Thursday, November 04, 1999
Change of heart spells levy win
Middletown, Union Twp. put it over top
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Middletown and Union Township, two large communities that had voted against the Butler County Children Services levy in May, were two big reasons the agency's levy passed Tues day.
Middletown supported the crucial 2-mill levy renewal by a 1,327-vote margin, and Union Township backed it by 897 votes, according to unofficial figures from the board of elections.
“Hamilton and Middletown are very important in general elections,” Children Services spokesman Bob Bogan said, “but you also have to have Union Township behind you or it can kill you.”
The 2-mill levy renewal passed 55.4 percent, or 30,569 votes, to 44.6 percent, or 24,613 votes.
The money from this levy accounts for about half of Children Services' $16 million annual budget.
County officials said the levy's failure would have had a catastrophic effect upon services for abused, neglected and dependent children.
Voters had defeated a 2.4-mill levy in May and a 2-mill levy renewal in November last year.
The dramatic voter turnabout in Middletown and Union Township helped the levy pass Tuesday.
The levy almost won in Liberty Township, a growing area north of Union Township that voted against the levy in May. In Liberty, 1,429 voted for it and 1,471 against it.
The population growth in the Lakota school district, which includes Union and Liberty townships, has made it a critical factor in countywide elections, Mr. Bogan said.
“It's become a big voting bloc,” he said. “We all considered it very critical that we do well in Middletown and the Lakota school district.”
In its levy campaign, Children Services made a special effort to win over those communities.
Agency officials met with civic leaders and school officials in those areas to urge them to support the levy.
Two Children Services employees spent their past eight weekends knocking on doors in Union Township to encourage residents to vote for the levy.
“I've never seen more effort in a levy campaign by our staff or by the agencies we work with,” Mr. Bogan said.
He said the agency successfully countered the extremely critical anti-levy radio ads that ran the past two weeks.
“Everybody got the message from us that every county has to have this service,' Mr. Bogan said.
Aimee Johnston, one of the levy opponents, said she will circulate a petition to place a referendum rescinding the levy on the ballot in May.
Robert Mosketti, director of the board of elections, said he doubts whether the law permits such an action to be taken against a levy approved by voters.
He said he was checking to confirm that.
Mr. Bogan said he thinks a Children Services pamphlet mailed to county residents within the past two weeks also had a positive impact on the vote.
Without showing their faces or mentioning names, the pamphlet contained photographs of abused children and blended facts about many cases into composite stories.
The photos includes a child with stitches behind his ear, a baby with a swollen eye from being hit, a child with a burned scalp and a child with a bruised leg from being struck with a strap.
A few people complained to Children Services about the disturbing nature of the photographs, Mr. Bogan said, but many thanked the agency for dramatizing a serious situation.
He agreed the photos were not pleasant to look at.
“I'm sorry, but that's what we're dealing with,” he said. “That's what's happening in this county.”
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