowers (i.e. Irises). Some insects will overwinter or lay their eggs in the piles of leaf debris (especially moths and iris borers). They’ll continue to incubate there and eat their way through your plants in the Spring.

Do compost all the dead leaves, flowers, twigs, branches, etc. (as long as they’re not diseased) that you are not currently using – you’ll thank us in the Spring!

You can have a very simple compost setup in your lawn for leaves / twigs. If you want to go a step further you can even compost those old Fall pumpkins, squashes and any of your family’s raw veggie and fruit scraps that are currently going in the garbage, with a small worm bin.

Don’t want to have worms composting in your house? No problem…If you live in Fairfield County, CT or Westchester County, NY – you can join our organic vermicomposting program and we’ll make it easy for you to be “Green” without all the hassle, for the nominal cost of a weekly Starbucks visit. In return, you also get 10lbs of pure organic ultra-compost free to use in your outdoor garden or on your indoor plants.

If you’re not in the area – we might have extra product to ship out to you. If you’re interested in any of these services or products, please contact us here and sign-up your email for our blog updates.

About EarthwormTec: Earthworm Technologies (“EwT”) offers an innovative, comprehensive Eco-friendly solution to the enormous food waste problem we have in America. We guide you in separating your pre-processed food waste scraps (i.e. raw veggie / fruit scraps, coffee grinds and filters, tea grinds and filters, breads, uncooked pastas, etc.) as well as newspaper / cardboard products. We then offer a weekly hauling program to pick up this waste. Utilizing an in-depth double composting process with the eventual help of thousands of our hardworking little earthworm helpers, we divert all that mineral-rich food waste scrap away from poisonous landfills and instead convert it into a superior organic and highly beneficial microbial quality soil amendment which we can then offer directly back to you as a lawn / shrub / trees / flower beds treatment program.

This Futuristic Indoor Garden Is Also A Groovy Fish Tank

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Good news for all you aspiring urban farmers: there’s now a new way to grow a pesticide-free garden right inside your tiny apartment. Two law school students with a passion for renewable food sources and one aquaponics expert with experience in farming have designed the Aqualibrium Garden, an indoor method for cultivating food all year round.

The Aqualibrium Garden is a series of stackable chambers that functions as both garden and aquarium. Once the crates snap together, they create an aquaponic system for growing edibles at home. Aquaponics is a symbiotic system where water circulates from the fish tank below and up into the soil of the garden. The fish, snails, or crawfish supply nutrients (read: poop) that fertilize the soil and aid in plant growth. The plants, which are warmed by a built-in LED grow light, subsequently filter the water, returning fresh H2O back to the fish tank. (And if the idea of keeping both fish and plants alive seems daunting, there is a hydroponic option allowing gardeners to simply add nutrients to the water.)

“People in urban environments typically don’t have the necessary environment for growing their own food,” says Joshua Rittenberg, CEO of Aqualibrium. “Right now, there is no product on the market that allows for substantial food production using either aquaponics or hydroponics that is designed for urban living and is cost-effective.”

If the clear polycarbonate modular system designed by Rittenberg and his partners looks like it belongs in a sci-fi flick, that may be because the team was inspired by the futurist and sustainable designer Jacque Fresco. They channeled some of Fresco’s design principles, such as the curved shape. “The dome is the most stable structure we have,” Rittenberg says.

This is good news for those who want to expand from their windowsills and plant foods that require a larger footprint. With the Aqualibrium, the founders list foods as big as eggplant as a possibility for your garden.

The modular unit also makes assembly and disassembly–or even just transport up a fifth-floor walk up apartment–an easy task. But convenience is only on aspect of the appeal. Rittenberg and the team are thinking bigger: “This will allow individuals to begin to take ownership over food production,” he says. “GMOs, pesticides, and all the negative issues currently associated with mass-produced food are causing a growing number of Americans to demand more locally sourced food. This product is as local as it gets. It’s sitting in the living room.”

Check out the Aqualibrium Garden’s Kickstarter campaign, and snag one for $300, here.

Old, Unused Newspaper Boxes Clutter Some Bethesda Sidewalks

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A batch of empty newspaper and apartment guide boxes sit on Norfolk Avenue, with a tattered Gazette edition from 2007 as the only outward sign the vending machines were ever used.

