Thursday, October 21, 1999
Single vote can make difference in local races
Elections have immediate impact
BY RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SPRINGBORO — Mud-slinging and yard signs aside, jousting candidates can agree on one point: November's election is democracy in its most fundamental form, where the results of the vote have an immediate and intimate impact.
Voters across the Tristate will determine Nov. 2 how schools and fire departments are funded and who will run cities, villages, townships and school boards for the next four years.
The problem is that only a fraction of residents will help make those decisions. With no national races and few state and county issues at stake, voter turnout at November's off-year election is expected to drop 10 percent to 20 percent from already anemic rates.
And yet it is at the local level where votes can count more, like dropping a pebble into a puddle instead of the Pacific.
“The decisions made at the local level have a stronger impact,” said Gene Beaupre, a political science professor at Xavier University. "It's whether we put a stop sign on this corner, how often we clean the streets and pick up trash, what we charge for water rates. But people don't seem to grasp that they can vote on the people who make the decisions.”
The potential impact of these votes is evident in the silence of the halls at Springboro Elementary School.
There are no sticky hand
prints on the fresh walls. No smack of tennis shoes on the wooden gymnasium floor or chatter of fourth- and fifth-graders.
Despite $4.1 million in renovations, the school sits empty. After three failed levies, there's a fourth attempt on the ballot this November.
“Every vote counts in this election,” said Springboro Superintendent Gary Meier. “In Ohio, school districts live or die on the willingness of people to cast their ballots and support their communities.”
Several factors contribute to low voter turnout, including apathy and an erosion of civic pride, Mr. Beaupre said. A waning interest in political affairs has meant that not only are voters failing to come to the polls, but often smaller communities don't even have enough people to run for the available offices.
Warren County, for example, has nine positions with no candidates.
Low turnout also stems from people who say their one vote doesn't really count.
“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard people say,” said Earl Sizemore, Warren County's Democratic Party chairman. “One vote counts. There's been lots of times one vote has made the difference.”
Consider Steve Strosnider's experience. The Clermont County man won a trustee position for Pierce Township by five votes in 1987. Last fall, the race to keep his seat took two recounts and a coin toss. With a guess of “heads,” he snagged the seat for the next four years.
“We knew it was going to be a hard race, but I don't think either one of us thought it was going to be so close,” Mr. Strosnider said.
In May, Springboro's levy campaign boiled down to 207 votes. Its failure meant the district's two other elementary schools opened in August with about five more students in each classroom than the state average. Kids eat lunch in the hallways. A kindergarten class is held on the gymnasium stage.
Mr. Meier attributed his district's failed levies in part to the rapid growth of the northern Warren County community, which saw its population spike by 60 percent since 1990, to an estimated 10,500.
It's difficult to convince a transient population, one that is still building bonds with the community, to approve a tax increase, Mr. Meier said. The 3.33-mill levy on the ballot would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $102 in new taxes.
One of Springboro's challenges is to show voters how good schools preserve property values, and conversely, how ailing schools could lower them, Mr. Meier said.
The school levy has mixed support at the Donut Haus, a morning gathering spot in Springboro where regulars keep their own coffee cups on a shelf.
Passing the levy is a matter of “ensuring home values and continued growth in a good community,” said Suzan Johnson, a 15-year resident.
But others said the district hasn't convinced them the school levy is truly needed.
“I feel we've got to teach our kids financial responsibility,” said Robert Dimmitt, a 30-year resident and former Clearcreek Township police chief. “Once the board presents a feasible financial tax, I could support it.”
The former chief isn't opposed to all tax increases; Mr. Dimmitt said he supported the 1.5-mill Clearcreek Township levy for police protection that would cost the owner of a $100,000 house an additional $46 annually in new taxes.
Regardless of their support for the tax issues, the Donut Haus regulars said they all planned to vote.
People who don't vote are failing to “exercise one of the few rights they've got left,” said Walden Storie, a 38-year resident of Clearcreek Township. “Local people have a voice, and (the local level) is a good place to start, I think.”
Mr. Beaupre estimated voter turnout Nov. 2 could drop to 30 percent, compared with 71 percent in Hamilton County when President Clinton was re-elected three years ago.
That's despite the fact a handful of votes could separate a newly elected candidate from a has-run.
In May, 38 votes meant the Princeton School District didn't have to lay anybody off. Without the 3.95-mill levy, the district said it would consider job cuts and consolidating some of its 11 schools.
With the levy, which cost the owner of a $100,000 home $96.78 in new taxes, the district will be able to maintain its small class sizes and offer moderate raises for teachers.
Cincinnati Councilman Jim Tarbell is acutely aware of the value of the vote. Two years ago, he came within 350 votes — less than one vote per precinct — of winning a council seat.
He is determined it won't happen again. In his campaign this time around, Mr. Tarbell, who was appointed to the nine-member council in July 1998, is targeting precincts where his voter support was low.
“Nobody knows better than I do,” he said, “the meaning of one vote.”
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