CLARKSVILLE — There were times when several of those in the audience were talking at once.
Twenty people attended Monday’s meeting of Clarksville Village Council. There the council members took action to forward a petition that requests an issue be put on the ballot so residents can choose whether or not to dissolve the village’s government.
Clarksville Mayor John Neeley Jr. advised council that the Village had to submit the petition to the Clinton County Board of Elections as part of a required procedure.
The mayor said the board of elections will determine whether the petition is valid by checking signatures, residence status and so forth. The Ohio Auditor of State’s staff, which has been working with the Village after it was placed in a state of fiscal emergency, recommended council approve the petition and let the board of elections handle it, according to Neeley.
Those who favor dissolving the Clarksville government cite factors such as the Village’s financial condition — including a large water debt and the general fund and trash fund being in the red — compounded with a small population that earns modest incomes.
Darrell Wilson, who presented the petition to council in October, reiterated that thinking Monday when he said, “We’re trying to support an unsupportable situation.”
He also spoke Monday of “astronomically high utility bills.”
But others in the audience were against ending the village government powers and coming under Vernon Township governance.
Former village councilperson Kimber Willard said, “Has anyone on council sat down and wrote out what the village has to gain by doing this, and what the village has to lose? Because I see a lot more loss than I do gain.”
She added that Clarksville would lose its identity.
Willard also asked whether people think the township is “going to come down and plow our streets first?”
On the matter of Village debt, Willard said the debt would still have to be paid.
“This petition is premature,” she continued.
The mayor, after saying he is 100 percent against the petition, volunteered a comment.
“In my personal opinion on this petition, the board of elections is going to throw it out because it’s improperly written,” said Neeley.
He elaborated that several signatures occur twice and there are names of people who no longer live within the village.
Later, Willard said, “I just think people need to be informed of what we have to gain and what we have to lose.”
Wilson responded, “And that’s exactly what we [petitioners] want as well.”
According to Wilson, the mayor was mistaken when he stated in a prior News Journal article that the town’s street lights probably would go dark if the village government is dissolved. The funds for the street lights come from an assessment on property tax, he said, adding he verified with township trustees those funds “would be a pass-through transaction” if the village as a political subdivision were to dissolve into the township.
At the council meeting, a written financial recovery plan, prepared under the supervision of the Ohio Auditor of State’s Office, was approved in a 4-3 vote and now will be submitted to the state auditor’s office. The mayor said council received an updated plan at the prior meeting, and the auditor’s office wanted the plan approved sooner rather than later.
Village Councilperson Carol J. Carter described the plan as a “working document” that still can get changed and amended after approval.
But Councilperson Allen Wood wondered how he can be asked as a council member to vote for a plan subject to change, instead of getting it right the first time.
Carter said the state auditor’s office is waiting on a recovery plan, and “at some point, we owe them a plan.”
Carter, Tonya Eades and Marlene DeBoard voted in favor of approving and submitting the plan, while Wood, Kip Thomas and Paula Hammons voted against. Neeley, as mayor, cast the tie-breaking vote for approval, explaining that the planning document needed to be turned in as soon as possible and had been worked on for more than a year.
Its recommended steps for lifting the village out of fiscal emergency include, among other actions, a 1 percent income tax enacted by council (with all revenue going to the General Fund); negotiations with Western Water Company for it to possibly purchase the village water system; $100,000 awarded to clean up the former reservoir; and council and mayor waiving their salaries. All of those are in effect or underway.
According to a five-year forecast contained in the financial recovery plan document, if the plan is implemented, then at the end of a five-year period, the Village will be in the black in its General Fund by $18,960.
The mayor announced that a special meeting will be scheduled in the next couple weeks on the topic of the trash collection contract with Rumpke.
Reach Gary Huffenberger at 937-556-5768.
