Impact of Billionaires on Kalamazoo's Community Vision

I’m not often left speechless when I’m interviewing guests, but for a few moments here I struggled to digest what Rebekah Kik was telling me about Kalamazoo. If you’re a planner, you must listen to this episode. This is a truly inspirational effort in a city that doesn’t get the limelight. For a city of about 75,000 people in a quiet corner of Michigan, the staff and community have done amazing work.

The story is mostly about a planning effort called Imagine Kalamazoo, which sounds like every garden-variety planning effort everywhere. But, the way it came together and what it produced in short order is truly unique. Learn how a plan executed at a high level helped attract corporate funding on the back side that will help the day-to-day livability of the city.

Along the way, we trace Rebekah’s career from a small college in Michigan, Andrews University, to working as an architect and planner. She talks about how her drawing skills helped her survive the Great Recession, and how her tenacity is helping her home town get better.

I’ve said before, and I’ll stand by it, that the most innovative work in local governments happens in smaller cities and towns. Kalamazoo definitely rings the bell for that theory - accomplishing the kinds of successful efforts that we so rarely see in large cities. More to come on that at a future date.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Episode Transcript:

Kevin K (00:00.802) Welcome back to the Messy City Podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg. Sometimes you, over the course of your career, you get to know people and see them and see, watch their careers evolve along with yours. And if you're fortunate, you can see people, meet people when they're young and see them grow into all sorts of new positions and do interesting work. And today I'm fortunate to have a guest that's a little bit like that. We have... The assistant city manager for Kalamazoo, Michigan, Rebecca Kick here. Rebecca, how you doing? Rebekah Kik (00:39.082) I'm really well Kevin, thank you. Kevin K (00:41.666) I was just thinking earlier, I think I met you originally when you were a student at Andrews, is that right? Rebekah Kik (00:47.594) That's correct. We got to intersect our paths when I was on charrette with Professor Philip Bess. Kevin K (00:58.594) Yeah, yeah. So, and Phil, we've had Phil here on the show before. He'll probably do so again, I'm sure, especially now that he's in retirement and his schedule is going to open up a little bit more. But yeah, those were some fun days that seemed like about a million years ago. Rebekah Kik (01:17.194) It really was. Mostly because I used to just chase Philip at his heels. I knew he was doing cool things. I did. I just knew he was doing cool things and I wanted to know desperately what he was doing and I begged him to take me. where he was going. I told him I would do anything. I would fetch coffee. I would make copies. You know, get lunches. I would do whatever he needed me to do. I would be that gopher, that little sponge, because I knew he was hanging around with cool people and I wanted to learn and know and do. And I believe that charrette Kevin K (01:48.61) You Rebekah Kik (02:14.633) was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And it was in the Hartside neighborhood. And that was the first time I had ever heard, I believe at that time, we were calling them traditional neighborhood codes or they weren't called form -based codes yet. They were regulating plans or something like that. They were much more technical still at that point. But they were... Kevin K (02:16.609) Yep. Yeah, that was all like early days stuff for new urbanism and coding and all that. So let's just go back to that a little bit, Rebecca. I just, I think it's interesting. So you went to a really small college in Michigan, Andrews University. Did you, did you like grow up in Michigan or how did you find Andrews? Rebekah Kik (02:45.834) Yes. Rebekah Kik (02:56.394) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (03:02.058) Yes, I did. So I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and I didn't know I wanted to be an architect. My mother was an administrative assistant in an architecture firm and I had my own desk at the firm. She would pick me up from school and I would sit at my desk and I was given different kinds of plans all the time that I would be finishing with different templates that I would draw and I would be picking out finishes and finish drawing, finish the plans. They would teach me how to add walls, tell me about wall thicknesses, things like that. They were building foam core models that, you know, maybe that model didn't meet the... client specs or whatever. So I would take the model home and I would finish it myself. I was doing architecture all the time and the architects at the time would just laugh at me because I'd be like, I can't be an architect. That's not a real job. And the whole time just loving everything that they were doing. And so finally, of course, here was graduating from high school and I told my mom's boss. Kevin K (04:13.826) Hehehehe Rebekah Kik (04:26.378) I was looking for an architecture school and that's when he said, where are you visiting? Where are you going? And I said, well, I just visited University of Michigan. Went to Lawrence Institute of Technology and he said, have you gone to Andrews University yet? And I said, no, you know, where's that at? And he goes, well, please do. You know, it's down in Bering Springs. And I... have to say I walked through the door I saw this nearly four foot tall and it was built completely out of wood and it was this craftsman, this quarter scale craftsman home. And the details were so beautiful and hanging behind it was this analytics. Rebekah Kik (05:29.418) It was hand drawn. It was ink rendered, you know, like the Chinese style ink, you know, Richard Akonomakis from the University of Notre Dame came and taught this third year course, this analytic course. And then in your fourth year, you built this model. I was captivated. That was it. It was this. moment and then I met with Lou Seibold and I walked around that it's a pole barn. Let's be honest, if you have not visited