Dayton Regionalism

[Dayton Sux]

Well, the Dayton city folks are now commenting about how a city-county merger
would reduce the proportion of African-American politicians:

As I predicted upthread. Same issue arose in Louisville.


From the article, a tidbit of intel....


Those councilpersons could be elected at-large on a county basis, elected by districts, or some combination.
“The options are still all on the table,” she said.

The charter development committee likely will gravitate toward some form of district representation, Martin said.


...which means they are moving away from at largeelections. Good.

But it could also mean more elected officials, and more "politics", not that that's a bad thing.

For example, the way it worked in Louisville....



Old city government:

1 Mayor

12 Aldermen (who eleceted a president)

Old county government:

1 County Judge/Executive

3 County Commissioners

…Replaced by:

1 Metro Mayor

28 Metro Council members (who elect a president)

Metro Council districts contain 28,000 people perdistrict, and are redistricted with each census (sort of like the way Congressis redistricted). When the districtswere first created they were drawn mostly by the U of L geography department,and were intended to somewhat follow neighborhood boundaries and socioeconomicgroupings. With the recent redistrictingthere was a commitment to keep at least 5 districts minority, to ensure thereis some minority voice on the council

So, if you apply the Louisville model to Daytonyou’d replace

Old city government

5 city commissioners, one of who functions as mayor

Old county government

3 county commissioners, who elect a chair.

With….

1 Metro Mayor

..and, say, a 19 member metro council (applying the 28,000 person district toMontgomery Counties population).

Since Montgomery County is 20% black perhaps therecould be a way to ensure the districts are drawn to ensure this…say 4 seats outof 19 (20% of the seats) could bemajority black, or have a substantial black minority so a black candidate couldbe competitive.

And if you follow these numbers you’ll see Paul Leonard’scomment about reducing the number of politicians is sort of BS, unless theywant to create a very small metro council. Right now the city and county are governed by, in total, 8 elected officials. This would not counting elected county offices like Sheriff or County Engineer (and why do we elect a County Engineer?)

You’d have to reduce this number to see a netreduction in elected officials, or somehow eliminate those other elected countyofficials and make them appointed department heads (which sort of makes sense). Probably doable as I think these positionsare statutory vs. mandated by the state constitution.

For Ohio examples, Cuyahoga and Summit Counties have15 and 12 person county councils, as they operate as charter counties. So I could see maybe a county council in thatsize range (since we are bigger than Akron but smaller than Cleveland). I know that the county sheriff is anappointed office under one of these county charters (not sure which).

I think the legal framework will probably have to besome sort of charter county arrangement per the Ohio Constitution (Section X),or maybe special enabling legislation for a city-county merger (I don’t thinkthere’s been a city/county merger in Ohio history), perhaps modeled on thecharter county statute.
Could be interesting.

[weatherphotographer]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

I can only think of maybe one or two businesses (whose names I can't remember) that Austin Landing poached from the Dayton Mall area.

None from the Greene... or Fairfield Commons... or Pentagon Boulevard...

Really, Austin Landing is just the logical endgame of the city thinking that for 30 years they could stick it to those suburban workers who have no choice but to work downtown. Because those suburban workers have to pay city tax, but have no say in how city government is run. Well, they've voted with their feet. Expect some serious hell to pay if the city tries to stick its hands back into those suburban taxpayers' pockets.

Dayton City Hall is simply reaping what they have sewn.

***

I don't doubt that the end result of all this is ugly. When the metro area isn't growing, searching for office and retail tenants becomes a zero-sum game. Downtown Dayton is clearly the loser any time a business sets up shop at Austin Landing. But the common retort of "well, move back in the city if you want to have a say in city government and improve it" falls flat because people have already decided voting with their feet was easier.

And that's not an easy decision to make. Voting with your feet has significant costs - not only moving but the creation of new infrastructure at the edges of town. It tears up the social fabric of the neighborhoods as people leave, and reduces the social capital of the remaining residents. Voting with your feet is an "option of last resort" when you've determined there's nothing you can do to stop the insanity over at City Hall and would be better off just abandoning ship.

Given the traffic I was stuck in on Wednesday afternoon, the Dayton mall area isn't dead. Confirmed. I was quite surprised to see such activity on a weekday afternoon and a midweek day at that.

[Dayton Sux]

^
Link into this map that maps every job in the US (by census tract or block group) and pan over to Ohio and then enlarge the Dayton area:

Where Are The Jobs?

You can see how the Mall area is the centerpoint of high-employment districts extending north into W Carollton, east along 725 and 675 and south along I-75 (which now extends to Austin Landing). The mall area itself shows up as a big concentration of retail/hospitality employment.

The map itself is a good example on how regional economic geography sort of ignores municipal boundaries and pretty much orients itself around transportation arteries...another argument for regionalism, IMO. We are a regional economy.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by weatherphotographer

Given the traffic I was stuck in on Wednesday afternoon, the Dayton mall area isn't dead. Confirmed. I was quite surprised to see such activity on a weekday afternoon and a midweek day at that.

