Fairfield and its 9,500-student district have become a political battleground, with determined school-levy supporters - hoping to win Nov. 2 in their fifth try for more tax money - pitted against anti-levy advocates who predict another defeat.

Recent allegations of property crimes and personal threats, combined with heated public arguments, stolen campaign signs and even acid attacks on the levy opposition leader's truck, have ratcheted up tensions in this middle-class Butler County community of 42,000.

The budget cuts, which have eliminated high-school student busing, reduced school programs and forced parents to pay up to $630 for their child to play a single sport, have only made matters worse.

Much is at stake. If the levy fails, another $4.7 million in cuts will be made. School and city officials say that would knock Fairfield schools down to state minimum standards and could trigger an exodus of residents fearing for the quality of their children's education and declining property values.

Businesses could follow, seeking a more educated labor force and the customers that have fled the Fairfield area, they warn.

Feuding between pro- and anti-levy factions has escalated steadily since the first issue was voted down in 2001. Emotions have reached such a pitch that Mayor Erick Cook released a public statement Wednesday:

"We as a community must work together to ensure that differences of opinion do not escalate into verbal or physical violence," it says. "I continue to hear about vandalism to the property of both pro-Fairfield school levy and anti-Fairfield school levy campaign organizations. This type of conduct cannot and will not be tolerated by the city of Fairfield."

Gary Allen, president of the Ohio Education Association, which has members in all of the state's 614 school districts, said none of the hundreds of other school-levy campaigns this fall is as divisive.

WHAT'S AT STAKE

Here's what will happen after voters have their say on Fairfield's school levy: IF IT'S APPROVED: The 4.9-mill levy would raise $6.4 million annually and bus service for grades 9- 12 would be restored. School starting times would revert to last year's schedule. All extracurricular activities would be restored, and the "pay-to-play" fees that cost parents up to $630 a sport would be reduced. School taxes for a $100,000 home would rise by $150 annually. IF IT'S DEFEATED: The district will continue the current reductions in personnel and programs and will cut an additional $4.7 million. This would include laying off 88 teachers and seven administrators. Moreover, 12.5 classified school jobs - such as non-teaching or non-administrative personnel - would also be cut, and a hiring freeze would remain in place for classified workers, leaving 10 other such positions unfilled. State minimum standards would be instituted that would further cut bus service next school year. Only students that live 2 miles or more from their schools would be transported.

ELECTION SECTION

• Election 2004 page

State Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr. (R-Mount Lookout) agrees. He describes Fairfield as a possible preview for other Cincinnati-area levy campaigns in the near future.

"I've never seen this level of rancor between voters and a school district as I have in Fairfield," says Brinkman, founder of the local anti-tax Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), which opposes new taxes for area schools.

"If Reading, Sycamore, Kings or Three Rivers schools lose two or three more levies, you will start to the see the same sort of contentious campaigns," Brinkman says. He blames Fairfield school officials for not controlling their supporters, who've been accused of verbal harassment, campaign-sign destruction and property attacks.

Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Joe Nuxhall, a 47-year resident of Fairfield who was recently recruited as co-chairman for the school-levy campaign, worries that the levy has sharply divided his community.

Moments before Nuxhall took the microphone at a pro-levy news conference earlier this week, two men outside the building argued loudly before one stormed off. Last week's acid attack on levy opposition leader Arnie Engel's truck leaves Nuxhall shaking his head. "You hate to see that," he says.

Nuxhall, like Fairfield school officials, blames overzealous levy supporters:"You get a few bad apples, and it makes it bad for the rest of us."

School officials and levy supporters unanimously condemn any property or personal violence.

They instead accuse anti-tax groups such as COAST, and its local affiliate Citizens for Accountability and Results in Education (CARE), which Engel leads, of misrepresenting salary, staffing and academic data on Fairfield schools.

Engel, a thrice-defeated candidate for the Fairfield Board of Education who has unsuccessfully run for the Ohio House and Senate, counters that after helping defeat four consecutive school levies, he and other anti-levy advocates have become targets of harassment.

"These people are full of vengeance and will take out their frustrations on people and their property," says Engel, whose truck sustained $2,000 in damage after being scorched by acid sprayed by someone last week. "They call me Hitler around here."

Engel, who has one child in Fairfield schools, points to his front yard peppered with campaign signs, two of which are pro-tax renewal messages for local mental health issues.

"I'm not anti-tax, I'm anti-waste. I'm tired of the schools using school cuts and our own kids to blackmail us into giving them more money."

Fellow CARE member Tom Schmidt, who claims pro-levy supporters have hurled insults at him, stolen his anti-levy signs and driven onto his property late at night, describes the opposition as "brazen."

"What bothers me the most - and it's sad - is that people like me cannot publicly speak their mind for fear of retaliation," says Schmidt, who has lived in the city since 1952.

Fairfield Police Chief Michael Dickey says that outside of the acid attack on Engel's truck, most other harassment complaints from both sides are either not reported to police or are difficult to investigate. But Dickey says the number of complaints about political signs being stolen or defaced has increased sharply over previous campaigns.

Engel says more residents who believe as he does are afraid to complain to police and simply decide to remove their anti-levy signs out of fear of becoming targets.

Fairfield school parent Jeni Brodsky, co-president of Moms On a Mission, also worries that publicity about such incidents - and Engel's accusations of mismanagement - detract from the schools' need to win voter approval for the first new operating levy since 1992.

"Arnie likes the attention he gets, but I'm afraid the school issue will get lost in all this. And I'm scared to death for this community and the children," Brodsky says.

She worries about the decisions she might have to make should voters decide to deliver a fifth consecutive levy defeat.

"If it fails - do I move? Do I leave my family and friends in Fairfield?" she says.

E-mail mclark@enquirer.com