Andrews University, you look at the work on the walls and you can't peel your eyes away. But if you zoom out for a second, you will lose it because it is a pole barn and a series of trailers. But the work Kevin K (06:19.17) Hehehe Rebekah Kik (06:25.738) and the students and the heart and the community that is built at Andrews will suck you in and you will know. Kevin K (06:36.962) Yeah. Yeah. I had the pleasure to come speak at Andrew's one time and then do some critiques. And it's a really unique, it's a very small college. And it's a religious college or it's affiliated with the Seventh -day Adventist. And it's one of the few colleges in the country that for lots and lots of years has actually taught a more sort of traditional pre -war. Rebekah Kik (06:46.378) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (07:04.738) approach to architectural design and urban design. So, I mean, that all, when you're 18 years old, you don't really know or understand any of that stuff. But I mean, how do you think that shaped your educational experience? Rebekah Kik (07:18.922) my goodness. The first book that I was handed in my first year, first class, Timeless Way of Building. And that was it. It shaped everything. When you're handed a treatise like that, your whole life is set on this path. And you realize Kevin K (07:30.242) Hmm. Yeah. Rebekah Kik (07:48.33) that there's. There's a healing you can do in the work. that. Rebekah Kik (08:05.482) Yeah, there's a healing that you can do in your work and there's a harm that you can do in your work. And I chose the path of healing. And you realize that when you graduate, let me be clear, once you get out into that world and you, especially in your fifth year at Andrews, by your fifth year, you're doing sort of these professional practice classes. you are seeing, and finally with these eyes, you're at the, you know, the scales fall off and you're like, my God, you know, suburban sprawl. And you understand like what the built environment is. And you, you understand like what your responsibility to, you know, how you place your buildings and, that you have this moral responsibility, for what you're doing in. in the space and you now want to repair and you want to show others that you can repair. And I remember entering professional practice and driving every architecture firm that I then proceeded to work for insane. Kevin K (09:33.666) You Rebekah Kik (09:34.377) Because I catch, they'd be like, okay, in turn, you know, read the zoning rules, tell us where we can put the building. And I'd say, but these are wrong. We shouldn't put our building like this. And they go, Rebecca, come on, like, really, just tell us where does the building go? Like, tell us the building envelope, like, just do the sketch. And I'm like, but we can't do it like this. it shouldn't be this way. Like, look at the, look at across the street. Like, this isn't responsible. You have to go somewhere else. Kevin K (10:10.178) Yeah. Yeah, it does kind of ruin you for working in like a lot of typical architecture firms, especially like big shops. Rebekah Kik (10:21.386) It does. It does. And so you have to be, and this is what I tell architects who are graduating, like you, I'm so sorry, like you're ruined now. Like you have to be really, really careful about who you're going to work with and for, and where you're going to go because you are going to be frustrated and you're going to frustrate others. Kevin K (10:37.762) Yeah. Kevin K (10:44.098) Yeah. Well, I will tell you one thing I do remember from my visits to Andrew's is I was so jealous of the drawing ability of what I saw the students creating. And long after I had gone off and graduated from college and I would see the work that you all were producing and the work that students at Notre Dame was producing, I would just think, my God, these students are all going to get great jobs because look at this They can all draw and it's beautifully done. And it really, you know, it left me feeling like, okay, I better go find something else to do. Rebekah Kik (11:21.578) You know, I do say that kept me employed during the downturn. And it kept me flexibly employed. So I got laid off three times. And that was hard. And it allowed me to seriously surf those crazy waves. because I could draw. So I got employed by, this is how I learned planning by experience. Because I was never interested in planning school. I could never have just planned school. I just, I don't have the patience for it. But I was able to walk alongside of planners. Kevin K (12:07.778) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (12:18.858) and transportation planners especially, and engineers. And I could help them express their vision. So when they were doing road diets, you know, I worked for Gladding Jackson in Orlando. And that was so much fun. My time with them, I spent six years with them after UDA. Because, and that's what I did. I was there, one of their lead illustrators on their transportation planning team. And that's how I got hired was because I could draw. And I did everything vertical because they could, they had great planners and they could do everything flat. And they needed someone to vision everything vertical and do all the infill when they were doing the sprawl repair, when they were doing highway teardowns. then I could come in, do the SketchUp model, and then vision everything vertical for them. Yeah. Kevin K (13:23.234) Interesting. So one thing I will say real quick is, I think I may have pushed you to move the mic a little too close. I'm getting a touch of static off of it. So there you go. That's fine. Test that there. Okay. Let's try that. don't worry, I can edit and cut things. That's not a big deal. So, well, I think about that and I think it's a great testimony to having an actual skill. Rebekah Kik (13:36.906) Okay. Rebekah Kik (13:43.274) Okay. Kevin K (13:53.058) You know, and you, you know, you and some of the others that came out of those schools had to have a real marketable skill, which was really learning how to draw beautifully by hand, which, you know, I think a lot of people think that that's just something you can either do or you can't do, but it actually is teachable. And, and so I've always been jealous of that. And