Better Know A Candidate 2009: A. Troy Miller

Over the course of the next two weeks, Columbus Underground will be providing you with an in depth look at each of the six candidates running for Columbus City Council this November. All six interviewees are being asked the same set of questions, most of which were submitted from Columbus Underground readers. This feature should give everyone a better understanding of where these candidates stand on a variety of important local issues, and help you to decide how to vote this coming November.

Our next interview is with Democrat Candidate A. Troy Miller. Troy grew up on the East Side of Columbus, currently operates his own technology company, and is running for election following his appointment in January.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your personal, professional, and political background?

A: I graduated from East High School, and was raised on the East Side of Columbus. I went on to the University of Cincinnati and got my Bachelor of Science in Health Administration. I then came back to Columbus and went to Ohio Dominican University and got an MBA. I worked for Ohio Health for close to 16 years as a Medical Staff Development Planner. What that responsibility included was the establishing of Physician Supply and Demand Ratios for the Central Ohio area and also several other counties where Ohio Health has hospitals. I determined whether or not we had enough physicians to serve the population, and then created plans to help recruit physicians to replace those who are going to be retiring in the next 5 to 7 years. In presenting those to the medical staff, I was always under the gun because I would suggest recruiting new physicians that would compete with those existing practices. But we had to plan accordingly to make sure that we were serving the population. So, my background is in strategic planning. I worked a lot with market research, and I even worked with ACNielsen.

Then, over two and a half years ago I left Ohio Health and started my own company, building web-based technologies dealing with the same issues with Physician Supply and Demand Ratios. So, I’m building an application that’s going to do that for all parts of the United States through my start up company.

I’ve been married for 18 years, and I’ve got three boys. One in the Army, one in High School, and one in Junior High.

Q: What drove you to run for City Council, and what are your most inspiring areas of interest when it comes to Columbus issues?

A: I was appointed earlier this year with Eileen Paley. I was involved with the Obama campaign, and even way back in college I was part of student government. I’ve always had aspirations of a political career. On the East Side of Columbus, my father was a pastor of a church and we had all the elected officials coming through during election times. When I found out that there were two seats open on Council, a couple friends of mine said that I should go ahead and apply. I said that one of the things that I’m only going to apply for is to share my vision of Columbus. In my application, I said that Columbus has the unique opportunity to really set itself aside from all the other cities. One of the things that I’m not appreciative of is that we’re always comparing ourselves to other cities. I think we’re a unique city that can start branding itself and not worrying about what the other cities are doing. My vision is that in 10 years, people in other cities will be comparing themselves to Columbus.

Q: With the income tax increase recently passed, how do you plan to keep the budget in line going forward?

A: That’s a good question. I really want to reward Columbus citizens for passing Issue One. My particular background is in planning and technology, and I’m definitely going forward with reform. When the Mayor talks about reform, he’s talking bout going into the city operations and seeing how we can be much more efficient. Not just with just technology, but with process improvement.

When we talk about certain reform it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m talking about turning everything into a web application. One of the things that I have done for other companies is… before I build a web application, I look at their particular processes and procedures for doing things. So what I’m looking for is bringing in efficiencies throughout my particular committee responsibilities. One of which is HR, and of course I also head the Department of Technology. There are particular items that I know that that we can definitely bring in efficiencies and cost savings by changing some of the processes on how we do things. That takes time because some of those things might require a change in the city charter to get those process improvements in place, and then you build technologies around that to be more efficient.

For instance, the CHRIS project, which is the Columbus Human Resources Information System. They’ve been working on that, and my particular involvement on that is seeing how we can definitely look at certain things that might currently take a week and we can shorten that into two or three days.

Q: What plans do you have to help attract and retain businesses in Columbus?

A: With the passage of Issue One, I believe we are head of the game in a sense of what other cities are going to be facing with the downturn in the economy. What’s going to happen across the board is that other cities are going to wait and try to increase their taxes when we have done it way before them and avoided a position of laying off individuals. What the Auditor and what the Mayor explained with Issue One, is that we are better positioned now to actually attract more businesses to Columbus by keeping that bubble that we’ve had with the unemployment rate and economic development.

