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Chagrin's clueless minority wins
(by Dave Lange - November 12, 2009)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Chagrin's clueless minority wins
Various reasons could be explored as to why the majority of Chagrin Falls voters agreed on last week's ballot to provide operating funds for a new village police station that the majority declined to build.
That's right, the electorate voted 878-811 against a $4.245 million bond issue that was needed to build a 13,600-square-foot police station on Solon Road, while voting 888-782 in favor of a 0.6-mill levy specifically intended to operate that new facility. So the majority opposed spending money for a project that most local officials agree is sorely needed. But the majority agreed to spend money that isn't needed, since there won't be a new station to spend it on.
It's not quite clear what the police department will do with the extra income that it doesn't need.
The good news is that as many as 94 percent of the nearly 1,700 citizens who voted for or against the police-station project may have known what they were doing. The bad news is that more than one out of every 20 Chagrin Falls voters obviously did not have a clue about the relationship between the two issues on the ballot. The clueless proportion probably was significantly higher, because many voters simply oppose all tax issues, regardless of whether they understand them, but at least they're consistent.
As for the minimum of 96 people who voted against the police station but not against operating a nonexisting station, the ballot language itself could be the reason for the disconnect. It's not unusual for people who think of themselves as responsible citizens to step into their polling places without gaining even a minimal understanding of the issues beforehand and believing that the ballot language will provide them with the necessary background to make an informed decision. They are fooling themselves.
Very possibly, many of them arrived at the first of the two companion issues on the ballot, Issue 15, the proposed tax levy "for the purpose of current operating expenses associated with the Chagrin Falls Police Department," and got through most, if not all, of the 66 words. Some of them may have thought that 0.6 mill, just 6 cents for each $100 of property valuation, doesn't seem like too much to ask to support the local police who protect those properties and keep their town a safe place to live. Besides, as the ballot language said, the tax would only last for five years.
Then they arrived at Issue 16, the proposed bond issue "for the purpose of constructing, furnishing and equipping a new police station building," and ballot verbiage running on for 127 words. That issue, being the more well known of the two, may not have been worth the effort of reading all the words -- except for the $4,245,000 price tag. That sure seems like a lot more than that 0.6 mill, although the ballot did get around to mentioning that it is estimated at 1.6 mills, just 16 cents for each $100 of valuation. However, it also mentioned that the tax for the bond issue could be collected for as long as 25 years, which really is a lot longer than five years, even though money would have to be found somehow for continuing operations.
Clearly, the majority of voters did not want to pay for a new police station. And surely, the majority of those who wanted to pay to operate a new police station first wanted to build that station in order to operate it. But a minority of voters were willing to operate something, even though they didn't know what it was. So, apparently, the clueless minority won.
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