Commentary on the 2014 Village Town Meeting
The past twelve months has seen an extraordinary flurry of significant issues come before the Mariemont Village Council. Many of these have long range implications for the financial health of the Village and the cultural richness of living in the Village of Mariemont.
Few of these salient issues were touched upon on Sunday, March 23 in the ‘State of the Village’ address presented by Mayor Policastro. Indeed, only two important public concerns surfaced in the brief Question and Answer period at the end of the Meeting. We all were pleased when the Mayor agreed to conduct a village-wide survey concerning back or side door pickup of recyclables.
Issues that merited discussion and explanation included:
- The rationale behind the refusal to build a roundabout or convert the 6-way intersection at Murray Avenue into a 4 way stop sign intersection.
- The stonewalling of a JEDZ (Joint Economic Development Zone) with Columbia Township even as council pursues JEDZs with far-removed communities.
- The tax implications of the lay-offs at Kellogg’s and the very real threat that the Kellogg Plant will close its doors altogether at the end of 2015.
- The elimination of the two elected officials, Village Clerk and Treasurer, with consolidation into an appointed ‘fiscal officer’.
- A discussion of the Safe Routes to School progress
- South 80 development
- Eastern Corridor discussions about the extension of Route 32
- The financial impact of purchasing a $750,000 fire engine and the Mayor’s unilateral hiring of a 10th police officer, even as the Village is experiencing a significant decrease in revenues from the State
- Discussions on greater collaboration for essential services with adjoining communities to capture economies of scale and scope.
More openness and candid discussion could have made the meeting one of the most important in many years. What could have been a real opportunity to discuss the true state of the Village and its future, the pros and cons of the decisions and their results ended up instead being a speech about grant pursuits, volunteer recognition and mustering the troops against real and perceived threats to the Village. The address seemed anemic compared to what really happened in the community over the past year.