BY AMY HIGGINS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
UNION TOWNSHIP -- Incorporation is again the talk of the township, as community leaders circulate a petition to rename it West Chester.
Township leaders say the renaming would eliminate confusion between this Butler County community and any of the more than 20 other Union Townships in Ohio.
But some residents claim the movement is the first step of a renewed incorporation effort -- and rightly so.
Township administrator Dave Gully admits the renaming might gather enough momentum and hometown pride to push West Chester to become its own city.
"It doesn't hurt to be West Chester before asking them to become West Chester," Mr. Gully said.
Voters have turned down the incorporation question three times before: 1988, 1989 and 1993. In each referendum, only about 10,000 people voted and the measures lost by fewer than 400 votes.
Also in each referendum, builders and developers opposed incorporation. But if the issue were to go to the polls again, this group -- which has affected the growth making Union Township more like a city and less like a rural township -- might jump the fence.
"I might be in favor," said Larry Schumacher of Schumacher Dugan Construction Inc. "Maybe it just wasn't time before. The interchange (at Interstate 75 and Union Centre Boulevard) is open now, so maybe it's time. But I'm not saying it is."
One of his concerns -- as with other opponents -- is a payroll tax that proponents of incorporation want.
West Chester as a city could collect a tax on payroll earned there.
It might offset the need to raise property taxes to keep up with the increasing demands of the exploding population. The estimated population is 55,560.
Being a city would allow the area greater state and federal benefits -- but not enough to warrant added bureaucracy, say its opponents, who still include some developers.
The petition is only to change the name, not change the system of government.
all three Bryan, who led the 1993 incorporation effort, said he's staying out of Mr. Gully "Sometime in the next 10 years, our commercial and industrial areas will be located in some city, whether our own or Sharonville or Springdale or Fairfield," Mr. Gully said. "If we don't eat our lunch somebody else will.
"If we could get $30 million in (payroll) taxes every year and we don't incorporate, we're stupid."