Attracting new business comes down to how we position the city of Columbus. After 27 years, we put up the tax increase in order to keep our quality of service. If we were to have those particular layoffs, that would have drawn negative national attention about our safety forces and our parks and rec department. That would have been one of those line items that other businesses would say “Why do we need to come to Columbus when their quality of services is falling?”. So, that was the first step of us looking at economic development.

The next stage… what I want to do to make Columbus attractive, is to really become a high-tech incubator city. What I’m going to be putting together in the next week or so, is a VisionColumbus.com website, where I want Columbus residents to tell me about their own vision of Columbus. Whether they want to talk about light rail… or another conversation where Columbus needs to come up with a brand for itself. I’m going to bring that type of vision of where the Columbus residents can all formulate that particular culture for what Columbus can become in the next 10 years.

Q: What can council do to continue and encourage the development and growth of our small business community?

A: Being a small business owner myself, one of the things that I’ve been through is the process of fostering and networking with the existing big businesses already here. We have a great TechColumbus incubator and there’s other incubators that can also be created in the future. We need to have existing businesses in town to help bring money to those particular incubator places to help those small businesses grow. One of the things that I would like to see in the next 10 years is Columbus become a place where small businesses can become big businesses. I don’t want to have the situation where we see a great new company that comes out of Austin or Jacksonville and when you look at the resume of the founders, they were OSU grads or former Columbus residents… just because they found their financing in another city. That’s what VC money does. When companies give VC money out, sometimes they bring that particular company to where the VC money came from.

Q: Given the current economic climate, should we consider finding new ways to attract residents beyond 10 year tax abatements?

A: One of the things that I’ve been doing on the campaign trail is seeing all parts of Columbus, and the diversity of Columbus with it’s neighborhoods is definitely great for attracting other residents. People don’t understand the cost of living in the suburbs versus living in the city of Columbus. In the suburbs, you’re paying different water bills and utility bills and trash pickup and other things. So, in attracting new residents, the cost of living in Columbus is going to be cheaper than going out to the suburbs. If you really want to be attracting new residents, especially from other parts of the country, you have to look at the quality of services that we have and the cost of living in Columbus versus the other places. That’s what people need to understand.

I spoke to a group of young professionals at an event in the Arena District, and saw exactly that. We had a panel and one of the panelists indicated that they were actually from New York City, did an internship in Columbus, went back to New York City, and then ended back in Columbus to live and start a business because the quality of life in Columbus is much more affordable and you can make a bigger impact with a startup or small business. In a big metropolitan area, your particular idea can be on a list with 50 competitors, but here in Columbus you can be dealing with only 3 other companies doing similar things.

Q: There was a lot of emphasis on the “creative economy” right up until about a year ago, when everything started to crash. Given our new economic context, what place does our “creative sector” have in the hierarchy of economic priorities?

A: That’s one of the things that I’ve been explaining to other people, especially during the last couple months. In order to have a creative economy, you have to have a balance of items within your particular city’s portfolio. That would include things like the the Greater Columbus Arts Council and those programs that give the arts community a balance, whether we’re talking about having a creative economy or attracting residents and new business. Everyone expects to have things like theaters and the ballet in our particular portfolio as a city. I think it’s very important that City Council continues to support those type of efforts.

Take for instance what we can do through Experience Columbus. One of the things that I’m going to be pushing for is to attract certain types of conventions to come to Columbus. That’s where you get people coming and seeing Columbus and being impressed by the quality of life here versus other places. Their employers are also going to be able to see the benefits of living in Columbus, rather than setting up shop in a city like LA.

Q: What are your thoughts on various transportation improvement initiatives (bikeways, passenger rail, pedestrian safety, etc) both from a mobility standpoint as well as an economic development standpoint?

A: The bicentennial bikeways plan that City Council adopted is one of those things that I’m definitely an advocate of, and I’m even an advocate of what light rail can do for a city. Those are particular possibilities that I believe Columbus can be positioned to look at in the future. We need to have all of those things, whether it’s helping motorized two-wheel vehicles and automobiles share the road… we need to look at creating certain plans throughout the city. I’m definitely for extensive bike path networks throughout the city. We have the space and the land and area to do those type of bikeways. If you look at Downtown Columbus, we’re really different from a lot of other cities with a more condensed Downtown. We have the roadways wide enough and long enough to look at things such as that.

