When they have to redistrict the statehouse under the new rules, it will be a glorious day.

13 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said:

Kenwood, another one of those sneaky Cincinnati townships that no one knows is a township. I wonder if that affects why it hasn't gone vertical as easily, as say, Fake-Hyde-Park (aka Rookwood, aka Norwood). 

 

Kenwood isn't a township though. It is in Sycamore Township. 

4 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Kenwood isn't a township though. It is in Sycamore Township. 

That's my point. It's a CDP within Sycamore Township, but it doesn't advertise itself as such. Finneytown and Delhi are the same way. 

Ahh yes, Sycamore Township and its three noncontiguous chunks of land.

4 minutes ago, taestell said:

Ahh yes, Sycamore Township and its three noncontiguous chunks of land.

 

Did townships start appearing during white flight? I'm curious how they even came to be?

2 minutes ago, troeros said:

 

Did townships start appearing during white flight? I'm curious how they even came to be?

 

No they go back the the Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Townships work pretty well for rural Ohio where the municipal areas are the anomalies. They are Tea Party havens for suburban Ohio. They seem to be nuisances in urban Ohio. 

This brings back another question I've posed before - why can't Deer Park or Madeira just annex Sycamore Township? Or alternatively, why ever even bother to incorporate at all? Make Cincinnati into a township and force the county to pay for everything. 

2 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said:

That's my point. It's a CDP within Sycamore Township, but it doesn't advertise itself as such. Finneytown and Delhi are the same way. 

 

Gotcha. I misunderstood your post. 

5 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said:

This brings back another question I've posed before - why can't Deer Park or Madeira just annex Sycamore Township? Or alternatively, why ever even bother to incorporate at all? Make Cincinnati into a township and force the county to pay for everything. 

 

Much of the City of Cincinnati was Mill Creek Township at one point. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_Creek_Township,_Hamilton_County,_Ohio

Just speculation here, but I would guess who ever owns the Kenwood town center enjoys being in a township over a city proper.  If they wanted to be part of Madeira, or if they wanted Kenwood to be its own city, they could probably make that happen.

On 9/9/2019 at 11:41 AM, Chas Wiederhold said:

Townships work pretty well for rural Ohio where the municipal areas are the anomalies. They are Tea Party havens for suburban Ohio. They seem to be nuisances in urban Ohio. 

 

Townships work fine for sparely populated rural areas, but they were never intended to be a permanent form of government for areas where large numbers of people live. Traditionally, cities would start annexing the parts of townships that developed, or the entire township itself would incorporate as a municipality (city or village). However today, many townships resist annexation which results in these little township pockets that are left over in between other municipalities. After all--townships don't have an income tax and they get free sheriff's patrols from the county so they don't have to pay for their own police department (in other words, residents of Cincinnati and Blue Ash and other cities/villages are paying for their own police departments, and also subsidizing the police patrols for the townships). My hope is that someday Ohio will have a governor that will see how wasteful this setup is, and will start an effort to dissolve townships in the urbanized counties. The townships would have to either incorporate as their own municipality (which would make sense for intact townships like West Chester) or be absorbed into surrounding cities/villages (which would make sense for chopped-up townships like Sycamore).

8 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said:

This brings back another question I've posed before - why can't Deer Park or Madeira just annex Sycamore Township? Or alternatively, why ever even bother to incorporate at all? Make Cincinnati into a township and force the county to pay for everything. 

 

Most township residents and property owners live/own where they do on purpose, and they don't want to be annexed. Kenwood Towne Center, especially, wouldn't want to be annexed by a municipality because all of their tenants would suddenly be on the hook for income tax to that municipality. A conniving municipality could even go so far as to eliminate reciprocity in order to really pave the streets with gold.

 

All other things aside, if you can score a job in a township and find a place to live in a township (especially a centrally located one like Sycamore Township) you can essentially take home 1-2% more income than if you lived in Cincinnati or another municipality, while sacrificing next to nothing.

^It depends on the municipality of work and living though.

 

Right now I am moving to Washington Township, Montgomery County. My property tax rate will be 2.17%, and income tax will be 0%.

IF I have moved to the city of Middletown instead, my property tax rate would only be 1.5% but income tax would be 1.75%

 

Because I work in a city that taxes the full 2.5% allowed by the state of Ohio in income tax, none of my tax revenue, no matter where I go, would be shared with the municipality where I live.

