Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The only statewide initiative on the May 6 ballot was Issue 2, which passed by a considerable margin, and many area local leaders are pleased.
“Just like anything else, you have to thank the voters of Ohio for recognizing the importance of infrastructure and the fact that it's a good investment in our communities, and it's a needed investment in our communities,” Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski said. “It's always heartening to know when the public recognizes that investing in infrastructure in your community increases your quality of life.”
The issue authorizes Ohio officials to release $2.5 billion in bonds, restricted to $250 million per year over 10 years. The money will aid local governments in financing public infrastructure capital improvements, including roads, bridges, waste water treatment systems, solid waste disposal facilities, storm water and sanitary collection, storage, and treatment facilities.
Pemberville mayor Carol Bailey said her community gets plenty of valuable use from that money, including the water tower, which she said is nearly complete. And she said they are waiting on the results of potential small government funding for their bridge project, which she’s hoping to know the results of within the next week.
“It’s a great thing because it supplies funding for infrastructure projects, which the village has taken advantage of,” she said. “We apply every time it comes around, and we have benefited from that several times. I'm thrilled that that thing passed and that it passed wonderfully. There was there was no doubt about it, and it didn’t create any new taxes either.”
Jerusalem Township trustee Dave Bench said he is on the board for the District Integrating Committee, which meets about five times a year and does applications for projects related to Issue 2. He said the money really helps communities such as his township.
“If anybody voted against that, they weren’t too smart,” he said. “We have some storm water sewers on Bunting Road where they put in some sanitary sewers and did a sloppy job. They slapped our storm water sewers together, and they're breaking down now. We could get money, either loans or maybe some grants even, to help fix that (through Issue 2).”
The last authorization for Issue 2, which dates back to 1987, was in 2014 at a price tag of $1.9 billion and was scheduled to end on July 1. The price of the new authorization - $2.5 billion – can attribute its higher cost to increased labor and material costs. The Ohio Public Works Commission estimates the funding supports 35,000 construction jobs.
“We estimate it's going to generate about $7 million a year that we can put towards local infrastructure projects,” Pniewski said. “You have to dedicate so much to each unit of government. Pretty much everybody benefits from projects through the State Capital Improvement Program. So it will be a good help to not just the City of Toledo, but every community in Lucas County will benefit.”
Pemberville levy struck down a second time
Residents of Pemberville voted no for the second time to a half-percent increase on income taxes, which would have taken the current rate of one percent to 1.5 percent.
“My initial thoughts are it's very sad that the villagers, the residents of the village, couldn’t see the importance of supporting the village’s amenities and services,” Bailey said.
Bailey said the tax was going to start being collected next January had it passed, so she doesn’t anticipate the cutting of a bunch of services this summer yet.
“We will probably cut back on our mosquito spraying this year,” she said. “We're going to probably or very possibly cut back on police presence at our car shows and things like that which are not hugely impactful this year because we didn't run on taking away services.
“But we would have been collecting it next year. Now next year, we will probably be telling people in the fall that they're going to see police cuts. They're going to see services cut.
“Another thing this summer, they may see the pool close early because generally we have to put an infusion of cash from the general fund into the pool toward the end of July just to keep it running, and I quite frankly don't know if we can do that.
“The other thing that we're going to see an immediate change in is I will not be applying for a bunch of grants because I can't use the matching funds. I won't have the matching funds. I don't want to deplete the general fund any further with taking matching funds from it for grants.”
Bailey assured that this won’t affect grants that have already been applied for, but she said it “ties their hands” for future grant applications.
The mayor also said they will put the issue back on the ballot again as voting it down only kicks the can down the road.
“(We’ll put it back on) even though the residents think it’s a terrible idea,” she said. “When you kick the can down the road, all you accomplish is kicking the can down the road.”
As far as potential compromises, Bailey said they’ll look at the structure, but reducing the percentage ask won’t fix the problem, which she said was caused by previous administrations.
“Would a lesser income tax pass? I don't know, but at the same time, it's not going to fix the problem,” she said. “It'll just kick the can down the road. It just doesn't solve the issue. The issue at hand is the past administrations have not sought funding.
“What they did was they manipulated the income tax fund and took some away from permanent improvements and stuck it in the general fund. They just manipulated it to make the general fund seem healthier, and it didn’t work.”
Genoa levy fails
A renewal substitute emergency property tax levy in Genoa was also struck down for the second time.
The purpose of the renewal levy, which replaces an emergency property tax levy originally approved in 2015 and renewed in 2020, would have allowed the school district to collect additional revenue on new real property construction without increasing tax obligations for existing property owners.