As residents, business owners and local officials begin a visioning process for the future of downtown Bethesda, one minor but consistent gripe has been the boxes, viewed by many as needless clutter in the age of online publishing and declining print newspaper sales.

“Sometimes we have some stragglers,” said Tim Gibson, distribution director for The Washington Examiner, which closed its local news section in June.

Gibson said his staff picked up about 700 boxes in Maryland and Virginia throughout the summer and that there shouldn’t be any more boxes in Bethesda. We found one on St Elmo Avenue, in a batch of other empty boxes including one from the financially troubled Washington Times.

At the corner of Norfolk and Cordell Avenues is another batch of boxes, one from The Gazette business paper with a lead story titled “How the Deal Fell Apart,” published April 13, 2007. Another Gazette business paper box across from the Lionsgate condominium on Woodmont Avenue features the same edition.

Jean Casey, circulation and marketing director for The Gazette, said the weekly local paper relies on its delivery personnel and residents to call in unused boxes that need to be repaired, replaced or picked up. A freshly stocked Gazette box sits near Veterans Park, just two blocks from the long unused boxes at Norfolk and Cordell.

Casey said a manager will go out Thursday to investigate and make necessary changes.

Responsibility for picking up or repairing unused boxes falls to the publishers of those products. Jeff Burton, deputy executive director of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, said he works with the Washington Post legal staff to coordinate pick-ups or repairs for unused or broken boxes.

A Washington Post spokesperson said the company generally doesn’t keep boxes on the street it isn’t servicing those boxes and will respond if any unused boxes are flagged.

Of equal concern are the various “Apartment Showcase” and other free rental publication boxes that line the streets. Apartment Showcase is a publication of The Washington Post.

During the last monthly meeting of the Woodmont Triangle Action Committee a group of residents, business leaders and county officials brainstormed a list of successes, challenges, opportunities and threats for downtown Bethesda.

Among the ideas were cost-of-living, the perception that it’s hard to park, the lack of recreation space and those empty newspaper boxes.

At an Advisory Board meeting on Monday, Bethesda Urban Partnership Executive Director said he still gets complaints about the boxes. The nonprofit’s board has discussed the issue.

The Partnership is funded by the county to maintain the appearance of downtown Bethesda through landscaping, trash clean-up and other means.

Since his paper downsized, Gibson said his distribution staff has been real careful not to leave any boxes behind.

“When we were a newspaper and had local news, we actually had a great pick-up rate, because we are free. We tracked returns so we didn’t have any problems with boxes being empty or overflowing. That’s how in the past we used to do things,” Gibson said. “It’s just the nature of distribution. Having empty boxes on the street, first off, it’s a cost to us. We can use them in other places. It’s all money.”

Winder candidates explain their visions

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The Barrow County Chamber of Commerce asked candidates running for contested races in the Cities of Winder and Auburn to submit their comments from questions asked by the Chamber’s Governmental Affairs Committee.

To follow are the Winder city council candidates unedited responses to those questions. Incumbent Bob Dixon is facing off against Lorin Sinn-Clark and Nicole Tobias.

The Barrow County News will run candidate QAs with Bethlehem and Auburn candidates in its Sunday edition.

1.) What’s your position on implementing a city tax to cover any increased costs at the local level?

Robert “Bob” Dixon – A city tax is not needed. We have re-organized city government, and have it running like a $30 million business. We have made several million dollars in improvements over the past 20 month, and our cash reserve has gone from $8 milion to $11 million dollars. I can make the tough decisions, but I don’t’ foresee a need for a city tax in the near future. I plan to help keep it that way. The fire tax roll back issue on city property owners will hopefully be corrected in the near future with the evaluation of service delivery discussions.

Nicole Tobias – I am always against a tax increase as a first or primary means of raising funds. I believe that before a tax increase should be considered, a greater analysis of the current spending of the City Council is necessary! At the last City Council meeting $30,000 was approved for the library so they would not need to close on Friday and Saturday mornings. Very little discussion was had about that expenditure, and there was NO talk about the current budget and whether or not that money was available. In addition, the Mayor made an excellent point in stating that a larger conversation needed to be had between the Council and the library administration because they library couldn’t expect to

Come to the Council annually for money to allow their business to stay in operation, but that didn’t stop a unanimous vote affirming the distribution of the $30,000 in addition to their already budgeted $100,000. In the months prior to the September meeting, the Council approved a $58,000 expenditure to purchase a digital sign that currently lists the date, temperature, and photos of the current Councilmen. Is this the best use of the City’s money? And then there is the golf course. The purchase of the golf course is a huge expense to the city,and for what gain? Perhaps it is fun to play golf, but who in the City knows how to manage a golf course? I think we will have to wait and see who is placed in the key positions of the course and “follow the money” as they say.

