Magic City Neighbors Episode 7 - Melanie Black-Amato of Main Street Barberton

We had the chance to talk with Melanie Black-Amato as she is the newly appointed director of the newly formed Main Street Barberton program.   Main Street Barberton is a 501c3 that is setup to help reinvigorate downtown Barberton on Tusc and 2nd street. 
She explains that the Main Street program is a template that's been proven successful by having been used in over 2,000 cities throughout the United States. This partially possible with collaborative efforts with The City of Barberton, The Barberton Community Foundation, and numerous other donors. 
Make sure that you take a listen to this as there is a ton of great information about the future of downtown Barberton and the city itself in this weeks episode! 

Transcript

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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to this week's episode. I'm Jack. And I'm Josh. And this week, our guest is Melanie Black Amatto, of Main Street, Barberton. We have some interesting questions you're going to want to stay tuned for. Stay around. You're listening. The Magic City neighbors on the Mic, where we talk to your Barberton neighbors about their stories, their insights and what gets them laughing. Make sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And now to the show. Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in this week. We are super excited because we have a lot of Barberton’s downtown future that we're going to be talking about and part of that downtown future is this week Sponsor the White Rabbit Art Gallery right here on Tuscarawas Avenue. Make sure you come down. They are open Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. There is so much great artwork on display. You really need to come down, check it out. And yes, they are part of the DORA, so make sure you get down here and check those out. That being said, you guys all know me. I'm Josh. This guy's Jack and over here we have Melanie Black Amatto. Thank you for coming on this week. We really appreciate it. You seem kind of busy since it was just a couple of days ago. You you just started this new gig? Yes. This is my second week. Second wheel? Yeah. So, hey, that second week, I should know everything great, right? Totally. Totally, Totally. So, I mean, to me, I mean, I guess part of it is, is one of the things that some people are curious about, me included, is what kind of brought you here? What's what's the path to get to Main Street? Barberton I guess I would say. Sure. Okay. So I'm going to go go back a little bit. Sure. So I was born in Barberton. I actually went to Woodford Elementary, so I'm a Woodford warrior. Nice. And then I left Canal for Barberton to go to Canal Fulton. I ended up graduating at Northwest High School. Okay. Then from there I went to Kent State University, moved back to Barberton for a short period of time and then ended up in Naples, Florida. So I've been in Naples for the past 16 years and in the past six years we purchased a house back here in Barberton, my husband and I, and coming back and forth over the past six years we would spend six months here and six months there. Sure. And I fell in love with this community all over again. And and I said, I need to be back here. So that's kind of how I got back to Barberton and I'll get into how I ended up applying and hearing about it. Yeah, I mean, to me that is the next big thing is, is how did you find out about the program? Because there's a lot of people that don't know about it and that's one reason why we're talking about it. So how did you find out about the program and what what made you think that's what I want to do when I grew up so well? So I looked at the job posting. I actually had two people send me the job posting and I reviewed it and I literally said to myself, Talk to myself. This is you. This is this is everything about you. This is what you do. This is what you know. This is what you've worked so hard for over the years. And so just to give you a bit of a background about who I am and my knowledge, so I have ten years experience of working with government. So I've been in the government sector. I was an investigator here with state of Ohio. In Florida, I worked for the Carr County Sheriff's Office and I also worked for Department of Children and Families. So I have I have a lot of knowledge in the state city perspective and being a government employee. And then I also have ten years experience in nonprofit work. And so with the nonprofit work, the agencies that I worked for, we worked as a coalition, meaning we brought in different sectors of the community to address an issue or a concern that was going on. And so for one of the concerns, as an example, was substance use among teens. And so I had to rally, you know, the sheriff's office, the the medical examiner, the community members, parents, the schools, the hospitals, EMS, fire. I had to incorporate all of the treatment centers into one room and say, what are we going to do about this? Like, this is a problem. And it's not just your problem. It's not just your problem. It's all of our problem. Like we all have something that we can do about this to address this issue. And so so that's kind of where I come from. So I have that that ability to bring people together and find solutions. And I think this this transfers over to with this position that it's all about connections. It's all about bringing all the players in together. And we may not always agree on direction and the way that we think it should go, but collectively, hopefully we can come up with something and that we better understand each other too. Because if you don't come from the government world yet, you don't understand it, right? Like it's like I don't understand things take too long, you know, as red tape. There's a lot of there's a lot of issues with that. And same thing, you know, just with all the different sectors. We we don't know what each other is experiencing and what our own challenges are. So bringing everybody to the table allows us to do that. In addition to that, I also own a business. So my husband and I have a business in Naples, Florida. We own a restaurant, so I've been a business owner for quite some time as well. So I also have that perspective of as a business, small business owner, mom, pop restaurant type thing, breakfast and lunch. So between the government work, the nonprofit work and owning a business, when I see that