I've observed something similar to what you talked about that the folks that I knew in the profession who had that ability to draw by hand. Rebekah Kik (13:53.738) Yes. Rebekah Kik (14:09.994) Yes. Kevin K (14:22.626) They have never lacked for work. They have always had people wanting to hire them. And of course, the better you are at it, the more work that you get. So it's even in our high tech age, that ability to just be able to sit down and draw beautifully by hand is incredibly valuable. Rebekah Kik (14:41.226) Yeah, it is. And I feel like even in my job now as city, when I, when I got hired by the city of Kalamazoo, even as city planner, just being able to sit down with whoever I'm talking to, when I can pull out a piece of paper and draw, it's like a universal communication. It just feels really good. I love it. Kevin K (15:12.546) Well, it's like a superpower. I mean, I've seen that, you know, so many, so many times even, you know, with fellow architects in other firms, like when I was a young person and I, there was a project manager I worked with when we did a lot of schools and he had a great ability to just like, we would meet with a client and all of a sudden he could just whip out a sheet of paper really quickly, three -dimensionally diagram what we were talking about and everybody got it. And it was just like, bam. Rebekah Kik (15:19.946) Yeah. Kevin K (15:41.538) I never really had that ability very well. So I probably appreciate that in other people. And then I've often like overpaid for it just because like, you know, I know how important those drawings are. So I always like to hire good, good renders and people who can really, really draw. So you talked about, you bounced around a little bit. You survived the meltdown, the economic meltdown in 2008, 2010. Rebekah Kik (16:04.298) Yeah. Kevin K (16:10.69) How did you end up back in Kalamazoo? Which I didn't know you grew up there. That's really cool. So you're working for a city government and a place you grew up. Rebekah Kik (16:16.618) Yeah. Yeah, so that's a little bit about how I ended up back here. So the last layoff in 2010, Gladding Jackson merged with AECOM. Kevin K (16:33.89) huh. Rebekah Kik (16:36.138) I was a tough one. I was a little too much for a lot of me and my Gliding Jackson colleagues kind of scattered after that one. And I ended up with a really great freelance contract after that one. I was doing a lot of fun on -call planning, transportation planning work in Southern Colorado. And lots of good things came out of that. But one good relationship that came out of it was a transportation planning relationship with Brad Strader out of LSL planning who was in Detroit at the time. And so I was coming back to Michigan. I had grandparent who passed away who was in Richland, Michigan, which is just outside of Kalamazoo and Me and my brother had actually inherited her home and My brother was gonna remain in Kentucky. He didn't want to move back home and I said well I had just had my son and just got married and we had our first child and I was like Those are the things that bring you home Kevin K (18:04.418) Sounds familiar. Rebekah Kik (18:05.61) Yep. So Xander was 10 months old and we moved back to Michigan and I started contracting with LSL planning and I started doing some charrette work with them in Kalamazoo and Lansing. And I was doing some traveling to Toledo and Detroit and doing some charrette work and things like that with them. It was fun. And so one of those projects was on Portage Street here in Kalamazoo. And we were doing some work and the city of Kalamazoo was like, what is this team? Like, what is this process that they're doing? We did all kinds of really cool exercises on this road diet that we were going to do on this four lane road. And they were like, whoa, this. She's a planner and architect and she talks like an engineer and we need a city planner. Let's take her out to lunch. She says she's from Kalamazoo. Does she know we need a city planner? So they did. They took me out to lunch and I told them, you know, gosh, I really love my work with LSL right now. you know, I kind of have a really cake job. They pay me really well and working on all these really fun projects. That's when the Q line was about to go into Detroit. I had already done some light rail in Vancouver and Minneapolis, and I really loved doing light rail projects. And... they started to tell me, we're about to start this new master plan for the city of Kalamazoo. Gosh, we haven't had a city planner in like a year. We really need somebody like you here. We really, you know, don't have a vision for transportation for the city. And I just thought, gosh, I was like, I'm not a planner, though, you guys. Like, I don't really, I don't really know if you would Rebekah Kik (20:30.346) like somebody like me here, they said, well, why don't you just interview? Would you just interview, just meet us? And so I said, OK, well, maybe I'll just interview. So I went back home and I talked to my husband about it. And I said, you know, maybe I'll just interview. Maybe. You know, I wouldn't be traveling so much and things like that. And Zana is still little, so maybe that's better, you know, that I'm just home more. So, you know, I interviewed, and then they asked me for a second interview. And they said, would you prepare a PowerPoint about how you would run a master plan process for us? Kevin K (21:24.898) You're like, well, yeah, I can do that. Rebekah Kik (21:26.73) And I thought, okay, sure, why not? I'll show you how I'd run your master plan process. So I put this Imagine Kalamazoo process together and I thought, okay, now we'll see if they really want to hire me. I'll blow them away, right? Like I'm just gonna do the kitchen sink it down. Let's see if they're up for this. And I did, I threw the kitchen sink at them. I was like, who is it? Kevin K (21:42.914) He he. Rebekah Kik (21:54.762) here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna have 70 person work group. You're gonna engage 5 ,000 people in your city and you are gonna, you're gonna go to where they are. You're not having these town hall meetings. You're gonna have youth development. You are going to, you know, because I did all this stuff in Colorado. I did