I have created this site to occasionally share with my constituents a more detailed understanding of my positions on topics related to Ward 1 and my service to them.
With this first post, I wanted to share with you my position on the ‘Safer Whitehall Levy’. That issue which needs money to fund not only an expansion of the police station but also the hiring of 6 new police officers. That issue which demands your consideration and attention on and before May 3rd, just a month away. The city has put up all the information on the levy for you to peruse. Those details are available here:
https://whitehall-oh.us/597/Issue-10—Police-Levy

After meetings with Mayor Maggard and Police Chief Crispen, I gave the heft of consideration due all the information proffered and available and, in the final analysis, have decided that I simply cannot endorse the passage of this tax levy, in its current form.
Here is why:

In the past I have made my positions clear on matters of budgetary spending. Since entering Whitehall government as your Ward 1 representative, I have had meetings with Chief Crispen, the Mayor and City Administrator Zach Woodruff on the matter of this levy. They have all made their cases for the need for and passage of the levy.
Chief Crispen sat down with me and also gave me a tour of the police station. There are many good reasons why the police station needs expansion, all of which I’m in agreement with. I also agree that given crime and the wants/needs of the citizens in their neighborhoods, that it would benefit the community to hire the additional officers. I am in alignment with the wants and needs of the police department, one hundred percent.

However, my contention with the mayor, which I discussed with her, is that there has been a lot of money spent on other things, those I describe as more of ‘wants’ than ‘needs’; policy decisions/philosophies on building and funding cities in regard to land buying, parks and recreation spending, salaries and benefits for those employed with the city, etcetera.
In our meeting, which was cordial and respectful, we spoke of all these things. She has a right, as the Mayor/the CEO, to allocate the money as she sees fit. However, when they are proposing a tax to pay for more things, particularly those traditionally paid for through the budget, you and anyone else (and in particular your representative on council) has a right and a duty to inquire and speak out against what is being asked if that is deemed what is necessary.
She spoke of the change, during the pandemic, of how people are now working from home and how that has changed income for the city. If they’re working from their homes which aren’t in Whitehall, the city doesn’t get that income tax. It is understandably vexing and alarming for the city’s budgetary considerations. Particularly in mind having large employers who operate within our city.
Her position too is that to be a desirable city to live, work and play in, you need competitive wages and benefits to lure good people and an inviting parks system to get people to recreate in. That is her position and one I’m not entirely opposed to.
My position has always been that the salaries, while commensurate with other municipalities, aren’t in keeping with the average income of the average Whitehallians. That it seems more lucrative to be employed by the City of Whitehall than to be its resident. As such, this area of spending, in my opinion, falls into the category of ‘want’ and not necessarily ‘need’.
So too Parks and Recreation. One can do as they see fit, as she does but, with some of the spending going to this and yet we need more police officers, one has to question whether her POV on P&R is justified and can really be considered a ‘need’ more than a ‘want’. It is up to each of us citizens to decide for ourselves, using the facts, which category that falls in to.
As for me, it feels like six of one/half dozen of the other, which I expressed to Mayor Maggard. Sometimes there are ‘Sophie’s Choice’ moments in budgetary considerations which make black and white pronouncements difficult, like this one. That is understandable.

So, one can say it’s a budgetary consideration, one can understand unseen situations forcing the city’s hand to find alternate means to accomplish what they need/want. For me, it comes down to this:
The hiring of more staff/police officers has always been done through the budget. Unless someone can prove me wrong on that point, that is my assertion. To then change that while keeping the budget exactly the same, and still getting what they want from the budget for other things, in my opinion, is unacceptable, particularly when you’re asking citizens to pony up more money. If you can’t afford to pay for your needs through the budget, you shouldn’t, outside of certain very important projects, keep going back to the tax well for more funding. That is my philosophy on public finance. If we don’t have the money to pay for what we need outside of the tax means we already have set up and can expand upon, then we either cut budgetary items to pay for more needs over wants or…we simply do without until better able to reach our need’s spending goals. The normalizing of hiring city staff through forever taxes levied on our properties is simply unacceptable in my opinion and is my number one reason in having to oppose both those needs which I would otherwise heartily endorse.
As well, to put those two needs together in one package does a disservice to our police department, forcing a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ on the taxpayers themselves who otherwise appreciate and want what is best for their vaunted police department. It is an unfair melding of things to ask the public to dig deeper into their pockets when the budget can/should be the source for one half of that levy and to keep from forever burdening the citizens with another ‘in perpetuity’ tax, like the utility surcharge already coming to our bills this year.
Were it ONLY a levy for the expansion of the police station, I would be 100% endorsing a yes vote on that levy. Their building is cramped and outdated to some degree, and I want them to have the space they need to properly and, with greater ease and efficiency, do their jobs. They deserve that.
Given these viewpoints then, it is my assertion that the police station expansion should be a separate finite levy, one which would have an end pay off date at which point the citizen’s financial burden for that project would be finished but, they want to include the hiring of more police officers in that tax levy, in perpetuity…forever and ever and ever, and it is that inclusion, IN the levy, that I simply can’t get behind.
Thank you for your time.