By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

ELECTION GUIDE

Election Guide 2003 Cincinnati.com provides an early look at the Nov. 4 vote with help on getting you registered, lists of area candidates and the latest campaign news. And there's more to come, including candidate profiles - as we get closer to Election Day.

WEST CHESTER TWP. - Candidates vying to be the next trustee to help run this booming Butler County community agree properly handling growth is a top priority.

But they differ on other issues, such as whether a proposed 1.95-mill park levy should be supported by voters Tuesday. It would generate $3.2 million a year toward about $60 million over five years for park and recreation improvements.

Two candidates, incumbent Trustee President Dave Tacosik and Tyrone Sims support the continuing levy, saying it's important to ensuring the township's quality of life.

"If we don't take advantage of the land that we do have and the opportunity to preserve and develop right now we are not going to have that opportunity in the future, so I think it's a must," Sims said Wednesday in a candidate forum at The Cincinnati Enquirer's north newsroom in West Chester Township.

"If the vote is no, then we will probably prod along, hopefully be able to cut the grass on our facilities," Tacosik added. "We've gained 438 acres of new park land just in my term alone...recreation is very, very important out here."

But candidates George Lang and Dan Wagner criticized the levy, saying it's too much money. It would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $120 a year.

"I hate to sound like the Grinch, but I will vote against the park levy for one reason," Wagner said. "It is an unending levy. It doesn't end. It goes on year after year after year until somebody puts on a referendum to stop it."

Lang said there have been conflicting statements from trustees about what the money will be used for. For instance, he said, Tacosik contends the township won't need much more parkland, but Trustee Catherine Stoker has said more should be snapped up before development paves it all over.

"I think that $60 million to spend on parks is a lot of money," Lang said. "I'm not in favor of creating this pool of money, up to $60 million, without having the definitive plans on how we are going to pay it back.... I would still say it makes parks too big relative to other departments in the township."

The candidates also differed on whether West Chester, the third-largest township in the state with about 56,000 residents, should incorporate into a city. At least 50,000 people now work in West Chester, but three previous incorporation efforts have failed, the last in 1993.

Lang, Tacosik and Wagner spoke against, saying it would add another layer of bureaucracy. An incorporation effort, Tacosik said, would have to come from the community.

"Yes, we would have an earnings tax out there. It would be nice to have but I think that is just another issue of tax that people don't really need," Tacosik said.

But Sims supports incorporating, saying a city-type government could be more appropriate and useful now than township government.

While Union Centre has been the focus for much of West Chester's development, the candidates also discussed efforts to revitalize Pisgah.

"That's a real velvet-glove issue," Wagner said. "You have to do things with a little finesse and not be intrusive. The people along (U.S.) 42 really don't want big changes. They don't want to see it become like Sharonville with the divided highway or where people are disrupted from their businesses."

Tacosik stressed that the township isn't showing favoritism toward Union Centre.

"We get accused all the time that we spend all our time at Union Centre Boulevard," he said. "We care about all our residents."

Other issues discussed Wednesday were the importance of diversity and solving residents' flooding problems.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com