LONDON, Ohio — Voters in London shot down an income tax increase for the second time.
The levy would have supported a new police department and operations for the city's Division of Fire. City leaders say public safety resources need to keep up with the growing population, but residents say they can't afford a tax increase.
As the City of London welcomes new residents, Mayor Patrick Closser says there's a need to invest in a new community center and police department in addition to now covering the operating costs of the fire department.
“People like our town and they are kind of moving out of the big city to come this way and so growth is coming and this city needs to grow with that growth,” he said.
A levy failed once before, so a new community center was scrapped from the plan. This time, the focus for voters would be on the fire and police departments.
“The thing with a new tax levy is it's never the right time,” Closser said.
Voters on Tuesday shot down the latest plan to increase the income tax. The .4% income tax would have supported a new police department and it would have covered the fire and EMS operations.
“We took over EMS about 4 years ago and when we did that we got rid of the property tax that went along with EMS and we told people that we did not want to be a bank and we wanted to make sure that we were only collecting what we needed so we got rid of the property tax and we told the citizens give us three years to shake this out and see what we actually need,” Closser explained. “We’ve been able to run for four years without extra tax dollars and now it’s time that we need to come back to the citizens and get some of that money that we need for the operation of fire and EMS.”
Now city leaders will go back to the drawing board to craft a way to cover the cost of only the fire department.
“The operations for the fire department and EMS is very critical,” Closser said.
For the police department, it's unknown how soon a new building could be in the works. In 1986, the department moved into a temporary space, where it remains today.
Chief Glenn Nicol says it affects recruitment efforts and London is also feeling the effects of a police officer shortage nationwide.
“There's rooms now that we're using for three or four purposes,” he explained. "We have a room that has access to the women's locker room with three lockers. We're looking at in that same room we have janitorial supplies we have our IT servers. Some records storage. There's quite a bit going on in that one room.”
“When you ask citizens to give us a few more tax dollars it's difficult,” Closser said. “You have people going to the grocery store and gas station and it's really affecting their wallet and their money this was a difficult time but a great need for the city."