Because of this, it actually would have been cheaper for me to live in a city like Middletown than a township like Washington Township.

 

So it is very circumstantial. Worth considering the numbers, sure, but given the number of people that work in cities in Sycamore Township, the only thing it would do is add tax to the businesses there, aside from adding a tax to a few people that work at Kenwood Mall that live in Sycamore township or another township.

 

Normally cities incentivize annexation by withholding city services like water, sewer, etc. to new properties, unless those properties conform to annexation.

But because those services are already there, annexation is harder to do, but not impossible. For the case of a disjointed township like Sycamore Township, it's hard to see a reason for its existence.

Edited September 10, 20195 yr by SWOH

54 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

All other things aside, if you can score a job in a township and find a place to live in a township (especially a centrally located one like Sycamore Township) you can essentially take home 1-2% more income than if you lived in Cincinnati or another municipality, while sacrificing next to nothing.

 

Ohio does not withhold municipal earnings tax, unlike every other state that permits them.  This means it's the task of the cities themselves to get the tax revenue that its citizens earn in unincorporated areas, and business owners can instruct their HR people to not automatically withhold municipal tax.  They then role the dice on whether the city of their residence comes after them, and if they do, those cities don't have the tools of the IRS or the Ohio Dept of Taxation.  In short, they can't garnish your wages or seemingly take you to court.  Even the City of Cincinnati seems powerless to force people to pay the tax.  

And if you live in a township it's less likely that you will be able to walk to anything so your car will immediately eat up any decrease in income tax.

13 hours ago, Ram23 said:

All other things aside, if you can score a job in a township and find a place to live in a township (especially a centrally located one like Sycamore Township) you can essentially take home 1-2% more income than if you lived in Cincinnati or another municipality, while sacrificing next to nothing.

 

And that's exactly the "freeloader" loophole our state legislature should be working to eliminate.

It's the same way that Deerfield Township gets almost all of the benefits of living in Mason without paying for the school district, police, etc. It's insane that this type of governance is allowed. But it's not surprising considering all of the richest, most powerful people in the metro area (and state) have used these tax loopholes to protect their wealth at the detriment to everyone else. Notice that many of the politicians in the statehouse live in townships, even when they represent urban areas. They aren't going to mess up their tax shelters.

15 hours ago, Ram23 said:

All other things aside, if you can score a job in a township and find a place to live in a township (especially a centrally located one like Sycamore Township) you can essentially take home 1-2% more income than if you lived in Cincinnati or another municipality, while sacrificing next to nothing.

 

All to the detriment of our community and society as whole. 

7 hours ago, taestell said:

And that's exactly the "freeloader" loophole our state legislature should be working to eliminate.

 

Speaking in a broad generalization here - I wouldn't say those who live and work in townships are freeloading so much as they're avoiding picking up the tab for those who are.

Wow. 

21 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 

Speaking in a broad generalization here - I wouldn't say those who live and work in townships are freeloading so much as they're avoiding picking up the tab for those who are.

 

Isn't that the definition of freeloading?

Cities, as a corporate entity, should have priority over unincorporated areas and should be allowed to make a relatively easy annexation attempt. If a township doesn't want to get annexed, they can incorporate (as Trotwood, Kettering and Riverside all did), but being a "de facto city" but still being a township wasn't the purpose of townships to begin with.

Just now, SWOH said:

Isn't that the definition of freeloading?

 

No - the definition of freeloading is taking goods, services, etc. without providing any sort of compensation for them. Township residents pay county property tax (including school district tax) and state income tax, and receive services from said entities. If you choose to live or work in a municipality instead of a township, you pay additional income tax for additional and/or improved services compared to what is available in unincorporated areas. So in a township, you are ultimately paying less and getting less. However, in practice municipalities vary wildly in terms of whether or not you receive more for your additional tax burden.

 

Overall, this variety of local governments is probably a good thing. It gives people more choices. And, at least in Cincinnati, there doesn't seem to be any sort of wealth concentration in townships. There are plenty of very poor townships and plenty of very wealthy municipalities.

2 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said:

Cities, as a corporate entity, should have priority over unincorporated areas and should be allowed to make a relatively easy annexation attempt. If a township doesn't want to get annexed, they can incorporate (as Trotwood, Kettering and Riverside all did), but being a "de facto city" but still being a township wasn't the purpose of townships to begin with.

