5 TAX Reasons to Vote 'NO' on Miami Street Referendum 07-70

Whichever way you decide to vote on Tiffin University's Miami Street Project Referendum, please be clear that our TAXES WILL GO UP if the referendum passes! Below are 5 tax reasons for which we should ALL vote 'NO'.

Tiffin University's Miami Street Project Referendum 07-70, if allowed to pass, will INCREASE TIFFIN RESIDENT'S TAXES in the immediate AND long term future. You can verify these key reasons if you have the time and inclination to study the public records at Tiffin City Council. Many of these written public records contain reasons to vote 'NO' ... and were provided by Tiffin University Officials and Tiffin City Council! Keep in mind that the deluge of printed information, phone calls, billboards, and half page advertisements to Tiffin Citizens is because our so-called civic leaders have hired an expensive, nationally recognized political consultant to "spin" all of us. So, please be clear on what your vote will mean regarding taxes, as follows:

1) Tiffin City Tax Payers will pay for the "sewer separation project". This sewer project will happen at Miami and Jackson Streets AFTER 2010, and AFTER the University, if permitted, would spend the $800,000 appropriation from our federal TAX Dollars. So, AFTER Tiffin University Officials would spend the Tax money on their project, much of the new street scape will have to be destroyed to make way for the two separated sewer lines. The cost of destruction and reconstruction of Miami and Jackson streets has been estimated to exceed $300,000, not including direct sewer separation costs. In their Miami Street Improvement Cost Estimates, Mr. Grandillo told engineers from Wolpert to NOT include any federal funds for sewer separation in their project. They knew from experience that the extra cost of the 2nd excavation and re-landscaping would be born by the unsuspecting Tiffin Ohio TAX Payers.

2) The PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNERS on Miami and Jackson Streets pay property taxes now. Tiffin University does NOT pay any property taxes on more than 200 acres of land. Since TU Officials have already taken preliminary Eminent Domain action to force the sale of the Monaco Family Home, if successful, the property taxes from that one property will then have to be born by other TAX PAYERS…NOT Tiffin University. This is only one property in a line of nearly 100 that TU already carries at the expense of TIFFIN TAX PAYERS. At their recent rate of growth, it is not absurd to conclude that TU will own all the current rateables on the west side of Tiffin in about 60 more years! If you don't vote 'No' now, consider the silly possibility that the taxpayers on the EAST side of Tiffin will have to carry the burden...if they can afford to live in Tiffin at all. Did I say absurd?

How many more properties should TU be allowed to own at TAX PAYER EXPENSE? [I resent this civic corruption Tiffin University Officials and others have inspired. Yet, there is BIG money and a lot of powerful political influence involved, so most people in Tiffin quietly suffer the fact that they might believe themselves to be "irrelevant" as Dr. Marion declared. Not being one to quietly suffer any obvious and pervasive injustice, I am NOT going away on this one...no matter how the referendum vote turns out.] On this matter alone, I urge YOU to please don't believe Dr. Marion's conclusion about us. Declare yourself and other TAXPAYERS relevant by casting your 'NO' vote. It wil stop this kind of abuse.

3) Without private property owner permission, Drs. Marion and Grandillo made a back-room deal with our local government to waive the normal requirements for “vacating” the public Jackson Street. They have ignored the normal rules everyone followed for more than 30 years. For example: About 20 years ago, they closed, through a “vacate” ordinance, part of Jackson Street that is now the walkway of north campus. “Vacating” the many alleys and streets near Campus has always been understood to be a fair and democratic government procedure to protect individual property owners from being abused by powerful corporate interests. But now, if TU Officials are not held to normal rules, TU’s campus will close a public neighborhood street without private property owner permission, turn it into a campus asset, yet that part of the campus will legally have to be maintained by Tiffin City through our TAX DOLLARS…because Tiffin City still owns it. This is improper, to put it mildly.


4) Here is the real danger to Tiffin Tax-Paying Residents: We know from their own publicly-available documents that Tiffin University Officials have misrepresented facts, obfuscated, delayed and unfairly manipulated nearly every important aspect of the Miami Street project.