When it comes to technology purchases, the City has a habit of borrowing money on a longterm basis. I understand the temptation of doing this, as the payments are stretched over time, but the City continues to pay for the loan long after the technology is outdated.

Finally, I don’t think that it is any coincidence that the Barrow County Commissioners raised the millage rate for Winder as the City of Winder continues to allow properties to be annexed into City limits. The County needs to make money to operate, just like the City does. Perhaps the Council should have analyzed the longterm effects of annexing property into the City before blindly allowing it, one property after another. This annexation stretches the services the City has to provide, from police to EMS and beyond. Ultimately, all of the citizens of Winder will pay more as a consequence to too little homework being done and too few questions being asked on the front end.

But that is the trouble, isn’t it? That the Council makes decisions without all of the information or analysis of the consequences of the decision before it is made.

In addition to being more conservative in spending, I would want to explore cutting unnecessary costs, putting expensive goods and services out to bid to determine if more cost effective options were available, and determining if the expense was truly a needed one.

There are also many other borrowing options, ways to share expenses with taxpayers, grant opportunities, and partnerships with local industry that could be explored. While I am not an expert in this area, there are ways to research these options, and the City Administrator should be trained, through his education and experience, to help find this information. It is incumbent on the City Administrator, the Mayor, and the City Council to do the research, to know the facts, to collect and analyze the information, and to think about the benefits and consequences to the City and its residents from a much more strategic and long—range perspective. As a member of the Council, these are the kinds of things I would be thinking and asking about!

If all other means of collecting or raising funds have been exhausted and a tax increase is being considered, multiple opportunities for citizen input need to be offered and their opinions need to be taken into consideration. Communities are created by and FOR the people within them. A community that runs efficiently and effectively requires informing the citizenry and building buy—in among them.

Lorin Sinn-Clark – I am vehemently opposed to implementing a city tax. The recent purchase of the Chimneys Golf Course – to date $923,000 spent ($600,000 purchase price, $150,000 operating costs, $160,000 landscaping equipment, $13,000 three-year radio contract to operate irrigation equipment) – would seem to indicate that the city is not hurting financially, so it is unclear why such a tax would be needed or suggested.

2.) Why do you feel you are the best candidate for the City of Winder?

Robert “Bob” Dixon – I am the best qualified for the At-Large post on the Winder City Council. I have the business experience having retired from a top 500 corporation, as well as having been chairman for 3 terms on the Barrow County Board of Education. This have given me a lot of experience in building budgets. I sincerely love this city, and want Winder to continue to prosper.

Nicole Tobias – There are several reasons why I am running for and believe I am the best candidate for the Winder City Council. To begin, I would add diversity to the Council by adding a woman’s perspective, bringing a different educational and professional background to the Council, and being able to bring the perspective of a different age population than is currently represented on the Council. In addition, I have significant experience serving on boards and councils, I am analytical, reliable, responsible, a problemsolver, I do what I say I will do, I am an effective and efficient administrator, and I have experience managing crisis situations. I am used to working with diverse groups of people and creating results. Most importantly, perhaps, is that I have not lived in Winder for a majority of my life. Many citizens in the City are clamoring for change in the City Council. Having lived in other places, paired with my professional and educational experiences and training, make me uniquely qualified to serve on the Winder City Council and raise the questions and suggestions that have not been in the past. I am not part of the deep—rooted traditional politics that seem to exist in pockets in Winder. I have an energy and determination that produces results and I care very much about the people I work with and for. If you would like to learn more about my professional or educational experiences, please feel free to email me, or to review my campaign Facebook page by searching “Nicole Tobias Winder City Council.”

I welcome the opportunity to discuss and debate issues with others with the hopes of educating one another and creating the best plan to move the issue and the City forward.

Lorin Sinn-Clark – I offer a new voice, fresh perspective and a level of enthusiasm and energy that can help the council face current and future challenges in ways that may not have been considered in the past.