This levy was a renewal of the renewal, and it is the second time the district has approached the voters after it failed in November. The funds covered would have accounted for nine percent of Genoa’s budget and would have generated $1.2 million for the district.
“We don't have a frivolous district,” Genoa assistant superintendent Cody McPherson told The Press in April. “We're not adding new and additional things. We look at everything on a one by one basis and say, ‘If something new comes up, is this a need or a want? Can we do this in a way that is fiscally responsible?’ And then if the answer is we have to do this because here's why, we move forward with it.
“We do that with every single thing. And the voters in our district and our communities have told us in various ways that they appreciate it, and they know that we do that.”
Jerusalem Township also sees frustration at the polls
Officials in Jerusalem Township, including Bench and fellow trustee, Alex Lytten, saw a pair of renewal levies fail at the polls.
The first asked voters for a renewal of a tax that was intended for parks and recreation purposes, and the second as a combination levy for a total of 3-mills that would have gone toward road repairs and maintenance.
One thing that did pass was local option Sunday liquor permit for Anchor Pointe. Only the eastern half of Jersualem Township voters went to the polls on that.
Lytten said he understands why voters said no with property taxes going up, but he’s in a tough position as a trustee.
“With everything going on with the property tax increase and all that stuff, that's probably why those items didn't pass,” he said. “And I don't really blame the voters that they didn't pass. Property taxes are expensive. It's a tough position to be in as a trustee. I don't want my taxes to go up, but I also have to ask for money so we can get things done.”
The township will decide whether or not to put it back on the ballot in November.
“I'm going to assume we'll put it back on November, but we haven't come to a solid decision on that yet,” Lytten said. “I have no idea if the rec levy is going to go back up or not. That's going to be in the coming weeks, we'll have to figure that out.”
Bench, meanwhile, has served as the road person for the trustees for several years. He takes care of the roads, ditches and stuff like that. He said, as did Lytten, that the township over the past several years has had eight miles of roads dumped into their hands with no say in the matter, which has exacerbated repair costs.
“The county just tells us that there are roads, and there's nothing we can do about it,” Bench said. “We have just acquired two major ones - Cedar Point Road from Oregon to where Cedar Point dead ends into DeCant Road, and we just acquired all of Veler Road from State Route 2 to where it dead ends into Lyons Road.
“Those are major roads. We don't have any road levy money now. We just bought some salt, and I told the road guy, ‘I guess we're only going to do intersections.’ That's all we can do. That's all we can afford to do. The rest of the road will have to be what it is because we don't have the money.”
Bench said Cedar Point Road is “kind of a mess.”
“At the one end, it's three-foot narrower than up by Maumee Bay State Park,” Bench said. “And now we're kind of stuck with it. We're trying to get a federal grant to take care of that somewhat. I don't know if that's going to happen with all that's happening in the world these days. Everything is being shut down. It’s going to be interesting.”
Bench said they had two separate road levies on the ballot last November, and after they failed, the township consolidated those into one.
“We just don't put these on the ballot for nothing,” he said. “They cost, I can't remember how much exactly, but it's a pretty good amount that we have to pay to put these back on. So we thought we would make it simpler, just to have one, you know, one levy and go from there.”
He said the upcoming problem is what to do in November as they also have their fire levy coming up.
“We can't run three levies that's for sure, but we might have to put the rec levy off for another year, and we really need the money for the roads and bridges to keep up,” Bench said. “People complain about the tar and chip, but sometimes that’s all we can afford to do. It’s all about money.
“I just don't know how we're going to educate the people. I guess we’ll have to have some more forums, you know or something to educate the people and tell them to get out and vote. I don't know if nobody was used to coming to vote in May either, and maybe we made a mistake and shouldn’t have done it. We should have waited until the fall, but then we got the fire levy, too, so we thought we'd kind of cut it up a little bit.
“I'm just going to try again, because to keep the township, if we get buried here and get too far behind, people are really, really going to complain. Just even crack sealing, we should be doing. And we're basically not going to do too much of anything.”
As far as the rec levy, Bench hopes something can change with that, too.
“I always say it's for the kids. If we keep the kids busy and out of trouble, that's great,” he said. “We have a really good rec director and a really good group with really good people on it. We have a big rec complex in Jerusalem Township, and we have at least three ball diamonds and then we got soccer fields and stuff like that out there.
“It gets used quite a bit, and it's for the kids at Jerusalem Township and some Oregon people come out sometimes for soccer and stuff like that, so it's well used, and we have to maintain it. Actually our guys cut the grass there, the township workers, and it's a pretty big field. I hope that they can come around (on that levy).”
