Some city leaders say that kind of institutional knowledge and deep-seated ties to the community are needed for Middletown to be successful. But others say Middletown needs an infusion of fresh faces as longtime community leaders grow older and fade to the background.
As sitting City Council and school board members contemplate whether to run for re-election in November, many residents are wondering who will step up to fill the void if they don’t or who might challenge them if they do. In recent elections, there hasn’t been a flood of candidates pulling petitions and some have questioned whether the best and most qualified candidates are coming forward.
Decades ago, when Armco Steel was at its strongest, there wasn’t a committee, council, commission or board that did not have a representative from the steelmaker on it. But as the economy changed and the steelmaker relocated to West Chester Twp., the company’s presence on boards and involvement in the community dissipated, creating a leadership vacuum some say Middletown still hasn’t recovered from.
“You had Armco people on just about every board out there. It was sort of understood that if you wanted to move up in the company, you needed to be involved in the community,” said the Rev. Michael Bailey, a former AK Steel employee and president of the mill’s union. “There was a day that your big corporations controlled who sat on those boards and council. They wanted their people to sit on those board to make sure the city government was run they way they would want it to be run.”
Bailey said when he formerly served on the local United Way board there were representatives from the schools, city government, local banks and several levels of management at Armco.
“The reality of that is there are a core number of businesses in town that you’re dependent upon and you really need their leadership as far as their funding, volunteers and guidance. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing,” said Doug Boyd, president of the Junior Achievement of Middletown. “Although I do think it’s kind of tough when it is always the same people. I would have to agree to try to spread some talent around and try to get some new talent engaged from those companies.”
Junior Achievement of the Middletown Area works in 20 local schools in northern Butler and Warren counties and has 5,000 students involved. They try to cultivate “homegrown talent” into the leaders of the next generation.
And while some of their former members are in prominent positions in the region, Boyd said having the status quo has its good and bad attributes: while they know the community and want to see it succeed, they may be overextended to fill voids or gaps. Engaging the 30- and 40-somethings, or even the 20-somethings, will be a need, he said.
Dick Slagle, interim president and CEO of the Chamber Serving Middletown, Monroe and Trenton, said the people who are familiar with serving on boards, commissions and campaigns are there because people know they’ll get the job done.
Companies don’t have as many employees volunteering as they once did because there is a much thinner workforce, Slagle said.
“We were blessed with having companies with companies like AK, and Crystal Tissue, and Sorg (Paper) and Gardner (Paper), but they were still providing leadership because they were still home-owned here,” he said. “They don’t have this whole core of go-getters to send out into the community to do things.”
Bailey said Middletown has to develop a way to cultivate young talented professionals, keep them here and keep them involved in the community. He said many older community leaders who have served their time, like Slagle, are being called out of retirement to serve on boards, lead organizations or run for office because there aren’t younger successors in place.
“Now you’ve got to pull people’s teeth to run (for office),” Bailey said. “It’s sad.”
While he doesn’t believe there is a leadership vacuum in the city, Councilman Dan Picard said there is a lack of young people involved in the community.
“I don’t know if that’s a product of our times because those younger people have kids and they’re so involved with them and they’re not involved or it’s the lack of interest,” he said.
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