Area communities’ membership in TARTA is again garnering attention with legislation being introduced in
the Ohio legislature by 6th District Representative Randy Gardner.
The "TARTA Voters’ Rights Bill" would permit cities and townships the ability to exit the
regional transit authority through a voter-approved resolution. Currently, members can only be released
with the unanimous approval of all nine member communities. Perrysburg and Rossford are the only Wood
County communities with TARTA membership.
"It’s permanent taxation, it’s permanent membership," said Gardner of the current state of
affairs with TARTA.
"So we simply want to provide the voters in those communities with the right to determine whether
they want to continue taxation and membership in the regional transit authority."
Gardner said Monday that he was attempting two different avenues to gain passage of the bill. He said the
legislation would be introduced in the House this week, and would also be introduced as an amendment to
the transportation budget bill before the House Finance and Appropriations Committee.
Gardner, who is working on this legislation with Rep. Barbara Sears of Sylvania, has tried twice in the
past to change TARTA’s membership rules. The genesis for the legislation, he said, came a number of
years ago at the request of the city of Perrysburg. A press release discussing the legislation also
notes that this most recent introduction of the legislation was also requested by the city of Rossford.
Gardner first introduced the matter in the Ohio senate four years ago, and then again in the Ohio house
during its session last year.
"And so we have not been successful yet to convince the rest of the state that this is the right
thing to do, but we’re going to try again this session and this week in particular to try and get it
done."
Other action has been taken recently to attempt to ease or allow communities’ release from TARTA.
Last year, the transit authority proposed an ordinance to permit members to leave with 60 days’ notice;
the ordinance would also have made Lucas County a member of TARTA and change its funding model from a
property tax to a sales tax. The measure ultimately did not pass.
In October, prompted by Perrysburg, TARTA sent a resolution to members which, if approved, would have
released the city from membership. The issue later failed after the village of Waterville voted against
it.
Rossford and Perrysburg both rejected a 1-mill renewal levy for TARTA in November, which nevertheless
passed based on votes from Lucas County members.
"This was not our first approach," said Perrysburg City Council member Maria Ermie of Gardner’s
legislation. "We’ve been working with TARTA for over a decade and unfortunately nothing we’ve done
has really changed the transportation services being provided to Perrysburg to the degree where we feel
we are getting cost-effective, efficient services for the money that we’re paying. So I’m hoping that
this legislation will give the people the ability to have their vote heard and counted."
Rossford Mayor Bill Verbosky, who noted he had not seen Gardner’s legislation, said that while his city
has had a good relationship with TARTA overall, the question that remains, as with other municipalities,
is if they are getting good "bang for the buck" from the service. He said that Rossford – and
Perrysburg, who has taken the lead in trying to leave TARTA – have always looked at ways to make the
relationship with the transit authority more equitable.
Gardner noted that he has received support for this legislation over the years from some elected
officials in Lucas County. However, proponents from the Ohio legislature may prove more elusive.
"We’ll find out," he said of what support the measure might garner there. "I think this: I
think a clear majority of state legislators would agree that current law is unreasonable. But because
there’s not a significant problem with accountability and with property taxation in the rest of the
state, it’s been difficult to get 50 members of the House or 17 members of the Senate to agree to
actually enact this legislation. So it’s not as if they don’t agree," the issue is that regional
transit authorities haven’t been controversial to the same extent in other parts of the state.