But the clerk of the Dayton City Commission reviewed the petition and concluded that it’s invalid because it failed to include a statement of receipts and disbursements.
However, Mark Brown, an attorney and a Capital University Law School professor who is helping the Clergy Community Coalition, said the city’s donor disclosure requirement is likely unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment.
“The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that an almost identical financial disclosure requirement cannot be used to invalidate a petition,” he said.
Dayton law department officials say they will spend the next several weeks reviewing this matter. The city commission postponed making a decision about the petition until it receives a legal recommendation. The city commission held a public hearing about the petition on Wednesday morning.
In late June, the Clergy Community Coalition submitted a citizen initiative petition to the clerk of the commission that contained 1,284 valid signatures of Dayton electors, says a Montgomery County Board of Elections report.
City code says proposed ordinances can be submitted to the clerk of the commission if they contain at least 1,250 valid signatures of registered Dayton voters.
The Clergy Community Coalition’s petition is for an ordinance that would put a 1-mill property tax levy on the ballot to be voted on by city residents. Coalition members say the levy would generate about $2 million each year for a decade, and this revenue would serve as seed or foundational funding to help create a new public hospital in a section of the city that they say is a “health care desert.”
Coalition members have pushed hard for a new hospital ever since Good Samaritan Hospital in northwest Dayton closed in 2018. The coalition twice before submitted citizen initiative petitions for a levy to support a public hospital but they were rejected by the city for failing to have enough valid signatures.
However, city officials and some elected leaders have said it would be extremely expensive to establish, staff and operate a new hospital. They said $2 million annually would be a drop in the bucket.
“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,” Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. wrote in a letter sent out to some local leaders last year.
Even if the coalition submits a petition that meets all of the requirements of city code, the city commission can still reject the proposed ordinance or not take action on it.
If that happens, the coalition can still get the proposed ordinance on the ballot if it can obtain 1,250 additional signatures within 20 days.
During the public hearing on Wednesday, Clergy Community Coalition members said the city commission should go ahead and put the tax levy measure on the ballot to let the community decide if they want a new public hospital.
“All you have to do is just pass it and let the voters decide,” said Bishop Richard Cox, a member of the coalition. “They signed the ballot initiative. ... Say, ‘Let’s pass this, and leave it up to the voters.’”
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