Leadership

By Eric Minamyer

Under Eric's leadership as president the board has united to provide the best possible services to Symmes Township with the lowest possible taxes.

My record includes: construction of the Safety Service Center, safety sidewalk and road resurfacing plan, Historical Society's Ross log house in our park, Cincinnati Horticultural Society at the Meade House, leadership during the 1999 tornado, solving problems quickly like garbage pick up on Governor's Way, Blong Memorial Park, green space program, effective tax rate lower now than when I took office, two salt domes, improvements to Symmes Park (electric service and the barn), new Veterans Memorial, bathrooms at Stonebridge Park, Symmes Master Plan, improved website and information to public, Lebanon Road sidewalk, improved relations with ODOT and County Engineer, payment of debts early, improvements to Montgomery and Loveland-Madeira Roads, Ad Hoc committee structure, improved relations with Loveland, Loveland/Symmes Communication Center, kept Hamilton County Sheriff in Symmes, corrected surface water issues, defeated license plate tax, Home Rule and local zoning, and invocation to begin board meetings.

Our efforts regarding control of surface water are outstanding. We already participate in a consortium of communities to address Polk Run. We contributed township funds to flood control in Camp Dennison, where hundreds of thousands were spent to help solve flooding issues for residents.

In the north central section of the township, the Blong Park serves as a detention area for Polk Run tributaries. Under the parking lot are two large tanks to hold water. The Park itself has less concrete than the now abandoned Blong Road had. Also the hole near Blong's north terminus will be developed into a detention area to slow down the flow into the Polk Run. We tried to buy more land along Montgomery, but the ownership issues are so complex we have not been able to accomplish that yet.

A 200 year rain event unfortunately led to the death of a teenage girl. I am very familiar with this event because as a member of Task Force One I helped search for her all day and was part of the team that carried her from the river's edge to the ambulance where her body was prepared by her rabbis. I will never forget finding her body and caring for her remains.

The area where she went into the Polk Run was then under construction to correct and slow the flow of water. The area is now done so the flooding of that intersection will not occur again unless rainfall far exceeds the engineering design, which is very unlikely to occur and for which you cannot design.

We changed our committee structure to eliminate inactive committees such as the law and safety committee which met sporadically and gave no useful service in the last years of its existence. The fire department has a governing board separate from the board of trustees. WE negotiate contracts with both the LSFD and HCSO covering nearly all