Ravenna considers new form of government and other major changes

Ravenna city leaders are thinking about big changes, including adopting a city manager form of government, consolidating the city and township and creating a fire district.

Council Member Carmen Laudato recently told her colleagues that a city manager would improve the city’s efficiency, strengthen economic development efforts and foster interdepartmental coordination and communication. Council President Rob Kairis agreed.

“I think it's a better form of government, just overall, but particularly for the city of Ravenna, because the idea would be the city would be administratively run by somebody who's supposedly expert in that field and chosen by city elected officials,” Kairis said.

He also noted that Ravenna’s growth opportunities are limited by the qualifications of the few people who choose to run for public office. Since 2016, Kairis said local elections have either featured unopposed candidates or only two candidates per position.

Specialized administrative expertise carries a price tag. Kairis estimated a city manager could pull a $120,000 to $150,000 annual salary. The cost would be offset by eliminating the current mayor’s position and its $75,000 annual salary. Ravenna Mayor Frank Seman is also paid a $12,000 stipend for serving as the city’s safety director. 

Though Seman said he did not personally advocate writing himself out of a job, he noted that governance models evolve over time and structural changes should be considered for the city’s long-term benefit.

Make no mistake: Even under a city manager form of government, Ravenna would still have a mayor. However, instead of the mayor acting as the city’s CEO, the appointed city manager would take on administrative oversight and whatever other duties city council would stipulate.

Who would become mayor under the newly formed government remains a question. If Ravenna adopts the standard city manager model Kent uses, the city would retain an elected mayor whose duties would be largely ceremonial. Kent’s mayor also presides over city council and breaks any tie votes.

Aside from the ceremonial aspect, though, that’s exactly what Ravenna’s current council president does, so how the two positions would be addressed still needs to be resolved, Kairis said.
 
It’s a hard sell that needs a great deal of voter education, he said.

“I think a lot of people are going to say, ‘I don't understand.’ One second you're saying there's not going to be a mayor, then you're saying there is going to be a mayor, but then there's going to be a city manager who's going to do most of that work. I think it's somewhat confusing to people,” Kairis said.

The proposal remains in council’s committee level. Ultimately, Ravenna voters would have to accept a city manager form of government at the polls. Should that happen, voters would also need to approve dozens of city charter revisions, and every one of Ravenna’s local ordinances would have to be reviewed and revised as needed, Kairis said.

A possible fire district

Ravenna city officials are once again mulling the creation of a fire district that would merge Ravenna’s fire department with that of Ravenna Township.

Under Fire Chief Abbie Buday’s leadership, Ravenna Township’s fire station serves residents living in the township’s 20.4-square-mile area. The city’s fire department, led by Chief Mark Chapple, serves Ravenna’s 5.68 square miles, Charlestown Township’s 23.1 square miles and the 21,000-acre Camp James A Garfield Joint Military Training Center.

Both stations are staffed 24/7 and provide mutual aid to surrounding communities. Neither fire chief was available for comment.

Maybe, Kairis said, the time to merge the two departments has come. To him, the questions are logistical. Does the district retain the same number of employees? If there are differences in qualifications standards between the two departments, how are they to be resolved? Where are the fire stations? Who gets to be fire chief?

Ravenna Township Trustee Vince Coia reserves judgment. Union contracts, equipment concerns and personnel would all have to be scrutinized, he said.

“I'm not in favor of doing it to just do it,” he said. “You still got to be able to take care of the residents, whether they're in the city or in the township. I think if anything's going to happen, you have to get the bean counters together and crunch the numbers to see if it would actually work. I don't want to throw something out there that would cost my residents more money.”

Ravenna Trustee Hank T. Gibson-Lampley predicted that merging the two departments would more than double the millage township residents are currently paying for fire and EMS protection.

“Our fire department is very efficient; they do a wonderful job. We live in a poor community. I am tired of taxing the heck out of residents,” he said. “I will fight until I can't fight anymore to keep the taxes low.”

Coia and Gibson-Lampley also wondered about location. The township and city fire stations are currently separated by 1.6 miles, a five-minute drive under typical traffic conditions. The city plans to move its fire station a few blocks east, to the site formerly occupied by Ravenna High School, but that does nothing to address response times for the township’s eastern reaches, they said.

A new facility would mean more expenses that the fire district and, by extension, city and township residents, would have to absorb, the trustees said.

When the topic has arisen in past years, Coia said township firefighters were not on board. Inadequate information, fear of losing their jobs and a belief that the city disparaged their training levels all may have played a part in that resistance, Coia said.

“If we merge with the township and have a fire district, I don't know that that by default means we shut down the township fire facility, but I think we'd be able to handle more at our new facility if we are able to build it,” Kairis said, adding preliminary plans for the city’s new station include room for expansion if needed.

The notion of creating a fire district has nothing to do with the city’s proposal to finance a new fire station, police station and city hall with a .25% income tax increase, Kairis said.

To him, the question is more one of regionalism: It is simply efficient to combine similar entities under a single administrative body.

“You're not paying for two administrators to run two different entities, and if you're so close, maybe that makes sense to do it,” Kairis said.

Ultimately, voters in both communities should have the final say, Coia and Gibson said.

A merger?

A citizen-led initiative to repeal property taxes across Ohio could mean the end of Ravenna Township. So say Ravenna city officials, who recently discussed the possibility and its implications.

“If the initiative to remove property tax were to go through, then townships across the state face bankruptcy, and obviously, Ravenna Township, they rely so heavily on property tax, there's a good chance that the next step could be to annex them and become part of the city,” Kairis said. “I don't know how any township can exist without partnering up with some entity that collects income tax.” 

The initiative to repeal property tax is far from a done deal. Backers of the proposed Constitutional amendment have until July 1 to collect enough signatures to place the issue on the November ballot. Theresa Nielsen, deputy director of the Portage County Board of Elections, said petitions will be filed with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, which will separate them by county and send them to each county’s board of elections office to verify.

The county BOE offices will return the petitions, with verified and disallowed signatures, to the secretary of state’s office. If the required number of signatures are verified across the state, the state ballot board will determine the language that will appear on the ballot and convey that information to local boards of elections for final ballot placement, she said.

Kairis and Coia said they understand the attraction of not paying property taxes, but wonder if voters understand the implications. Exchanging property taxes for increased income and sales taxes might be more than township property owners and residents had bargained for, they said.

Coia dismissed the idea as one that doesn’t have legs, at least as of now. If the state would eliminate property taxes, it would have to generate the lost revenue somehow, likely with double-digit increases in income and sales taxes, he predicted. 

“If it would come true, doing away with property tax, there's a lot of residents in the township that don't want to pay city income tax,” Coia said. “There would probably be some services that would probably go away that are currently out there that we're doing for our residents, but I don't know. I don’t want to put the cart before the horse.”

Referencing state-level discussions he’d heard about, Gibson-Lampley said repealing property taxes without replacing the revenue stream could mean extending income tax obligations to township property owners. He said the township is “viable.” 

“Until the property taxes go down, it’s business as usual for us,” Gibson-Lampley said.