I read this and it was for me, I felt like I checked off most of the boxes. So I applied for it literally the first day it came out, I applied for it and waited patiently to get an interview and think, Thank God I got that. And I interviewed and here I am. Yeah, I you said patiently. There I'm feeling a hint of sarcasm in the patiently part there in terms of waiting for your interview. It took a few months. Yeah, it took a few months to get to get the interview. And so from the time that it was posted and so I was, you know, I'm sure they'll tell you now that I was actively pursuing, you know, the issue and sending a few emails here and there so actively pursuing it sounds polite. I like it. I like it. So there's there's a lot of people and I've seen this there's a lot of people that are having questions about what the Mainstreet program is. And to me, I mean, we don't need to dive into the weeds about it, but if you could kind of give us a basic 30,000 foot, here's what we're trying to do. Sure. Okay. So Main Street America is a national organization. And so that's kind of where where we fall in. So they have a time tested, proven outcomes of what it looks like to revitalize a community. And so this isn't something we're making up, Like we're not creating this. There's actually a template for this. And they have been so successful. I mean, we're talking, I think over here, almost 2000 communities, they've been able to reinvigorate and revive and it's focused on the downtown area. So it's this is geared towards the downtown area. So the idea is, is that we take this concept and through heritage, Ohio is actually the state organization that we're working with to implement this heritage. Ohio actually came out to Barberton and did an assessment. And so they walk the streets, they talk to business owners, they talk to community members, they talk to city staff, they talk to different organizations here to find out what they thought the issues were and what were some of the concerns. And so from that conversation and again, walking the area and seeing what we have, they put together what, you know, a template for us of what you know, here's what you can do to help help your community if you want to buy into this, because, again, it's not just a city issue. And I and I know, you know, it's easy for us to say, well, that's the city's problem. They should be handling all this. They should be reviving it, they should be bringing the businesses in and that's not how it works. You know, there's different people who who who all play a part in that. Yeah, it's it is there's there's so many different things. And it's one of the things that I mean, you kind of touch on to the sense of community and burden is amazing in the same sense. There are a lot of personalities, Zimbabwean too. There's a lot of very big personalities these, and it's finding a way to pull them together. And that's not something that the city's always outfitted to do. Sure, sure. And I think so. I'm an impartial person. I don't work for the city, so I'm not. We are a nonprofit, so we are a501 C3. And so we have the ability to write grants and also request, you know, donations. And we're going to end up having sponsorship ups for for individuals who want to help support and buy into this. And so really, to be honest, and one of the first things that I read when I when I was reading about Main Street and how this all works is this the community has to buy into this. And so where I come in is, is I have to explain that. Again, this is not we're not making stuff up. This is you know, we're following a template, but we are basing it on what Barberton wants. And so every city has the ability to determine what they want their community to look like. And so, for example, Cayuga Falls. They've done it. And I think if you've been there, you've seen they've exploded. They've exploded. Wadsworth has done the Main Street program. They're at 100% capacity. Kent has done the Main Street program. So right around us, we're seeing proof that it works. It's 100% effective. It's just whether or not we're going to embrace it. Yeah, and that requires change. And change is uncomfortable for a lot of people. And so we have to look at this differently. And we have to say, you know, this is for our towns, for our community. Do we want to stay where we're at? Are we all happy with the way things are going now? There's empty buildings down here that 100% should be filled with local businesses. And we need local businesses. Yeah. Yeah. So based on, like, the changing stuff, how else do you think this would affect, like, the general population of Barberton? So what I read was that for every $100 spent in this community,$68 stays right here in this community. So if we're making $68 for every $100 that's spent, that's going back into the community in general. So so whether it's roads, whether it's, you know, cleaning up the community, whether it's building or re facing new buildings, you know, improving, bringing more jobs into town, obviously that's going to bring more jobs. Yeah. So it's going to impact the community in everything and everything because it gives people a reason to want to come here and live. It gives people a reason to want to leave another town to come visit for the day. And that's what it's all about. Yeah. Get them down here and get them open right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then with the Downtown Merchants Association, how was like. How does this differ and how is it similar? So we've actually taken over the downtown Merchants Association. So they've dissolved and we've taken that role on. So that's something that we're going to be working on in the next couple of weeks. You will see me. I will be meeting with all of the business owners downtown. That's kind of my step one. And to find out what they need and what they want and how we can support the existing businesses because it's not just bringing in, you know, new businesses. It's also supporting the existing businesses. And as a business owner, I know how hard it is, especially during COVID and after COVID to keep operating and and the staffing issues. And we're experiencing it firsthand. So I have I totally understand and I get it. And any support that we can provide with that, we want to do that. That makes sense. It's so it's always easier to keep someone than it is to find someone new. Exactly. Makes sense. Are we to the lightning round? Yeah, we got to. They're pretty quick. Where we