Russ Responds to the Negative Mailer

🐶 Woof woof, Russell friends. It appears that everyone in Russell received a mailer from "a Russell property owner who can't afford any more taxes" urging us to vote against Issue 3. Russ the Dog has been out and about trying to sniff out who sent this mailer, but no luck. 🐾 Grrrr. Russ asked me to respond. 👩

Cost of the Negative Mailer:

First off, the person who sent the mailer likely spent more money on the mailer than the property taxes he or she will pay if Issue 3 passes. (And if more than 1 person paid for the mailer, they violated the law by failing to register as a Political Action Committee [PAC]).

The levy will cost property owners $35 per $100,000 property value. It costs approximately $1,400 to print and mail a postcard to all Russell voters. (We've done it; we know.) So divide the cost of a township-wide mailing by a 5 year levy, and the anonymous postcard sender spent approximately $280 for each year of the levy. At $35 per $100,000 home value, their house would have to be worth over $800,000 for them to save money by successfully defeating the levy with their postcard.

Would someone with an $800,000 home not be able to afford $280 a year in increased taxes? Russ is shaking his head. 🐶

Response to Content of the Negative Mailer:

As for the points made in the postcard:

1. As I've said before, Issue 3 is not a renewal levy. However, a 1 mill park levy for the other township park district expired 2 years ago, so all of our taxes went down. Issue 3 brings back our historical level of support for township parks. 🌼

2. The postcard correctly states that the Citizens Park District currently has no maintenance costs; however, they are a brand new park district that has a fantastic opportunity to acquire 64 pristine acres of undeveloped land on Music Street with 3/4 of the cost paid for by a grant from the State of Ohio (who wouldn't be offering this grant if they didn't deem the property worth preserving). If the levy passes, the Citizens Park District will acquire the Music Street property and will have maintenance costs. 🐛

3. Yes, the voters defeated the Citizens Park District's previous levy, which was for less money. Those were confusing and difficult times for all of us. Both township park districts had levies on the ballot simultaneously, but the older park district ended up advising voters to vote against their own levy because their budget failed to be passed by the Geauga County Budget Commission. Even if their levy had passed, they could not legally receive tax dollars. Now, a year later, they failed a second time to pass their budget. Back in 2018, when both park districts had levies on the ballot, Citizens Park district asked voters for less money because they knew that the other park district also had a levy on the ballot, and they did not want to overburden taxpayers. Today, Citizens Park District is the ONLY township park district currently able to collect on a levy in order to purchase properties currently available for sale. They are only asking for the amount that Russell voters have historically approved for township parks. 🍁

4. If you read the fine print on the postcard, you will see that the acreage specified as park land in Russell Township includes not only our township parks, but land owned by the township trustees, West Geauga Commons, Geauga Park District and the Natural History Museum. I honestly don't know whether the number of acres specified in the mailer for all of those various owners (1500 acres) is accurate. I don't think it's relevant. The only park land currently under local control in Russell is the land owned by the township trustees. I believe that's under 50 acres, and it's not all park land. 🌳

Here is the bottom line:

If you love Russell Township that way it is 💖, if you want to maintain Russell Township's rural lifestyle, 🐔 if you want to keep Russell green, 🌲 if you want our park lands to be locally controlled, 🐦 if you want to secure Russell park land for future generations, 👪 then vote YES on Issue 3. 🍀 

Russ the Dog says vote YES

Clean Ohio Grant Details

I have learned more details about the Clean Ohio grant that will help pay for the purchase of the Gallo Property on Music Street by the Russell Township Citizens Park District.

The grant has been approved by the the local review committee for our district. Applications for grants are ranked locally. The application for the Gallo Property was ranked 3rd out of 8 applications, which is an excellent score. This shows that the experts who look at proposed projects feel that this project is worth supporting with public money. The grant would fund approximately 3/4 of the cost of the project.

The final approval of the grant must come from the Ohio Public Works Commission. It is the understanding of the Citizens Park District commissioners that the grant will be approved ONLY if we pass the levy.

So, if the levy passes, we will have a beautiful 64-acre park preserved and under local control forever, and 3/4 of the cost of the project will be paid for by a grant from the Clean Ohio Conservation Fund. If the levy fails, we lose the grant and we lose this 64 acre property to development.

Vote YES on Issue 3!

Great news!

I just learned that the Russell Citizens' Park District has been approved to receive a Clean Water grant from the State of Ohio for the purchase of the Gallo Property on Music Street. This grant will pay 3/4 of the cost of purchasing the property.

What a bargain this park will be for us! Let's pass the levy, folks, to pay for the rest!

Parks, development and property taxes

I’m often asked if it wouldn’t be better for us financially to add more taxable property to the tax rolls by developing property rather than protecting undeveloped land as parks. It would not.

Studies have shown that the additional public expenses created by development (police, fire, roads, etc.) are actually more than the taxes collected on the developed property. The figure I've seen for Geauga County, is that it costs us $1.37 to provide services for developed property for every $1.00 of tax collected.

So development increases our tax burden. Add to that the fact that being near a park increases property values for all of us, and we're each better off economically here in Russell Township having more parks.

The Gallo Property Opportunity

The Gallo Property is a 64-acre, undeveloped property on Music Street, east of 306, that backs up to The West Woods. The Russell Township Citizens Park District is currently in contract to buy the Gallo Property for $729,000. The Citizens Park District has applied for an Ohio Clean Water Grant that would cover 74% of the purchase price ($529,000). If we receive this grant, the Gallo Property will cost Russell Taxpayers $200,000. How can we pass up a bargain like this?

And what will happen to the Gallo Property if the levy fails and we are unable to purchase it? Most likely, it will be bought by a developer who will divide it into smaller lots and build on it. That would be a sad outcome for our rural oasis, both financially and environmentally. More on that in my next post.

Local Control

I'm often asked what guarantee we have that park land purchased by the Citizens Park District will not be leased to the Geauga Park District or any other entity and lost from local control. All park land owned by the Russell Township Citizens Park District, whether purchased or donated, will ALWAYS remain in LOCAL CONTROL.

Park land owned by the Citizens Park District will always remain in local control because the Citizens Park District itself is in local control. Its commissioners are appointed by the Russell Township Trustees, who answer to us, the voters of Russell Township. So the future of any park land purchased by the Citizens Park District will be completely under the control of the citizens of Russell Township. Nobody outside of Russell Township will ever have any authority over our decision-making process.