This is why Great Miami residents won’t see a rate increase

On By Vaseline

Local conservation district meetings in Ohio don’t normally attract much attention. The Friday night meeting in the city of Hamilton, north of Cincinnati, was not the usual gathering of conservation groups.

The three members of the Miami Conservancy District board of directors marched past dozens of protesters outside Hamilton City Hall on Friday, beating drums and waving signs with slogans “No Taxation Without Representation,” “Keep Hamilton Afloat” and “The history has its eyes. on you.”

The protesters wanted to stop the large increase in flood protection costs for people who live and work along the Great Miami River.

An hour later they got their wish. The board voted unanimously to halt the property reassessment and rate increase that funds flood protection for the five dams and 55 miles of levees on the Great Miami River and its tributaries.

For now, what people pay for flood protection remains the same, while the conservancy works on a different funding formula.

“This is what our city needed to hear tonight.”

Board members listened and heard the community’s concerns, said Mark Rentschler, chairman of the Miami Conservancy District board of directors.

“We want to ensure that the cost of flood protection is fair and equitable for everyone,” Rentschler said.

This was received with gratitude by city officials and protesters, who praised the administration for listening.

“This will be a win for our city,” said Hamilton City Councilman Michael Ryan. “It’s a win for our businesses. It’s a win for our neighborhoods… This is what our city needed to hear tonight.”

An age-old formula

The cost of flood protection for the Great Miami River is based on a century-old formula devised after a catastrophic flood in 1913. The flood killed 300 people and swept away homes, businesses and bridges. Within two years of the flood, residents banded together, hired an engineer and formed the Miami Conservancy District.

The district instituted a formula that charged property owners along the river based on the amount of water their property absorbed during the 1913 flood and the value of the property. The purpose was to assess how much benefit the property received from the dams and dikes. As property values ​​changed, the district would reassess the benefits.

The conservancy’s proposal this year would have been the seventh reassessment of benefits in the organization’s 109-year history and the first in 12 years.

Residents along the Great Miami River in five counties are paying the flood relief assessments: Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Montgomery and Miami counties.

Most of the affected properties, 80%, are in Butler and Montgomery counties.

Perhaps one of the hardest hit would be the 1.2 million square foot Spooky Nook sports complex in Hamilton, which would see the conservation bill increase from $8,800 per year to $477,000 per year, according to the proposed estimate.

‘It looks like the story of America’

For many protesters outside Hamilton City Hall, their tax bill wasn’t the biggest concern Friday. It was the damage it could do to the city of Hamilton and the progress they say this industrial city of 63,000 has made over the past decade.

Michael and Bekki Rennick opened their bed and breakfast Benninghofen House in Hamilton eight years ago. They said the businesses, restaurants, breweries and the Spooky Nook sports complex have revitalized the city. They don’t want high tax bills to jeopardize this by scaring people and businesses off.

“This is a Midwest, Rust Belt, broken industrial city that has come back and it looks like the story of America,” Michael Rennick said as he held a “No Tax Without Representation” sign outside City Hall on Friday. ‘There’s something special going on here. I hate to see something like this disrupt things.”