Q: What plans do you have for aiding in the redevelopment of downtrodden neighborhoods in Columbus that suffer with blighted or abandoned properties, safety issues, and image problems?

A: The city has the neighborhood stabilization program and that’s really helpful in targeting particular neighborhoods that need assistance. It’s very important that we are always looking at ways of enhancing our neighborhoods and looking at what type of direct capital improvements are needed for particular areas. Certain improvements are different depending on the particular area, and we have to take the smart approach and not take the paintbrush stroke approach on each neighborhood. We have to go to the neighborhoods to make sure exactly what their particular priorities are, and make sure that they are set for those particular neighborhood residents.

Q: What do you think about the proposed use of Cooper Stadium as a racetrack and its impact upon the surrounding neighborhoods?

A: One of the things I need to do is get more information about what this racetrack really means… and what the noise study is telling us. The proximity is going to be something that the neighborhoods are really going to have to speak up about. That’s really critical for them to even propose a racetrack in that area. One of the questions that I have is, will we even hear the sound Downtown if I’m sitting at Broad & High? Do you have that sound standing in front of COSI? Standing at Vets Memorial? Those are the things that I definitely need to get more information on.

Q: Do you support waste disposable services that would include curbside recycling for all?

A: One of the things that I found out from the suburban neighborhoods is that it’s really expensive to do. I am definitely for recycling, but from what the city just went through with the budget, I think that looking at that right now will have to be investigated. At this particular point in time, recycling might be too expensive for the city of Columbus. That’s just my opinion, but if they give me numbers that reflect something else, I would be very much inclined to look at differently. You saw the whole issue with yard waste pickup. That was very important to citizens, but to put another service upon city operations for recycling is something that we just have to look at what the cost will be for doing all of that.

Q: How do you feel that all of the members of City Council have originally been appointed to their positions, and do you think these advantages of incumbency make for a Council that best represents the City?

A: If you think about it, it’s amazing how City Council has come up with these open vacancies. With us being the state capital we see that individuals on City Council usually go on to higher levels of government, and that’s what happened with these particular appointments. Sometimes you have people who take the seat and go somewhere else to another higher level. I believe, unfortunately, that’s been the trend.

My whole point though, is that the city charter actually requires that once that seat is open, to make the appointment. It also says that person has to run for that seat. I’ve only kept this seat for several months, and now I have to run and get the people to elect me.

Q: Would you be willing to support restructuring City Council so that Columbus can move to a district/ward/parish system? Why or why not?

A: Just in how I’ve operated in the past in my professional life, I’m not an advocate for districts or wards within Columbus, especially at this time. I think that’s going to create more isolation in certain communities, and cause them to compete with the others over certain resources. I believe the at-large system allows us to concentrate on every part of Columbus.

Q: Where do you see the City of Columbus being in 2012?

A: Well, from what happened with Issue One, I’m predicting a much more efficient city in its operations and budget. We are going to be accountable for what the residents have passed, and I think that particular accountability along with reform is going to give us a much more efficient government to operate for the future. So, in just in that amount of time, we’re going to see more enhancements in how we are operating as a whole. I believe that by that time, we’re going to have a certain amount of those particular reforms that either the Mayor has put together, or I’m putting together myself… five items that I’m going to be working on for my four year tenure on City Council.

Q: Something fun to end on – Your favorite places in Columbus?

A: Wow. You know, that’s the toughest of all the questions. One place I do like is the Short North. That’s just a great area, from restaurants to bars to the proximity of being next to the Columbus Convention Center… it’s ideal for how the city should be doing things, because we have people that are coming form out of town who can walk straight down in to the Short North and have a great time. Because I like Science, COSI is a favorite spot too. I like Easton, because I’ve got an office there. And another one would probably be the Franklin Park Conservatory. I grew up on the East Side and I’ve seen it go through its phases and I definitely wish more people could visit the Conservatory.

For more information, visit www.AStrongerColumbus.com/Miller.html.