these 26 like county meetings and I had them all build off of each other. I did like these really crazy engagement kind of things. And they lapped it up. Like they loved it so much. And they were like, yes, you know, you're hired. And that's like, my gosh, now I have to deliver. Kevin K (22:37.858) Hahaha Rebekah Kik (22:41.354) and I did, I delivered it. I became city planner. I ran the largest community engagement, the city has ever done. I engaged nearly 5 ,000 people through 75 ,000. Kevin K (23:01.086) my God. And how big is Kalamazoo? Jeez. So like, boy, about 15 % or so of the population. That's incredible. Rebekah Kik (23:08.554) Yes, and this is where the surreal meter just goes off the chart. It resulted in... several billionaires in our city creating a permanent $500 million endowment called the Foundation for Excellence for the City of Kalamazoo to permanently implement Imagine Kalamazoo forever. Kevin K (23:52.546) So, I mean, my jaw is dropping here. I'm sitting here trying to absorb this. So, all right. So first of all, I have to, so how does a town of 75 ,000 people have billionaires at all? Rebekah Kik (24:05.93) Striker, Pfizer, Zollettis. What else do we have? The Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company started here. Yeah, we have several medical manufacturing and pharmaceutical, like the... COVID vaccine ground zero is here. Yeah. So. That's how we have like the billionaires are here, but they saw that we were doing something drastically different with our community outreach. They saw that. Kevin K (25:03.042) So when, I mean, that's an enormous amount of money in any community to contribute to some sort of, what sorts of things did they think they wanted to immediately fund? Rebekah Kik (25:15.818) So they, the first thing they did was they made us economically competitive with all of the other municipalities around us and they lowered our tax villages to be even with everyone else around us. So that's one thing that they did was they stabilized all of our property taxes. So they actually Yes. Rebekah Kik (25:44.906) give the city seven million dollars a year so we had a level playing field for all of our. Secondly, the priorities within Imagine Kalamazoo are things like making sure that we have all of our sidewalk connections. We have all of our potholes filled. We have all of our core services are taken care of. All of our trees are trimmed. All of our lights are lit. All of our streets are swept. Like we have solid core services. Then all of our parks are moat. All of our football fields look amazing. All of our youth programs are taken care of. We have things like summer camps. It's called Super Rec. Recreation programs, our pools are open always. You know, those are like what? call like our community promise that all of those things are tip top shape, always quality and level of service are met. And then we have what are called like our aspirational things. So maybe we want to make sure that Every neighborhood that has a major park also has a splash pad. That would be aspirational. So we've been working on making sure that those parks have great splash pads. And we've installed about four of those now. The next aspirational thing that we have is making sure that Rebekah Kik (27:43.658) All of our bike lanes are connected throughout the city so that you can ride from your, you know, just about every school is connected or elementary school is connected within a quarter mile distance, you know, reasonably. So we're kind of mapping that out and making sure that we have like that good safe routes to school plan. So that's another aspiration that we have. Kevin K (28:09.186) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (28:13.738) So things like that. Kevin K (28:13.986) So then like how much of those things that you described are like under the banner of like the city government, it's what it does year after year and how much of it is like through this additional corporate support. Rebekah Kik (28:26.666) Yeah, we would never be able to do this under what the city government has. We just don't have enough tax base and enough of our own funding to do that. And so we use this additional five to $8 million per year that we get from that $500 million endowment. That's what we get about like the interest. Kevin K (28:37.058) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (28:49.026) Okay. Rebekah Kik (28:53.034) from that $500 million is about $5 to $8 million additional aspirational funding is what we get to go with. Kevin K (29:02.082) So their idea is to try to keep that $500 million as capital long term. And then they're spending the interest or giving it back to the city. Just by comparison, what's your city budget overall? The total city budget. Do you have an idea? Rebekah Kik (29:06.026) Mm -hmm. Yep. Rebekah Kik (29:10.922) Yep. Yes. Rebekah Kik (29:17.61) Yeah, it's about 182 million. Yeah. We're like 25 square miles, just to give you an idea. We're pretty compact city. We're very, I mean, we've got some big streets. We're pretty walkable. Pretty compact. Kevin K (29:23.746) Okay. So cute. Kevin K (29:31.266) Okay, 180, yeah. Yeah. Kevin K (29:40.77) Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's an older city that was probably largely built out pre -World War II. Yeah. So, so that's interesting. So then maybe in any given year, it could be five to 10 % of the city budget more or less, depending on how it works out that that's getting kicked in extra. That's pretty cool. Rebekah Kik (29:44.554) Yes. Mm -hmm. Yes. Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (29:56.97) Yes. Yeah, and we do, we also have like a incremental development loan program for housing. We've got pre -permitted housing plans. We do small business development out of those funds. Yeah, we've got a lot of buckets. Kevin K (30:20.898) Well, so let's talk about some of those buckets. What do you mean by your incremental development fund? What's that all about? Rebekah Kik (30:24.842) Yeah. Rebekah Kik (30:29.258) Yeah, so back in that day also when I was the Young City Planner in 2015, Kevin K (30:39.266) And how many planners are on staff? Rebekah Kik (30:42.762) So at that time, there were five of us. Okay? And everybody had their own job. So, you know, I had a historic preservation coordinator. I had a zoning administrator. I had a site plan coordinator. I had no general planners. That was me. I was the generalist on staff as the quote unquote city planner. Kevin K (31:08.482) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (31:14.026) And so I. I knew the zoning code was completely broken. And before I was going to start the master plan, I read all the past master plans back to 1977. So there were four master plans. And the 1998 plan was the most curious. And it had said, it's in this little sidebar, which send it to you. It says, you have a problem to solve. You have a contradiction to solve. You're a city that relies on a tax base. However, you want to reduce that by expanding your lot sizes. because it was saying, you know, you wanted to go to the suburban model. They wanted to create 60 foot wide lots and really suburbanize, creating this R1 district. However, you're a city that relies on taxes. And their standard lot size at that time was 32 feet. And so they're like, basically, you're crushing your tax base. Kevin K (32:43.618) Yeah, so kind of a classic Strong Town's math problem here with the development pattern. Rebekah Kik (32:45.418) And so. Yes. And so here it is in that 1998 sidebar, like some consultant just like shoved it in there and said like, warning, warning, Will Robinson, it's over here. And so I had read that and at that time, Jim Cooman was the executive director there and he was in town doing this. Kevin K (32:58.786) Hahaha Rebekah Kik (33:20.554) developer boot camp with us and I handed the zoning code to Jim and John Anderson and I said hey you guys I think I'm reading our master plan and what I would really love is if you guys just maybe just flip through this with your small developer brains and maybe mark it up a little bit and Tell me what I need to do through like maybe a first blush. Like what if I could do anything right now, change anything, what would I do? And I still have John Anderson's red lines of my zoning code. I refuse to get rid of that. I swear, I'm gonna give it to the museum. Yes, and. Kevin K (34:08.514) Hehehe Yeah, you should frame it and, you know, hang it up. Rebekah Kik (34:17.994) Because it is the first text amendment and this is when we decided we would not do a full overhaul of the zoning ordinance and we would do an incremental Zoning Changes because that's what we would do. We would just say okay. Well, we can just do this. We will just do these text amendments Kevin K (34:44.642) because you didn't want to hire a consultant for a million dollars and take five years to overhaul the zoning code and then have it fail. Rebekah Kik (34:48.778) No, because that's right. And that's not what we needed to do. Because we just needed to do some tweaks. Because it was just the setbacks. The setbacks were the issue. And unlocking those stupid square footage requirements. And we had this really, really great, we had like this. tea room requirement. Like you could do this tea room as long as your house. I still wish we could find like who the hell was this for? It was like a tea room and the house had to be like 50 years old and it could be open from like 9 a to 7 p I mean it was so utterly specific. Like it had to be for somebody but... I mean, I wish we could figure out whose address that was for. Kevin K (35:47.554) you Rebekah Kik (35:50.09) It was unreal. But so, yeah, so that incremental development fund was again born out of this two and a half day session. We knew the Foundation for Excellence was kind of rolling in. And so I posed to the room. I said, OK, you guys, if I had a million dollars, what would you do with it? And they're like, what? What are you talking about? I said, no, seriously, a million dollars cash. I got a million dollars cash, what do I do with it? And they said, well, okay, Rebecca, if somebody graduated from this class, it's an equity fund. And you put those dollars aside and if you have it as a gap loan and it's 1 .5 % interest and it's for four units. And it's, you know, 80 to 120 percent AMI. And it's, you know, 30 year amortized, you know, here's the performance, here's how it fits in. And I was like, great, that's what it is. Okay. Kevin K (37:02.273) Hmm. So basically a way for like a small developer who's getting started to be able to work through basically to get bank financing because there's this other gap financing that can help out along the way. Rebekah Kik (37:17.93) Yes, and we also, so we do that loan program and we do it for four units. We do it at one and a half percent. We'll do it out for as long as we need to. We can be as patient with the capital as necessary. And we also can push it out further. Kevin K (37:46.818) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (37:47.914) So we can make it do, we can be two years out. We can do it after two years or five years if that helps so that you can get some rental income in for a couple years. For five years if that helps your bank as well. Kevin K (38:05.89) Interesting. Kevin K (38:10.946) So have you had some takers on this program? Rebekah Kik (38:13.674) Yeah, we've done, I think we've done at least four of those loans already. So, and we started that, unfortunately, so it started in 2019. We got that loan program and the policies up and going in 2019. So obviously COVID affected that. Kevin K (38:31.074) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (38:41.442) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (38:42.602) quite a bit, so we really hope that we can get some more of that out starting soon. Kevin K (38:48.45) Yeah. That's cool. That's a really interesting idea. So along with that, then you said you mentioned you've got a pre -permitted plan program. And I've talked with some of the folks in that world, the Jennifers and the Mats who do this kind of work. What all have you adopted or what have you done in Kalamazoo? Rebekah Kik (38:53.93) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (38:58.794) Yes. Rebekah Kik (39:10.25) Yeah, so we have duplexes. We have up and down duplexes and an ADU unit that we built. So it took us four years to get this launched as well. But that's because we started building with a nonprofit builder first. We built