Assessments Bring Crowd to Council Work Session

Monday's work session of Avon City Council brought out residents and non-residents concerned about future property assessments near the coming Nagel Road interchange.

The item on the agenda that brought the concern was the proposed deal with the Richard E. Jacobs Group for costs related to the interchange. As it stands now, Jacobs Group would pay one-third of the costs, the city would pay one-third, and the other third would be made up by about 105 landowners near the interchange.

Many of those landowners fear the assessments on their land, which are set to happen in 2014, would be more than they could afford.

Mark Haehn of Wellington, whose wife's family owns land affected by future assessments, said the city planned the interchange and everything connected with it poorly, including allowing the Cleveland Clinic building to be completed before the interchange will be built.

"There was no thinking as to how that would impact the city," he said.

Several residents spoke out against the planned assessments, and were cheered by the crowd which included members of the Westshore Tea Party, a few of whom held up signs.

"We're united with the people here," said Mary O'Malley of Fairview Park, one of the Westshore Tea Party members at the meeting. "If it happens here, it can happen everywhere."

The city has said that much if not all of the cost of the interchange outside of the Jacobs Group's share should be covered by Tax Increment Financing and income taxes coming in from people working at the . Mayor Jim Smith has said he hopes to relieve as much of the burden on the landowners as possible.

Kathy Herbst said after the meeting she didn't like what she'd heard Smith say in an interview over the weekend. In the interview with WKYC, Smith compared the landowners -- who are expected to see increased property values -- with lottery winners who have to pay taxes on their windfall.

"Yeah, but lottery winners pay taxes after they win," she said. "With this, we could be paying just because we might win someday."

Council chair Craig Witherspoon said a council work session devoted exclusively to the assessments would take place, likely within the next two to three weeks.