I never said the Dayton mall was dead. But the Dayton Mall does have a serious crime problem - the shootings over a pair of Jordans last Christmas comes to mind, along with the shootings at PF Chang's, the drug dealing in the mall parking lots, and the crime radiating out from the bus stops along Kingsridge Drive.

It's definitely declining, although it has a long way to go before it hits bottom (and there's plenty of time to stop the decline if Miami Township can get a handle on the situation).

[SWOH]

^And fortunately Miami Twp. is doing a decent job of that with their new comprehensive strategic plan. Also helps that Austin Landing resides in Miami Twp. as well.


Because of the way Dayton Mall was built out (inexpensively back in the 1970's, almost an econobox), it has led to a perception that it is worse off than it really is demographically. In fact, the mall with the worst demographics is Fairfield Commons, which is also arguably the one that has the nicest surrounding aesthetics.

Give it time, and a solid plan, and maybe another mall renovation (I can think of one big reason why that might be happening sooner rather than later) and the area could look a lot nicer. Aside from a massive public purchase and resale of commercial real estate in the area, I can't think of how it could ever look as nice and cohesive as Fairfield Commons, but it could certainly look better.

[weatherphotographer]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

I never said the Dayton mall was dead. But the Dayton Mall does have a serious crime problem - the shootings over a pair of Jordans last Christmas comes to mind, along with the shootings at PF Chang's, the drug dealing in the mall parking lots, and the crime radiating out from the bus stops along Kingsridge Drive.

It's definitely declining, although it has a long way to go before it hits bottom (and there's plenty of time to stop the decline if Miami Township can get a handle on the situation).

If they'd clean up their police department, it could happen really quick. You know it's been crooked over there for a long time. DiPietro was the first to go and there's more that need to retire or be fired.

[hensleya1]

Dayton's Continued Use of Traffic Cameras Puts State Funding At Risk

Dayton could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in local government fund distributions for continuing to operate red light and speed-detection cameras after a new state law took effect severely restricting their use.

Dayton officials and leaders insist the city was in compliance because it had a court-issued injunction preventing enforcement of the new regulations.

Dayton sent the auditor a letter On July 27 saying the city was in compliance because common pleas courts in Montgomery, Lucas and Summit counties ruled that parts of S.B. 342 were unconstitutional and therefore not enforceable or applicable.

Three days later, Judge Gorman ruled the state could not reduce the city of Dayton’s local government fund distributions because of the injunction issued in the case.

An appeals court overturned Judge Gorman’s injunction on Aug. 7 and concluded S.B. 342 is permissible under the Ohio Constitution.

If Dayton’s local government fund payment were reduced, it would increase the distributions to other local jurisdictions.

That last sentence piqued my interest: it sounds like that Nan's stubbornness is going to cost the city dearly. HB64, which is the enforcement mechanism for SB 342, states that the city is required to submit a list of gross fines levied against motorists on a quarterly basis. The local government fund is reduced by that amount if it's found that the fines were levied in violation of SB 342 (that a police officer be present when the camera goes Flash).

As it would appear, all of Dayton's camera tickets between March and July were in violation of SB342.

"Gross fines levied" is a much bigger sum of money than the net revenue raised by the cameras. Gross fines is fines before Redflex takes their cut, and also includes fines for tickets that are never collected on. In short, Dayton stands to lose millions yearly.

The winners are (in no particular order): Kettering, Huber Heights, Centerville, etc... all of whom will see an unexpected windfall of local government money at Dayton's expense.

Funny how things work - Dayton has been leeching off the suburbs for so long now that the suburbs probably won't know what to do when the money decides to flow in reverse for once.

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

Dayton's Continued Use of Traffic Cameras Puts State Funding At Risk
That last sentence piqued my interest: it sounds like that Nan's stubbornness is going to cost the city dearly. HB64, which is the enforcement mechanism for SB 342, states that the city is required to submit a list of gross fines levied against motorists on a quarterly basis. The local government fund is reduced by that amount if it's found that the fines were levied in violation of SB 342 (that a police officer be present when the camera goes Flash).

As it would appear, all of Dayton's camera tickets between March and July were in violation of SB342.

"Gross fines levied" is a much bigger sum of money than the net revenue raised by the cameras. Gross fines is fines before Redflex takes their cut, and also includes fines for tickets that are never collected on. In short, Dayton stands to lose millions yearly.

The winners are (in no particular order): Kettering, Huber Heights, Centerville, etc... all of whom will see an unexpected windfall of local government money at Dayton's expense.

Funny how things work - Dayton has been leeching off the suburbs for so long now that the suburbs probably won't know what to do when the money decides to flow in reverse for once.

If it cuts down on "criminal driving" it's worth it.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by CarpathianPeasant

If it cuts down on "criminal driving" it's worth it.

Isn't that what we have police officers for?