three duplexes and ADUs. and a cottage, a 900 square foot cottage as well. And we wanted to be sure that we had the Performa like as tuned as possible and that we got all of the kinks out in the plan also. And we have comps now because we built them. And we knew we needed that for the duplexes, not so much the cottage. I mean, we do have some smaller homes in the city. We also have some ADUs in the city. But we now have at least our pre -permitted ADU in the city. But the up and down duplex, we need banks. We're probably going to stop at that a little bit. We now have three of those built. Kevin K (40:23.81) That's cool. And do you think you'll expand that to other plans, other building types? Rebekah Kik (40:30.218) Absolutely, we have four plex, six plex, and 12 plexes coming. And we also have lined up our nonprofit builder to also be, and we're also funding our nonprofit builder with those Foundation for Excellence funds. Again, for us to take the risk in building those, putting the comps on the market. making sure we're getting the performer right. And it gives the developer a model, you know, to really see and touch and feel the quality of it, take a little bit of that risk out for them to see us build it and understand it as well. Kevin K (41:18.562) So along the way, you became the assistant city manager as well, moved up from planner to that. How and when did that happen? Rebekah Kik (41:31.498) So that happened in 2022. Yeah, and how that happened was a couple of things. So one was I had been in my direct, I moved from city planner to the director of community planning and economic development. in 2017. And so I was director for the longest time at the city. And as I was director, I absorbed economic developments. And I did that between 2018 and 2019. Our economic development director at the city retired. And he only had a staff of three. And I had been shadowing and working with Kevin K (42:02.466) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (42:15.65) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (42:29.066) the Brownfield authority the full time. And I finally said to him, I was like, you just, you retire, let me take on your department, you know, planning and economic development just need to be won. He knew like the whole time I was just like, come on, you know, like development is just becoming my thing. Kevin K (42:42.434) Mm -hmm. Rebekah Kik (42:58.602) I never knew I was like this budding developer inside the whole time. I had no idea. They don't tell you that in architecture school that you are like the secret developer. Because they never teach you the finance side in architecture, which they should. Kevin K (43:17.154) Yeah. Rebekah Kik (43:27.05) They should definitely teach you that. So I had gotten my economic development, finance professional certification and I took my test and I did that all during COVID. And at the same time, or just as I was coming out of COVID, I also had been working with the IA Women's municipal leadership program through the state of Michigan, slowly thinking about city management and leadership. And so I had been thinking about it. I had been talking to my city manager and to my boss, William, about that and about what career path looked like for me, what roles they were looking for in city management. At that time, there was a city manager who was about to retire and what they were looking for in their team member. And so then that city manager had retired and they hadn't hired anyone. And then there was a person who joined the city manager's team and they called her like, she was like a project manager and they called her like, like the strategic innovation coordinator or something like that. It was kind of a weird goal. Kevin K (45:14.178) Hehehe. Hehehe. Rebekah Kik (45:14.538) like, that is so my role. I was like, wait a minute, but she's not a city manager. And then she got some opportunity and she left. And you may or may not know this about me, but I'm sometimes I can be a little bold. So I went to my boss. I said, Kevin K (45:21.442) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (45:26.594) Hehehe Kevin K (45:34.242) Yeah. Rebekah Kik (45:42.474) So you may or may not be hiring for that role, but I think that that's my job. I'm going to put a job description in front of you. And I think this is my job description. And I kind of went like that. Kevin K (45:57.89) I love it. That's great. Kevin K (46:08.354) I love it. So obviously he was like, well, clearly you're right. Rebekah Kik (46:11.946) Clearly you're right. Yes. Exactly. And so I said, look, the strategic vision, Magic Helmets, 2035 is coming up. 2025 is due. And by the way, at Magic Helmets, 2025 every year, Kevin K (46:14.85) There's no other conclusion I can draw at that point. Rebekah Kik (46:36.617) I give the City Commission an update. I call it the Imagine Kalamazoo Birthday Celebration. They're all online. And I show the Commission how Imagine Kalamazoo gets implemented every single year. And I tell them that, you know, by the way, in Kalamazoo, we implement our master plans. And here's how we do that. And here's how I've shown you how we implement our 138 goals. how we're on track, how much money we've spent, how we take our community's vision and how we've implemented it. And so now this year, I've been showing them how we are going to create the strategic vision for Imagine Calendly 2035. And as city manager, I'm showing them how their strategic vision for the entire organization. I have been... My role now is as an organization leader. I have. been engaging the organization because that's, I didn't do that last time. I only engaged the community. So since October of last year, I've done six internal staff retreats. I've done an entire organizational survey. I've just started doing my second round of small group meetings where I've been engaging in what's called a group governance. meetings and I'm responding to all of my internal staff their needs in terms of tools, resources, staff capacity, funding, technology, policies, leadership, support, everything they need in order to support the community's vision. Rebekah Kik (48:37.386) So that when I go out to the community to find out what the community wants us to do, my staff is prepared to