Friday, September 12, 2008

Merger Petition Protested by Township Trustees

For decades, our community has played with the topic of merging the city and township. Unfortunately, this issue is greatly polarizing among our residents - some believe it is an issue that should be explored; others are adamantly opposed to any idea of merging the two governments. Today, Sylvania Township was forced to take action to protect the integrity of the legal process of merger, and thus stepped squarely in to the middle of this issue.

Over the past year, volunteers have circulated petitions in the township and city collecting signatures in order to place the issue of forming a merger commission on the November ballot. These volunteers spent countless hours working on an issue that they are passionate about, and I respect them for that. The petition includes five specifically named township electors and five specifically named city electors. These electors are often referred to as merger commissioners and, if a commission is formed, are charged with drawing up the statement of conditions for merger (i.e., how we would become one entity). The merger petition was filed with the Board of Elections and was certified to the ballot in August.

Unfortunately, separate action by a small group of township residents including one of the township merger commissioners has put in jeopardy the effort to allow residents to vote on the merger commission this November. On September 3, 2008, the City of Sylvania accepted a request to annex property at the corner of King and Brint known as Country Commons Walk, an annexation effort that was started in November 2007 by the residents of that subdivision.

When the city accepted the annexation request, it annexed in to the city the residence of one of the township's merger commissioners who had signed the annexation petition in November 2007. For at least eight months while One Sylvania was gathering signatures, they were aware that one of their township commissioners had requested to be annexed in to the city. Despite encouragement early on to replace this commissioner with another township resident, a step that would admittedly have made them start over with the petition drive, One Sylvania chose not to do so and continued to collect signatures.

Now that the annexation has been approved by the city, only four of the 10 merger commissioners slated to be voted on are township residents, which does not meet the minimum requirements of Ohio Revised Code ("ORC") § 709.45. Thus the integrity of the merger process has been compromised.

I know that some are going to criticize the township for spending taxpayer money on for this protest. But I believe that as township trustees we have an obligation to our constituents - township and city residents - to raise questions if the legal process for such an important community issue has not been followed and in fact may place township residents at a disadvantage if merger discussions proceed. Statements by merger proponents that "they believe" we can appoint a replacement for this commission but that the law is ambiguous is not reassuring that we will be facing a balanced merger commission if the issue passes in November.

But 2,500 voters signed the merger petitions, so doesn't that mean we are ignoring the will of voters by taking this action? What really undermines the will of the voter is misrepresenting that the township had equal representation among the named merger commissioners when One Sylvania knew one of the commissioners was likely to be annexed in to the city prior to the November election and in fact work edwith members of Sylvania City Council to ensure that the annexation would take place after the merger petitions were filed.

It is not the Township Trustees who are prohibiting the residents from making an informed decision with regard to a merger. It was One Sylvania that I believe failed to meet the legal requirements of the law and has placed the township trustees in the position of having to protect the integrity of the merger process as well as the representation of the voters of the unincorporated township. We should not allow the law to be subverted by a rush to the polls despite clearly failing to meet the requirements of the Ohio Revised Code.

Sincerely,

DeeDee Liedel

Sylvania Township Trustee