By Dennis Nichols
Village of Batavia Administrator
Batavia in 2000 was a lot like Batavia had been a generation earlier. It was a good place to call home. Signs of trouble were sneaking in, but they weren’t obvious. The surrounding township was growing, but new housing construction in the village had ended. Batavia Village and Batavia Township cooperated through the fire district, soon to be reorganized as the Central Joint Fire and EMS District, and the Batavia community shared the school district.
Regional shopping changes had hit Batavia’s retail community hard. Residents chafed at the loss of stores. On a motion by Councilman Rex Parsons, later to become a Batavia Township official, the village in 1991 had doubled the income tax to 1.0% to balance the budget. Village government was solvent, but had room only for essentials.
Robert Handra had become mayor in June 1999 when Mayor Harry Haglage resigned. He won a full term in the November 1999 election and began a four-year term Jan. 10, 2000. The new term’s Village Council was Judy Walker, John Thebout, Larry Evans, Scott Runck, Kathy Turner, and Tony Thomas. Beth Pulliam was the Clerk-Treasurer, Jim James was the village administrator, Chris Ehrhardt Jr. was the solicitor, Jim Siefert was the police chief, and Wayne Smith was the road superintendent.
The Village Association of Batavia was trying to stimulate renewal, but had no funds to invest. Batavia in Bloom supported a community floral program.
Annexation efforts were mostly unavailing, and the village budget saw stress. Tight money makes people tense. In local governments, department heads compete for available funds, and elected officials see costs as a burden, putting them at odds with their staff. Those stresses came to a head in November 2001, when the Village Council and Administrator Jim James entered a closed-door discussion about creating a position of utility director. Council then came out trashing the idea and demanding the administrator’s resignation. The next month, residents presented petitions pro and con, some asking the members to rescind their action, some asking the council members to resign, and some supporting the termination. Passions cooled in time, but scars lasted.
Mayor Handra appointed Robert Stewart village administrator the following spring, ratified by the Village Council in May 2002. Work resumed on streets and utilities.
Police Chief Siefert resigned in 2003, and Michael Gardner replaced him.
Bob Handra decided not to run for another term in 2003, and John Thebout won the mayor’s office in a four-way election. That election began the longest run any Batavia mayor has had, as Mayor Thebout won re-election in 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 and is completing his 17th year, outpacing Richard Jamieson and Edmund “Skip” Parrott, who each served 16 and part of a 17th year.
Batavia Village Council and the new mayor faced challenges. Population had been declining since the 1960s, and retail business was a shadow of what it had been. A four-lane highway open to Eastgate Mall meant sharp competition. Compounding the problems, Batavia was losing municipal income as Clermont County moved offices just beyond the village limits, and the state of Ohio soon began reducing its support to local governments, a creaky tax-sharing system in place since the 1930s.
A town without money is cruel
The village stayed solvent through budget cuts. But money shortages led to rivalries. The police, maintenance, and utility departments began competing for available funds. The Village Council charged more overhead costs to the utility operations, which get their money from water and sewer charges, not property and income taxes.
By 2008, Batavia turned back a grant for street improvements because the Village Council did not think they could afford the local matching funds. The mayor and police chief were at loggerheads, but the chief had support on Village Council, and the impasse became routine.
Then they cut the village administrator’s position to part time, and Stewart resigned. The next administrator, Rebecca Prem Groppe, publicized the village, but could not fix what was broken in the village’s finances, and she left in early 2010 after less than a year in office.
Mayor Thebout filled the administrator’s role himself from February to September. In September 2010 he appointed Dennis Nichols, the current administrator (and the author of this article), to the job. The Village Council ratified the appointment.
The mayor and council urged the new administrator to find a way to finance the village without stripping operations.
At the October Village Council meeting, Nichols reported that the general fund was falling yearly and would go below $500,000 in 2011. The village already had cut the maintenance crew from three to two, the utility department was operating without a director, and the police department was down from five full-time-officers to three plus volunteers. He said prospects for new commercial development were unlikely, because the village had little to offer. Batavia could appeal to the county for financial support because it is the county seat, or the village could consider a lawsuit over the county funds. Finally, the village could annex county offices that had moved out of the village, bringing them back in as taxpaying employers.
