April 7, 2005

Rickenbach appointed to Council

By Robert Mihalek

Village Council on Monday appointed Bruce Rickenbach, the former Village manager and current chairman of the Planning Commission, to the five-member Council.

Rickenbach, who is 59, fills a vacancy created by last month’s resignation of George Pitstick, who, with his wife, Eloise, is moving out of town. Rickenbach will serve the remainder of Pitstick’s term, until the Nov. 8 election.

After meeting in executive session to start their meeting on April 4, Council members unanimously agreed to appoint Rickenbach, who was in the audience. Council president Tony Arnett administered the oath of office to Rickenbach, who then participated in the meeting. On Tuesday, Rickenbach said that he was told by Council president Tony Arnett to attend the meeting because he was likely to get the appointment.

After the meeting, Arnett said “it was my call” to suggest that Rickenbach attend the meeting. After Council interviewed the candidates, Arnett said, Rickenbach was “the likely choice.”

He said he did not tell the other candidates to be there, and the other four people interviewed were not in the audience.

Council did not decide who was appointed until Monday’s meeting, Arnett said. “Council wanted to move as quickly as possible so having candidates there, ready, available, was advantageous,” Arnett said.

In addition to Rickenbach, five local residents expressed interest in the vacancy, though one person, Jack Layh, was not considered because he lives in Miami Township, outside Yellow Springs. The other candidates were Connie Gahagan, Aimee Lunde Maruyama, Louis E. Sims and Jeff Singleton. Council interviewed the candidates in executive sessions, which were not open to the public, at the end of March.

Council member Jocelyn Hardman said during the meeting that after reviewing the pool of “well-qualified candidates,” Council decided that Rickenbach is “best able to allow us to maintain our momentum” and “hit the ground running.”

Arnett said that he values Rickenbach’s understanding of “our current situation and current initiatives.” He also has “institutional memory,” Arnett said, giving him “insight that none of the rest of us on Council can capture.”

After the meeting, Rickenbach said that he applied for the opening because he has experience and skills that could be useful to Council. He also said he has a “commitment to community.”

Noting that he does not have his own agenda, Rickenbach said he is committed to the goals established by Planning Commission, which are based on Council’s goals and on restoring Yellow Springs to “good health.” For the last two or three years, the plan board has been working to help the village to grow in an “intelligent way” that honors the values of the community.

He said he sees three common themes in these goals: restoring the health and vitality of the community; getting the Village’s finances in order; and preserving the values of the community.

Improving the Village’s financial situation will lead to improving the community’s health, he said. For several years now, Council and the Village administration have been focusing on reducing costs and increasing revenue, which have been generally flat.

When asked to name community values he wants to preserve, Rickenbach highlighted diversity; respect for individual opinions, even if opinions are different; and smallness or compactness. Though there’s agreement in the community for growth, Rickenbach said, Yellow Springs needs not to grow in a way that results in sprawl and “eats up the natural world.”

He said there’s a “better-than-even” chance that he will run for a full term on Council in November, though he noted that he has not made a final decision. “I wouldn’t think I would have taken on the responsibility if I wasn’t interested in running in the fall,” he said.

Rickenbach, who was elected to Council in 1999 but resigned the next year, has been a member of the Planning Commission since 2002. Council agreed on Monday that Rickenbach should serve as Council’s representative to the plan board.

He was the assistant Village manager from 1969 to ’72 and was the Village manager from ’74 to ’79. After serving as the director of building regulations and services for Greene County from 1980 to ’84, he started working for Management Excellence Inc. as its vice president, a position he still holds. He has a master of public works degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA from Antioch College.

Rickenbach is a member of the Community Resources board and chairs the site development committee for the Center for Business and Education. He is also a member of the Lions Club and the Men’s Group and serves as the treasurer of the Leadership Institute of Yellow Springs and the Community Council. He and his wife, Fran, have been married since 1972.