Starting with Mike Grandillo’s 2004 application to the United States Congress, it was demonstrated with written facts TIFFIN UNIVERSITY PROVIDED, at the April Tiffin City Council public hearing that Grandillo mislead the US Congress (and now Tiffin Citizens) into believing that there was a "pedestrian safety" problem. (That's right, NO pedestrian safety problem exists on any official record of ODOT, our own Tiffin City Police Department, or at the Engineering Department! According to ALL uncontested statements at the public hearing, "pedestrian safety" is an imaginary problem fabricated by Grandillo, and repeated over-and-over again by Marion and some of his employees and students.) What hubris!

At the April Tiffin City Council Hearing, I presented the written facts from Tiffin University's own documents, and without saying the word, accused him of "lying". My public hearing statement, with 17 equally scathing facts, was accepted by the City Council, Mayor, and all of the rest of the 60 participants. As it is difficult to argue against facts, to this day, no one refuted one word of my facts as "wrong" or improperly stated! Given the formal chance to rebut my facts in his closing statement at the hearing, even Dr. Marion simply declared my concerns, along with all others to be "irrelevant". He did not refute one of the facts or conclusions. It was all cable-vised for viewers to see. So, dear reader, you decide how you are going to vote.

Our Tiffin University Leaders, no matter how much good they have done in the past, have finally succumbed to the temptations of "power" and mostly unfettered local political influence. To me, and a great many regular Citizens for Tiffin, the action of those involved in administering the Miami Street Project defines the term “Local Political Corruption”. The corruption has spilled over to the private sector where it is now difficult to tell the difference between Tiffin University Officials and the private businesses from which they profit BECAUSE of their close association with Tiffin University or our local government.

If the Miami Street Project is NOT stopped now, ALL of these actions will set a precedent for further TAX-Funded Projects that will just add to the many that the Tiffin University has already funded through our TAX Dollars. The long-term consequence is a continuing spiral of more taxes to subsidize the already financially successful Tiffin University. TU simply does NOT need this help from financially struggling Tiffin, Ohio Taxpayers...or any other tax payers.

5) Finally, there is the “Citizen Abuse Tax” quietly born by Citizens who do NOT have the same influence and political power of Tiffin University. It is the tens of thousands of dollars collectively paid by the regular Citizens as they try to oppose the influential and deep-pocketed business interests such as those represented by TU Officials on the Miami Street Project. It is money that Citizen Volunteers need to pay for gas as they went door-to-door for petition signatures or to inform the public of the unfair treatment. It is the money needed to make hundreds of phone calls, have an occasional meeting, print literature, and hire lawyers so those being threatened from their homes and streets can get a minimal amount of legal representation. It is the cost of a web site and the hundreds of costly hours needed to design it and keep it up to date. Unlike Tiffin University, regular Citizens cannot wright-off these expenses or charge them off to someone’s corporate budget.

The abuse tax is also the $14,000 cost to the Elections Board to get The Miami Street Project Referendum printed the November 4th Ballot. It is no secret that the people actively mobilizing to oppose the abusive aspects of the Miami Street Project are mostly elderly citizens. Although some volunteers and opposition supporters are fortunate enough to have the financial clout to participate, many live on fixed incomes or social security. They are making a serious sacrifice with this “hidden tax burden”. It should NOT be so difficult for these Citizens to participate in Tiffin City Governance. It should NOT be possible to suffer the “Citizen Abuse Tax” just because TU Officials, have misled the public and declared their concerns to be “irrelevant”.

Look elsewhere in this blog for links to no-spin, no-rhetoric information about the facts of the Miami Street Project and a rare view of Tiffin University Officials.

On November 4th, please vote ‘NO’ on the Miami Street Project Referendum 07-70. If you don’t, our taxes will go up because of it!...and you might be in line for the next tax-financed flogging sponsored by Tiffin University’s Dr. Marion and his powerful, influential associates.

Joe Monaco
Registered Tiffin Ohio Voter