do that work. Kevin K (48:48.258) I mean, I'm really just, I'm a little blown away by all this. I'm kind of having a hard time digesting and coming up with questions because it's so, I mean, obviously this is the work of an architect. I mean, right. I mean, clearly this is what you went to architecture school for, to help, you know, reorganize and prioritize city management and get everybody, you know, working together as a team. Why don't you tease out what may be, without naming names, like a couple of the challenges. Rebekah Kik (48:59.626) Right. Kevin K (49:16.322) along the way or maybe something you see as an opportunity by going through that kind of internal reassessment. Rebekah Kik (49:24.298) Yeah, I mean, number one, this group has no clue what I'm doing. Like, teamwork to a government, they're utterly confused. They do their work on their team, absolutely. Like, their work in their department in their division on their team. Completely on board with that. But understanding that they're part of a larger organization that may have to talk to each other. or know what someone else does at somebody else's job. It's been a real hurdle to get them to realize that it's not someone else's fault that they don't know what the reason someone else is doing something else. It's been tough. Survey after survey after survey or conversation after conversation people will constantly tell me What's the problem communication the problems communication? And then I will say well, how would you like to communicate it? Well And it's the same in the community as it is with my staff Well, I don't read email. Well, if you send me something more, I'm not gonna look at it. Okay. Well then Rebekah Kik (51:15.05) So tattoos, like what do you want me to do? I can't literally come and talk to you every single day. Carrier Vigin, like I can't help you not help yourself. So it's, I can only do what I can do. I think they've appreciated at least that I'm trying. Rebekah Kik (51:41.322) I have tried to create relationships with supervisors as far down into the organization as I possibly can. And I've tried to let them know that they must talk to their staff because I know they won't read the email and I know they won't read the posting that I put on the board. So I just really, really tried to compel them that they must talk to their staff. because that is really the only way that I know that they can get information that I really want them to have about something. And that's probably the best I can do. And I have worked really, really hard to help people in these cross -departmental teams. That's so far been my best. possible angle at getting people to understand each other as best I can. The first meetings are absolutely the best because when people look at each other across the table and they're like, why are we here together? This feels so weird. The first couple times and then they get it. And they're like, okay, okay, we're good now. But the first couple times, it's really awkward. Now we're okay. Kevin K (53:11.298) Yeah. I mean, it seems to be like a lot of what you describe is kind of the siloed nature of a lot of city government, which I've certainly experienced and continue to experience. And there's something interesting here though, that I think that may help you, you, you think about this differently than others. And I want to have you comment on this. And that is, you know, all those years that you spent doing design charrettes. you know, you and I both did a ton of those, we learned from all the other masters of the new urbanism. and they really, one of the things that that group did that people don't talk about as much that I think is incredible was this invention of the interdisciplinary design charrette. And, the whole notion being that we would get, everybody who needed to work together on a project in a room, for, you know, a week. and we'd spend a week together solving a problem together. And so you, we'd have, certainly we'd have architects and planners, but we also had engineers. you know, we had people who knew codes. we, we had everybody who might, we had developers and builders, anybody who might impact the built environment. And I think one of the things that I learned through that process, I'm curious if you did as well was just how, that inner, how well that interdisciplinary. process worked to solve problems and it was so much faster than a typical planning process. Rebekah Kik (54:48.298) Yeah, no question. The interdisciplinary process with all those perspectives is... probably the biggest lesson learned and probably the way that I think about things almost subconsciously. It's probably just built in to my thought process and I'm not even thinking about it, but yes, it's just there now. You're absolutely right, Kevin. It's probably just there now. Yeah, of course that's the way I'm. Kevin K (55:26.85) Yeah, it's like in the background, you think, obviously this is the way to do things. Yeah. Yeah. So you also mentioned that in your email to me that you've also had some success recently with some big grants to help with big projects. What are those all? Rebekah Kik (55:31.114) I'm going about things. Yeah. Rebekah Kik (55:44.938) Yes. So I was just reflecting on this because it has been such a labor of of love for a long time. And now I'm, it's one of those things where you just keep watering it and watering it and watering it. And now I am like seeing all of it come to fruition in such incredible ways. And the public works director and I were just like high -fiving like crazy yesterday. So 10 years ago when I started, Director Baker and I, when we started on Imagine Kalamazoo, we started writing our connected city chapter. We got bold and we decided we were gonna write a land use and transportation master plan. And because that's what I was writing when I was a consultant, right? And I said, look, this is the right thing to do. because I want to change the land use, you want to change the streets as well. And I said, we have to do this together. I can't change this built environment without you. And you don't want these streets to stay the same either. You know they're not safe. So we have to write this land use transportation plan together. We can't do that without two way