Tuesday, November 02, 1999
Day of reckoning for candidates
Weather could dampen turnout for local election
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The weather conditions will be less than ideal — always a bad omen for turnout — as southwestern Ohio voters go to the polls today to decide hundreds of close-to-home races and ballot issues.
In Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont counties, nearly 900 candidates are on the bal lot, vying for election to boards of township trustees, school boards and city councils.
The weather is not expected to cooperate — the National Weather Service is predicting occasional rain, especially in the morning, with temperatures falling into the lower 40s by late afternoon.
Rain usually ends up dampening turnout. In Hamilton County, elections director Bruce Taylor predicted that 45 percent of the county's 555,039 registered voters will go to the polls — almost exactly the percentage that turned out in the last set of local elections in 1997.
The turnout in the city of Cincinnati is usually lower than the countywide mark, and probably will be this year also, despite a Cincinnati City Council election in which a 20-candidate field has spent well over $2 million.
The top vote-getter in today's race for council will become the city's new mayor, because incumbent Democrat Roxanne Qualls could not run again because of term limits.
It will be the last election in which the top vote-getter in the council election will become mayor. In May, Cincinnati voters approved a charter change that will set up the direct election of a mayor with enhanced powers in 2001.
Cincinnati voters have another reason to come to the polls — a 4.5-mill, $24 million levy for the Cincinnati Public Schools, one that school officials say will be used to cover inflation and make up a $180-per-pupil cut made last spring.
Backers of the school levy have spent at least $250,000 touting the issue, while the only organized opposition — an anti-tax group called Coalition Against Spending and Taxes, has launched a $12,000 radio campaign against the levy.
School issues are also to be decided in Springboro, Talawanda, New Miami, Middletown/Monroe, Bethel-Tate and Goshen.
In Hamilton County, voters will have two other tax issues to decide — Issue 12, a 1.59-mill health and hospitalization levy for Drake Center, and Issue 13, a 3.53-mill levy for mental retardation and developmental disabilities.
The renewal of a children's services levy tops the ballot in Butler County.
Across Ohio, voters will be deciding a statewide ballot issues — Issue 1, which would amend Ohio's constitution to allow the state to issue low-interest bonds for school construction and repairs, up to 5 percent of the state budget.
In the Cincinnati council race, a controversy erupted Monday when Keith Fangman, president of the Queen City Chapter of Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) announced the FOP would file a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission against Councilman Todd Portune, a Democrat running for re-election.
The dispute is over a Portune campaign brochure that contains a picture of Mr. Portune at a community meeting in College Hill with two uniformed District 5 police officers.
Mr. Fangman said that the two police officers did not give their permission to have their pictures used in a campaign; and that using their pictures was a violation of a city charter prohibition against employees being engaged in political campaigns and of a state law prohibiting classified employees from taking part in campaigns.
Mr. Portune, who did not get the FOP's endorsement for council, said the photograph was taken by a photographer hired by his campaign.
“Our photographer was taking pictures of me out doing my job as a councilman,” Mr. Portune said. “I don't see anything wrong with this.”
In Kentucky, Gov. Paul Patton is expected to become the first governor in modern state history to succeed himself as he faces a trio of lesser-known challengers.
Mr. Patton, a Democrat, is opposed by Republican Peppy Martin, Reform Party candidate Gatewood Galbraith and Nailah Jumoke-Yarbrough of the Natural Law Party.
A change in the Kentucky constitution allows sitting governors to seek a second term.
All other state offices in Kentucky are uncontested, and the lack of local races has election officials predicting a possible record low turnout.
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