XENIA COUNCILMAN OPPOSED TO ANNEXING CSU PROPERTY

Annexation of campus gets pre-approval, but township plans to fight.

One Xenia City Council member dissented, but others approved a pre-annexation agreement with Central State University, one of the required components to bring the university into the city’s corporate limits.

The pre-annexation agreement spells out the first of three phases for the annexation to be imple- mented and what services the city will provide to the university.

The city owns approximately 41 acres of the Ohio to Erie Trail, which is “contiguous” with about 4.5 acres of state land that is used by CSU. That meets the requirements for a Type 2 annexation, according to the agreement.

A Type 2 annexation has been referred to as a balloon-on-a-string annexation, in which a municipality leverages a small strip of land to acquire a large tract of property.

Councilman Dale Louderback does not support the push to annex the university, and he voted “no” on the pre-annexation agreement.

Louderback said the city stands to gain only $158,000 in added annual income tax revenue, and Xenia taxpayers will have to pay more on water bills to accommodate the loss in the 20 percent surcharge the university is currently paying for water and sewer services from the city.

“People think I’m anti-CSU. I’m not anti-CSU. I represent the taxpayers of Xenia. I just don’t think it’s a good business decision,” Louderback said.

Xenia Twp. leaders plan to fight the annexation and have hired attorney Wanda Carter to represent their side.

The pre-annexation agreement states that the city and the university “shall cooperate with each other in the proposed annexation,” including signing and filing the appropriate petitions with the Greene County Board of Commissioners.

The agreement states the city will provide a host of services to

the university: fire protection and inspection; EMS and law enforcement services; engineering staff; parks and recreation programming; street maintenance; and water/sewer services.

Council members also approved a memorandum of understand- ing regarding police services. The memorandum states the university will continue to maintain its own police force and the city will provide mutual aid as requested.

City and university officials continue to put together all the paperwork necessary for the petition to be submitted for review by the county commissioners.

Under state law, if all the requirements are met for such an annexation, the commissioners will be obligated to approve the petition, and two subsequent petitions will move forward to complete the annexation, slated to happen in 2019.