we. We flew right into the lightning round. So our lightning round. We're going to want some short, quick answers. One two sentences on questions that came in from many of them came in from Facebook, Instagram, a lot of public questions here. So what makes you want to do this? I know you said you kind of saw the job description is this, but this is I mean, you've got to make a lot of people come together. I do. This is not going to be easy. So what made you think, Yeah, yeah, yeah, this that looks hard. I want to do this. So I love challenges. And as much as I love Naples and of course, Naples is beautiful. It's thriving. It's. It's very active to come here and to know that this is my hometown. I want the same for here. And I saw the difference that I was able to make in that community. And so I, I just know that I can do it here if I have the support and buy in and help from the community members and all the different partners. Yeah, makes sense. I like it. What's the first thing that we should be looking for? A couple of things. So one, as I mentioned, I am going to be walking up and down the streets here, Tuscan second, which is our our area of focus right now. So you'll be seeing me a lot. I'm not homeless. I'm just talking and looking and assessing and evaluating. I'm not wandering because I'm lost. Okay. So we want to first of all, we have to evaluate what is currently available right now. So how many businesses do we have? How how many buildings do we have that are vacant that we could sell with a business? You know, are there buildings that are going to be selling that are for sale that could be rented? So that's information that I have to know upfront. So we have a baseline because in order to prove effectiveness, you have to show the baseline. So so initially I'm going to be gathering all this data to say, okay, here's where we started. And so in order to prove our worth and our value to the community, you know, in a year, let's look at that again, because we shouldn't be doing a program that's not showing value. Right? If it's not moving the needle, we shouldn't be doing it. And so so that's that's what it's about. It's about collecting the data. Second, we are working on a website, and so hopefully we can bring in we're going to have a community calendar focusing on community events and making sure that the community knows what's going on here and highlighting businesses and featuring businesses. So those are kind of the two top thing, two things that we're focusing on. Okay, nice. That makes sense. And that is a you mean you gave me the ultimate segway into the next question, which is what does success look like for this program? Well, I'm going to go long term. I'm not going to a short term because short term, you know, long term it would be that we are full, that there is a waitlist to even find a space here for a business because people are going to be this is going to be a desirable community and that businesses will be thriving. It's nice. I like it. Yeah. Do you see the possibility of a community center for teens? Eventually. So actually, in my work in the past two weeks that I've been around, I'm meeting a lot of great people and fabulous community partners. And I was actually told that there is a youth center that's going to be built in south the south side of Barberton. So it's going to be called Hope. So there actually is a community center that is being planned right now and hopefully we'll be breaking ground in the next couple of months. So I wasn't aware of that. And I and I 100% want to include the younger generation in this too, because number one, they're going to be adults soon. And so I want to hear what you know, what their feedback is with regards to businesses, what we need to bring down here. But then also, you know, we want to bring families here, too. And so what is needed in this community to like what events could we hold that that's going to bring people in? Yes, that's going to bring people here, families and teens. And I remember when I was a teen, I used to come to the dance club here that probably says how old I am. But there was a teen center. There was a teen center. And I, I participated in that. So so I was very active as a as a young person here. And I want that for for this community as well. Nice nice to me I we are to our big question every person that every person is important ones maybe these are that what is your favorite Barberton folklore slash tall tale or rumor. The only rumor that or Telltale that I've heard is that lake is bottomless, which slightly frightens me because I used to swim in it again, dating my age or how old I am. But I used to swim in Lake Erie. So I'm I was just thinking like, if it is bottomless, like, what if somebody you never got sucked down or is right down there, Right. Like, what happens? Like, do they ever find your body? So that was something that that that comes up in Lake Erie. Yeah. Or it's with the bowling balls that they used to judge on the U-boat. Yeah that Yeah. We need to, we really need to assemble all these. Yeah. We'll put them on, we'll get them all together next week. Um, what do you see as the future for Barberton in. Where do you think we're headed and what are the bright spots of the community? The fact that and just to kind of go back to the Community foundation and the city really push this forward to make it happen. And so so there's funding that supported by both and as well as our board members who have stepped up and financially provided support to make this happen. So what do I see? I see the the business partners and community coming together collectively, including the city and just all the different organizations and and offering what can we do? So. So what can I do? What? What can I do to help? What little bit? Whether it's. Can I volunteer? Can I post something on my Facebook page and share it? Can I share an event with a friend? So. So that's what it's all about. It's about coming together. And I think we can make great strides moving this forward. That's awesome. And to me, that seems like a good spot. And and I first off, I really appreciate you coming in. I know you've got a reasonably long list of things to take care of here, so I really appreciate your time. I know the people do. Also, everyone out there, make sure you share this with your magic city neighbors and we will see you again in a couple of weeks right back here in the studio. Yes, we will. Thank you very much. We'll see you guys later.