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Financial impact of potential merger detailed
Thursday, April 10, 2008
CENTERVILLE — And never the twain shall meet, or will it?
While Rudyard Kipling bemoaned the gulf of understanding between East and West, some at the March 31 joint public meeting of Centerville and Washington Twp. officials to hear and discuss the University of Toledo's 140-page analysis of the financial impacts of a potential merger of the two political entities said they already are one community and in time will probably be one government, but that now may not be that time.
Extras
Around 130 people, the majority township residents upset with the idea of having to pay a city income tax for themselves or for their business in a merged city, attended the 3½-hour meeting.
The meeting, held in the Centerville Police headquarters building, began with a 42-slide power point presentation by Hugh Hinton of the University of Toledo, preparer of the study.
Washington Twp. attorney Timothy Hackert collected signatures of people at the meeting interested in holding an organizational meeting to develop a plan to educate others on opposing a merger.
The first step in the merger process calls for residents in both communities to sign petitions to put the question of whether a merger study committee should be formed on the November ballot, said Centerville Mayor Mark Kingseed.
He said he and council favor studying the feasibility of a merger, which would replace most property taxes with a city income tax for those who work and live in the city and don't pay a similar tax elsewhere.
The city would need about 1,100 signatures and the township 1,400 signatures, 10 percent of the electors in the last governor's election, Washington Twp. Trustee president Joyce Young said.
If the issue's on the ballot, residents in both jurisdictions would vote on it.
If turned down by either, the issue would be dead for three years.
Hackert said he wants to sit down with residents and discuss why a merger doesn't make sense and "why we shouldn't move forward. It may work in the future, but it won't work now for a lot of economic and service reasons," he said.
Capital improvement costs for county roads haven't been dealt with, he said. Shifting the economic burden onto others, including an estimated 37 percent of township residents who don't currently pay a city income tax, "without knowing whether there's really going to be a cost savings," also doesn't make sense, he said. He can be reached at (937) 436-1259.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2341 or kullmer@DaytonDailyNews.com.
