“Health care is needed, babies cannot be born on the west side of Dayton, we have no emergency services,” said Bishop Richard Cox, president of the Clergy Community Coalition. “Public hospitals help poor people, indigent people, underserved people, people with insurance, people without insurance.”
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. recently sent out a letter to local leaders that said he does not believe a new state-of-the-art hospital can be built for just $2 million per year — which is how much the levy is expected to generate.
“It is without question that the city does not have the financial ability to annually subsidize a public hospital without defunding existing programs or services,” he wrote. “I am also not confident that the city of Dayton will be able to identify willing partners or other funding sources to support a state-of-the-art public hospital.”
Coalition members say the levy funding would be “seed money” that would help a partner organization create the new hospital.
Petition signatures
According to the city of Dayton charter, community members and groups can submit a petition to the city commission for a proposed city ordinance if they collect valid signatures from at least 1,250 city residents who are registered voters.
The Clergy Community Coalition turned in a petition a couple of weeks ago to the city containing more than 1,570 signatures.
But on Monday, Cox said the Montgomery County Board of Elections reviewed the petition and told the coalition that they were 488 valid signatures short of what they needed. That would indicate that only about half of the signatures collected were of registered voters who live in the city.
Cox said the coalition is going to take a closer look at its petition and make sure the Board of Elections did not make mistakes and wrongly invalidate some signatures.
Cox said he hopes that people who signed the ballot initiative petition and community members who want a hospital in West Dayton will show up to the city commission meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday to show their support of the proposal.
Cox said he hopes the city commission will “do the right thing” and put the levy measure on the November ballot. He said voters should get a chance to decide whether they want a new public hospital in West Dayton.
The city commission would not have been required to put the proposed initiative on the ballot even if the coalition fulfilled the signature requirement. The 1,250 signatures merely would have required them to address the issue.
The commission could have rejected the proposed ordinance, changed it, or chosen to take no action.
If that happened, the petitioners could have put the ordinance to the ballot to be voted on if they were able to acquire 1,250 additional signatures, beyond the first 1,250.
Cox said coalition members have been talking with multiple stakeholders who might be interested in helping create a new public hospital.
If a tax levy measure does not appear on the November ballot, the coalition will collect signatures again next year to send a proposed tax levy ordinance to the commission once again for consideration, coalition board members said.
“We definitely have the support of the city on this, and I think the city commission and the mayor need to know that,” said Nancy Kiehl, secretary of the Clergy Community Coalition. “To table or vote against this I think is to their detriment.”
The proposed 1-mill levy would cost the standard owner of a $100,000 home about $35 per year, she said.
“It’s less than a cup of coffee a month for this,” Kiehl said.
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