During my 24 years in Winder, I have gotten to know and love this community. Reporting for two local newspapers over a nine year period gave me a solid understanding of the “ins and outs” of not only our governing bodies, but also our schools, civic clubs, service organizations and the things that concern citizens. We live in a home in Winder’s historic district that was condemned when we bought it. Restoring and maintaining it has not been easy or inexpensive. We have a stake in Winder’s history and preservation of that is important to me. Volunteering, initially in my children’s schools, later as a student mentor, and currently in animal rescue work, efforts to feed the hungry and events to support historic preservation, has introduced me to a wide range of people who care about Winder and have ideas and energy to offer. As a city councilman, I pledge to listen to those ideas, discuss them and bring them into the light. I am tired of hearing things like “nothing ever changes in Winder,” or “it’s not who you are, but who you know.” Winder is a good place to live, work, raise a family and retire. Improvement is always possible and new ideas and new perspectives are useful tools.

My pledge is to listen…think…respect…and serve the citizens of Winder with a high level of approachability and humility. I have a servant’s heart, a bright mind and the ability to lead. As a councilman, I will meet the citizens where they are, rather than expect them to come to committee meetings and work sessions in order to know what their city is doing, how city funds are being spent, etc. I will also support city employees and emergency workers, doing all that I can to be sure they have what they need to best serve the citizens, fight crime and keep us safe.

In terms of age, outlook, experience, wisdom and perspective, I am midway between the incumbent and the other challenger. I believe the unique tone and useful balance I can offer to the council may be just what Winder needs right now.

3.) What do you see is your role in city council in economic development, to support and grow business?

Robert “Bob” Dixon – I promoted and pushed for the DDA, through the city , to hire a full time director. This has led to the promotion of Friday and Saturday night activities to bring people downtown. They city has implemented a %5,000 fire line discount, and the city/DDA are jointly working on an “opportunity zone” project that will offer tax credits to new and existing businesses that meets specific requirements. We are constantly working on ways to promote business.

Nicole Tobias – I believe that it is the City Council’s role to help recruit business to the area; to be honest, fair, and up front in policy and decision making that affects local business; to be fair and equitable in the treatment of those businesses; to help advertise their events through a local/community calendar; to support the business by attending their events and purchasing their goods and services; and to involve business owners and leaders in the conversation and listen to them so we can use their input with sincere and genuine consideration.

I also believe strongly that we need to find ways to provide small business owners opportunities for professional development, teaching and training, and mentorship. There are a lot of people in this area with significant experience in owning businesses, supervising staff, managing finances, marketing/advertising, legal affairs, and working with the local government. I am sure that some of them would be happy to serve as presenters to new or incoming business owners and leaders and that some would even consider serving as mentors to those same owners and leaders. The City Council can help to find and recruit a cadre of people with these skill and are willing to share their expertise and their own personal stories. People who have overcome the struggles that some new business owners and operators face could be infinitely helpful for the newcomers and could help them navigate the systems and processes. The City Council can also help to create a calendar of these talks, panel discussions, training sessions, etc. in an attempt to help small businesses to be successful in Winder, and especially downtown.

Lorin Sinn-Clark – Winder needs to be a “business friendly” city and I am hearing from some business owners it is not. That needs to be looked at and if necessary, changed. “Business friendly,” however, does not mean gutting city ordinances or simply not enforcing them. It means crafting ordinances that make sense, are not excessive, and then enforcing them equally and fairly. The council has an obvious role in this.

Winder needs to support the businesses that are here and work hard to help new businesses not just survive but thrive. That could be done through a variety of steps the council could take, including exploring what kinds of incentives could be offered for locating in Winder, seeking grant funding to improve the city’s “face” and working closely with the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the Chamber of Commerce to actively recruit retirees to relocate to Winder. Those retirees could provide the needed “tipping point” income and spending-wise that could allow small businesses in downtown Winder to thrive again.

The city council can also continue to and/or increase support for adult education, the schools and local apprenticeship programs. Businesses look at education quality and an educated workforce when considering locating in Winder or Barrow County.

4.) Do you feel local government supports economic development adequately, and should there be more or less than what is currently being done?