 

There is no reason for Ohio's cities to annex residential areas because there is no new tax revenue to be had.  In fact, most residential areas cost much more than they generate.   

My town (Groveport) is super picky as far as annexation. The old town (pre-1950), yes. Anything commercial, yes. Apartments, yes. Newer single family over 1/2 an acre, hell to the no. If the single-familys were over $400K maybe they would... but they aren't.

Not sure how I didn't hear about this until just now... this is one of the more extreme examples of going "full Tea Party" that I've heard of in quite some time...

 

They Wanted to Save Their 119-Year-Old Village. So They Got Rid of It.

 

 

AMELIA, Ohio — There were allegations of suspicious political donations and rumors about fake social media accounts. Protesters wore T-shirts that said “Stop the tyranny!” At one point, a former official was escorted out of a public meeting in handcuffs.

 

For more than a year, the residents of Amelia, just outside Cincinnati, have been consumed by a fiery debate over a proposal to impose a new local tax of just 1 percent. This month, voters found a way around the problem — by getting rid of their 119-year-old village altogether

 

More below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/amelia-ohio-dissolve.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

^ that is nuts. I wasn’t able to read the full article, but of a bit of Googling still has me wondering; didn’t the townships that absorbed them already have the 1% tax? It seems so. So what did they gain?

5 minutes ago, roman totale XVII said:

^ that is nuts. I wasn’t able to read the full article, but of a bit of Googling still has me wondering; didn’t the townships that absorbed them already have the 1% tax? It seems so. So what did they gain?

 

I don't think townships have the power to implement an income tax in Ohio.

 

There might be an exception if they partner with a municipality to create an income tax in a specific geographic area (I think LIberty Center might have this). But I don't know for sure.

Like I've said since college... strange folk there in Amelia.

Last summer I stopped in Amelia's UDF after burning a few thousand calories on the East Fork to get a gatorade and maybe a banana.  And there they were - the 300+lb Amelians - at least a dozen of them - standing in line, in the AC, patiently planning their chocolate malt purchases. 

9 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

 

I don't think townships have the power to implement an income tax in Ohio.

 

There might be an exception if they partner with a municipality to create an income tax in a specific geographic area (I think LIberty Center might have this). But I don't know for sure.

 

They do not.  It's a big part of why Twinsburg Township repeatedly and vehemently refuses to merge with Twinsburg city.

18 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

I don't think townships have the power to implement an income tax in Ohio.

 

That's why many of the more populous townships end up implementing property taxes to pay for basic services like police and fire. It's also why some townships form a Joint Economic Development District (JEDD) with a neighboring municipality (city or village) -- this arrangement allows the land to stay within the township (so it is not annexed by the municipality) but allows the municipality to collect income tax within the district, which it then shares with the township.

Look no further than the Cincinnati Police versus Loveland Police OVI incident from this past weekend as an argument for never merging Cincinnati Police and the Hamilton County Sheriff, or just Cincinnati Police and other Hamilton County police forces.  

https://www.scribd.com/document/446470611/Loveland-offense-report-for-CPD-officer-OVI-arrest#fullscreen&from_embed

 

The larger the jurisdiction of a police force, the larger the area where their corruption goes unchecked.  The fact that these Cincinnati Police officers felt entitled to drive drunk around Loveland illustrates that Cincinnati Police don't police one another. 

 

The gross Jason Williams is back, peddling more emotion:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/columnists/politics-extra/2020/04/09/coronavirus-ohio-cincinnati-hamilton-co-shouldnt-waste-pandemic/2967478001/

I can’t read the link above, but I think the UrbanCincy editorial on this subject from many years back is correct. IMO a full merger of the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is not desirable/necessary, but there could be big picture benefits of condensing/annexing smaller municipalities and chunks of townships. However there are no direct incentives for anyone to act on this 

Edited April 10, 20205 yr by thebillshark

^ BTW, UrbanCincy is back online so anyone curious can read that post here.

Intergovernmental cooperation between two Greater Cincinnati area counties?

 

 

Cincinnati annexation back on the table, apparently.

 

Cincinnati Enquirer - Could Cincinnati get a 53rd neighborhood? Addyston leaders mull annexation to Cincinnati

 

Fox19 previously reported on how the village disbanded their tiny police department last year. The Enquirer originally broke the news that the Ineos would be shutdown, while WCPO ran an in depth dive into the history of the industrial site.

I really don’t see this happening.