traffic in our downtown. We can't do that without a network. And we got to really put pressure on Michigan Department of Transportation. So the first thing that we had to have happen was we had to put a lot of pressure on Michigan Department of Transportation. They, for lack of a better way to say it, they owned all of our trunk lines, which were our main streets, our main one -way pair, which kind of circled our downtown and our main east. Rebekah Kik (57:50.57) East West and our main North Souths. And we finally got, we had a couple of friendly people, one which was our region planner for MDOT in our area and the governor's liaison was a friend, Andrew Hahn and Jason Latham. And at that time, again, it's just city planner, but I knew the language. So we sat down with MDOT at that time. This was the first domino to fall. And I, again, city, sometimes I wonder, like the city was like, gosh, this girl's mouth. I just got in every meeting and I said, Kim, we studied the network. And they said, those aren't, those are your streets. These are our streets. And I said, yes, but can we study the network? No, we're going to study .streets and you're going to study your streets. And I said, but we're going to fail at your two -way network because we don't have the same values. Can we study the network? And then they said, well, maybe we should just give you the streets back. I said, OK, that sounds good. So we finally got them to give us the streets back. Kevin K (59:04.642) Hehehehe Hahaha. Rebekah Kik (59:16.298) And we got to study the network and we got to show everyone that the two way, the reversal, it works. We can restore two way traffic. And that's how we got the first raise planning grant. Thanks to Pete Buttigieg being, you know, in his seat as secretary of transportation. And because all of the the TIDER grants, the BUILD grants, everything before was never a planning grant. So a city the size of Kalamazoo, you don't have $6 million put up for engineering and planning of these streets, right? So we, this was monumental for a city of our size to get a planning grant. And that was it. That was the first. time we and with the MDOT transfer we got nearly 12 million dollars with that because it was like well MDOT said well we were going to spend 12 million dollars just milling and filling those roads so we'll give you the 12 million we got to put that money up with our act 51 dollars got the match we got the six million dollars to do the planning then we got the planning done now we could show we'll shovel ready And then Monday we just found out we got $25 million raised grant to do the construction for Kalamazoo Avenue or for Michigan Avenue because we already got $12 million reconnecting America grant for Kalamazoo Avenue. And yeah, by the way, we got $38 million protect grant because that's for the flooding that happens on Stadium Drive. So here we are, a hundred million dollars in little old Kalamazoo, Michigan, all because it's in, it's in Imagine Kalamazoo, it's in our master plan, it's in land use transportation, it's there, it says it, it transforms our community. Kevin K (01:01:39.714) That's really, that's an incredible story. That's really amazing. So clearly you have a staff of like about 200 people working with you, right? Rebekah Kik (01:01:47.242) You know, all five of us, we are like paralyzed. We're having a happy hour tomorrow. You're invited. Kevin K (01:01:55.138) Well, I, you know, I have, have long had this, suspicion that, or this belief that the most interesting work happening in our field is cities that were under like 50 ,000 people. And I see now, I think I just need to raise that threshold to like 75 ,000 to loop Kalamazoo in, but it is, it's amazing how often this happens that it's the smaller cities that are doing the most groundbreaking work and doing it. Rebekah Kik (01:02:14.797) Just a couple more. Kevin K (01:02:24.738) really well. That's pretty incredible. So now, you know, obviously Michigan is not exactly a booming state in terms of population. Have you seen an impact on the city's like economic fortunes with some of the planning work? Is the city growing at all or how's that work? Rebekah Kik (01:02:41.994) You know, we are and we aren't. I don't think at this point we're losing anyone, but we're certainly not booming in any capacity necessarily. No, we're not growing in any industry per se. pretty quiet there. I think we're just doing good, steady work and we're just trying to be great and steady and consistent and keep who we've got, you know? Kevin K (01:03:24.162) Well, it seems like in certainly in the Rust Belt, being able to keep who you've got, have happy citizens and have a high quality of life, you're like way ahead of the game. Rebekah Kik (01:03:35.85) Yeah, no question. No question. Kevin K (01:03:40.481) Yeah. Rebecca, this has been an incredible story. I'm sure there's a lot more to it. If people want to look up more about what you've done and what you're doing in Kalamazoo, what's the best way to do that? Rebekah Kik (01:03:55.978) Imagine Kalamazoo .com. It's, yeah, yeah, it's got the whole story. It's got a page with all our plans, our process, our public participation plan. We tried to codify it. It's got a toolkit. It's, you know, go to where people are and have fun. Yeah. Kevin K (01:03:58.242) Okay, that's straightforward. Rebekah Kik (01:04:24.202) It also if you go to Kalamazoo city org You can at the bottom of the page you can see the foundation for excellence story You can see our investments you can see the 50 million dollars that we've invested in our city in our neighborhoods you can Could check out that whole story. It's Really incredible and just know we're incredibly grateful for it. We understand what it means for us and Yeah, we don't take it for granted. Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Kevin K (01:04:58.666) that's fantastic. Rebecca, it's been great catching up. I really appreciate your time doing this and look forward to following more of what's going on in Kalamazoo. Rebekah Kik (01:05:08.874) Hey, I'm just grateful for that opportunity. Thanks for allowing me to catch up and share our unique story. Kevin K (01:05:15.618) my pleasure. Take care. Rebekah Kik (01:05:17.578) Yeah, take care, Kevin.