Previous tries at annexation had lost, but changes in Ohio’s annexation laws that took effect in 2001 opened avenues. Mayor Thebout ordered new efforts. At that time, 18% of the Clermont County payroll was within the county seat, and 68% was just beyond the boundaries in the unincorporated area of Batavia Township.
The first annexation was Clermont College and the Southwest Ohio Developmental Center. Batavia businessman Donald Saylor and his brother Richard G. Saylor agreed to annex a 6.4-acre parcel into the village, and the village added adjacent public facilities to the annexation territory. The second was the Clermont County Municipal Court, the Middle East Fork Wastewater Treatment Plant, the County Jail, and offices near Filager Road. The third was the county offices off Bauer Road plus the Batavia High School campus. Glen Wiedenbein was the petitioner for the second and third annexations.
Together, these annexations doubled Batavia’s available funds.
Then the village leveraged available funds with grants, long-term bonds and state loans.
Township critics asked how the village would prevent the money going to bloated staff and salaries. Nichols answered that the village would issue bonds to commit the capital funding. He said Batavia could secure future funds for capital projects that Batavia needed immediately. Streets and the water and sewer utilities needed expensive renovation, and bond codicils are the most binding limit on spending that an Ohio village has.
The results began in to arrive in 2011, when the village repaved College Drive. Major work began in 2013 with the Main Street project, dramatically changing and restoring Downtown Batavia and the Clermont County Seat area. Heavy spending went to repairing and rebuilding water and sewer systems, urgent investments that will last a half century or more.
The Bicentennial marks renewal
The 2014 Bicentennial celebration showed off the Main Street improvements. About that time Mayor Thebout began talking to Douglas Auxier about the old Batavia Armory building. An impressive 1912 Ohio National Guard Armory, named for Gen. William Clark Corbin, the Armory had fallen into ruin in the 1990s. Auxier had rescued it and made it into offices and a reception hall, but the reception business had moved, and the building was again becoming a white elephant. Mayor Thebout urged Auxier to donate most of the value to the village and sell it to Batavia for a fraction of its value.
Auxier agreed. The mayor asked for a state grant to help pay for renovations, and village funds completed the project in 2017, converting the armory into the Batavia Armory Town Hall, with offices and a public meeting room where the village has been host to concerts and other events.
As the same time as working on public finance and the needs of the existing village, Mayor Thebout moved to another initiative: residential expansion. The village approached Harold Silverman of Hal Homes about annexation in 2012. Before the Hal Homes property could annex to the village, Batavia had to complete the annexation of Clermont Center Drive. Glen Wiedenbein initiated that petition in July 2012, and the annexation was effective in December.
The Hal Homes annexation took place in 2015, with Batavia offering municipal bond financing for infrastructure, to be repaid with property assessments, and a tax abatement split between home buyers and the village. Streamside Subdivision is now under construction, having 265 single-family lots and 300 apartments. The subdivision is likely to nearly double the village population.
In 2014 Mayor Thebout and Administrator Nichols began talks with Charles Kubicki about annexing his 139 acres on State Route 32 at Batavia Road. Completed this October, that annexation will add up to 800 houses and condominiums, with half or more single-family residences. The developer is designing a Planned Unit Development.
Taken together, the residential developments underway could add more than 650 houses and 700 multi-family units, a likely population increase of about 4,000.
Industrial power
Batavia has established an electric power utility authority and is preparing to supply electricity for industrial clients.
Duke Energy is trying to block the village initiative, but village lawyers say Duke’s obstruction has no basis in law, and the village should win. The Batavia system will allow the village to attract industrial users with lower rates than Duke can offer.
Batavia is home to two major glass manufacturers, Auto Temp and AAG Glass Inc., and they use huge amounts of electric power making automobile windows.
Once in operation, Nichols said, the village would be able to offer low-cost electricity to new industries in the community.
The Batavia yet to come
Batavia’s, mayor, council, and administration have set a course in the past decade that will pay dividends in the coming decades. On the present course, Batavia will become a city by 2030 or earlier, and if the Village Council continues on the same course, Batavia may soon become the largest population city in Clermont County.
The village is on a path to opportunity and prosperity, a place where people can live and retire, a place where their children can remain if they choose.
The pace of change seems glacial. But glacial change endures.
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow