COLUMBUS, Ohio – Each side in the debate over a Columbus Zoo levy on Tuesday’s ballot in Franklin County gained a partial victory from an Ohio Elections Commission panel Wednesday.
The three-member panel voted 2-1 that there was enough evidence to hold a full commission hearing, possibly as early as Monday, on a complaint that a local opposition group made false claims about the plans for the levy but decided to throw out a complaint against an out-of-state political-action committee, Commission executive director Philip Richter said.
“We welcome the decision that there was probable cause to find that the local opponents of the zoo levy have violated Ohio election law,” said John Kulewicz, co-chair of the Committee for the 2014 Columbus Zoo Levy.
“This complaint appears to be a last minute attempt to divert voters’ attention away from the fact that they want to raise our taxes 66 percent. We are confident that our organization and Franklin County taxpayers will be vindicated regarding this matter on Election Day,” said Mike Gonidakis, spokesman for Citizens for Responsible Taxation, which has campaigned against the levy.
The complaint against Gonidakis’s group accused it of falsely stating on three different occasions that the levy would finance the demolition of Veterans Memorial to make way for a satellite zoo location downtown, Richter said.
That claim “could not be farther from the truth,” Kulewicz said.
The site of the satellite zoo proposed for the west bank of the Scioto River near COSI is almost a quarter of a mile away from Vets Memorial.
Kulewicz’s organization filed the complaints, one of which accused the Virginia-based conservative group Americans for Prosperity misrepresented the impact of the levy when it sent out a mailer to voters saying the levy increase would result in a doubling of property tax bills.
The committee voted unanimously that there was no probable cause that the claim by AFP violated the law, Richter said.
“Too many Franklin County residents feel their voice is not being heard on this issue. Now that this effort to silence their opposition by those who support higher taxes and bigger government has been thwarted by this ruling, we will continue our educational efforts,” said Eli Miller, state director for Americans for Prosperity.
The half-mill levy increase would raise the portion of the property tax that goes to support the zoo from 41 cents per week to 84 cents for the owner of a $100,000 home, but that represents approximately 8/10 of 1 percent of a resident’s total property tax bill, Kulewicz said. AFP’s mailer said it would raise the total bill by “105 percent.”
“A tax is a tax is a tax and they’re raising taxes and it is not fair to resident of Franklin County to raise taxes on them and they’re going to hear about it,” Miller said.
The panel disagreed with the zoo committee’s claim that AFP’s had no basis in fact and said that AFP’s claim was reasonable.
Americans for Prosperity had been blasted by local officials who called Charles and David Koch – conservative industrialists whose contributions support AFP – “billionaire carpetbaggers.”
“The Koch brothers have spent millions over the years to further an extremist political agenda, and now they’re coming after our Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Our voters have demonstrated they are smart and sophisticated enough to make their own decisions without misleading information from the Koch brothers” read a joint statement issued Monday by Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, City Council president Andrew Ginther, Franklin County Board of Commissioners president Marilyn Brown, Columbus Partnership president and CEO Alex Fischer and John Lyall, president of Ohio American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 8.
Miller says AFP members in Franklin County initiated the organization’s actions.
“They felt their voices were being silenced by an onslaught of TV ads and heavy spending by the proponents of this tax increase,” Miller said.