Robert “Bob” Dixon – No, local government does not support economic development adequately. This is an area that needs to be enhanced county wide. The city of Winder has done a decent job with their infrastructure of water, sewage, gas and has had moderate success. For example, the Barrow Crossings area has been able to grow, and Trinity Rail’s request for an enhanced natural gas supply was met within 90 days without major issues. The city is optimistic in expanding our raw water source through a revised program with Fort Yargo. When completed, this could meet our water needs for the next 30-40 years. This should encourage industry to consider Winder for new or expanded growth.

Nicole Tobias – The city of Winder, at large, seems to be growing and thriving overall. But there is a clear need for more support of local business in the downtown and on May Street as there are dozens of vacant buildings and too many businesses that come and are not able to survive in Winder.

It is incumbent upon the local government to complete assessments to determine why businesses are unable to come to the City, or why they aren’t able to survive and thrive when they do come. With these assessment results, the local government along with local business and community leaders need to come together to create responses and action plans to respond to and help mitigate the reasons why so many businesses are unsuccessful in the area.

One response could be teachings, trainings and mentoring like mentioned in question #3 above.

Lorin Sinn-Clark – There is always more that can be done.

It is my understanding that the city council pushed for the creation of the full-time DDA director’s position, which is a good thing. The city also funds the DDA with $77,000 annually. I am unfamiliar with other areas of city funding specifically to aid economic growth, but I believe the city also partially funds Choose Barrow, which does some effective marketing of our county.

Funding of economic development is important, but when city funds are spent a level of accountability has to be adhered to. A working partnership between the city council, the DDA, the Chamber, Choose Barrow, etc. needs to be prioritized and efforts to market Winder need to be proven effective as city funds are allocated

5.) How can we “get on the same page” to work for a common goal, and who should set that goal?

Robert “Bob” Dixon – A complex question for a city council race, but the answer is leadership. The building authority, the municipalities, the county government and the chamber must come together to develop a plan and set goals. A worthy undertaking.

Nicole Tobias – I called and left a message with Mr. Jennings to ask who the “we” is in this question. His response was that it is the City Council, the citizens, the Chamber, business owners, the County Commission, etc.

While I am not running to become an officer of the county, I do see how the City needs to work with the county and with the businesses and organizations within Winder in order for the City and the Council to be as effective as possible.

This is certainly one of the most important, and most complicated questions facing everyone in Winder.

It is from this lens that I will respond to the question. It seems to me that there could be quarterly meetings of the key and influential leadership in the City to compare the visions and strategic plans for the City, the County, the Chambe

Of Commerce, etc. to determine where there are similar hopes for the future and where there are differences in goals. It would also be useful to determine where there might be overlap in services offered or competing initiatives.

This would require that the membership be composed of those people who are able to work effectively together and would require a facilitator for the conversations that does not have a vested interest in the outcome. There are consultants who do this work regularly, and grants that can cover the expense of it. It may sound like a daunting task, but it is the only way to determine if the key players are moving in a similar direction or if groups are working against one another.

As in most situations, agencies and organizations within the City can always be more transparent, open, and frequent in their communications with one another and the citizens of Winder. Very little of the work being done by the City, the county or the Chamber would be considered confidential or would be excluded from the Open Records Act, so those groups should not be hesitant to have honest and open conversations.

I am not of the belief that any one person or agency has the authority, capacity, mission or task of getting the collective “we” on the same page, but together we can determine the vision for the city and the community we live in and a variety of perspectives should be taken into consideration when determining this. Clearly these groups need to obey the law, follow the rules and processes of the law, and manage crisis situations as they arise, but outside of that there is a lot of room for discussion, negotiation, and brainstorming in order to come up with action plans and decision making that is better than it might have been with only one entity working on it.

Lorin Sinn-Clark – “Getting on the same page” implies cooperation, teamwork and open communication. This sets the stage for the setting of common goals, which then can be met with continued cooperation, teamwork and open communication.

While I believe the various “players” in our community share common goals, it is not clear that the various bodies cooperate with and support each other as effectively and enthusiastically as they could. As a councilman, I would work to be sure the city council, city administrators, city departments, the DDA, the Chamber, the Barrow County Board of Commissioners, the school system and other invested parties actively support each other’s endeavors. I would also do all that I could to help ensure that common goals are clarified and worked towards in a steady and unified manner.

Obviously, as a Winder City councilman, what’s best for Winder would be my priority, but sometimes what’s best for Winder in the short term is not what’s best for Winder in the long run. I would endeavor to consider both perspectives in dealing with current and future challenges.