Boston Heights residents vote against income tax increase for a second time
BOSTON HEIGHTS - For the second time, residents voted Tuesday against a proposed municipal income tax increase designed to support capital improvements.
According to the final but unofficial results from the Summit County Board of Elections, 193 residents voted for Issue 10 (47 percent), while 216 voted against the issue (52 percent).
If passed, Issue 10 would have generated $130,000 annually, starting July 1, to support capital improvements, such as repairing the village's 105-year-old administration building and paving the parking lot. Funds also would have been used toward increasing workers compensation and hospitalization benefits for village employees, according to Carol Zeman, clerk/treasurer for the Village of Boston Heights.
"It's quite a mystery to us why the issue did not pass," Zeman said. The income tax increase would have benefited people like retired senior citizens who do not receive a secondary income, she added.
Zeman said if the issue had passed, the village's income tax would have increased from 1.5 percent to 2 percent. She said the income tax has been at 1.5 percent since 1999.
She said the city plans to put the issue on the November ballot for the third time.
Since the election, Zeman said she and Marge Donley, the treasurer of the political action committee to pass the income tax increase, have discussed some new ideas to get the issue passed, such as passing around a survey and passing out more information.
The issue failed last November with 58 percent of voters casting ballots against the issue, according to the Summit County Board of Elections.
Mayor Raymond McFall said he felt that the issue did not pass because there were too many other issues on the ballot. If it passed, he said, residents thought they would have had to pay more taxes.
"I'm disappointed [about the issue failing]," he said. "I thought for sure it would go through. I guess a lot of people did not understand that they would not have been affected by the increase."
E-mail: rdull @ recordpub.net
Phone: 330-688-0088, ext. 3150