Members of the Hospital Ballot Committee and the Clergy Community Coalition delivered a fourth petition pushing for a November ballot issue to support a public hospital in West Dayton on Tuesday.
This comes after 20 days of collecting 2,800 new petition signatures.
WYSO reached out to the city to confirm the next steps following the submission of the petition on Tuesday and hadn't heard back by deadline.
If voters approve the ballot issue, it would be the second public hospital in Ohio, according to Bishop Richard Cox, president of the Clergy Community Coalition.
He said public hospitals like Cleveland’s MetroHealth Medical Center are a win-win for the city and its citizens.
“That's what public hospitals are for, they are there to help the poor," Cox said. "They're there to help to indigent, they help the marginalized and they help the under-insured."
“That's what public hospitals are for, they are there to help the poor. They're there to help to indigent, they help the marginalized and they help the under-insured."
The petition was delivered on Tuesday to city commissioners after they rejected the group’s previous efforts.
Commissioner Christopher Shaw, one of the two commissioners who voted against the proposed property tax levy, has said he saw the effort as "irresponsible."
"I feel like I am representing residents and making this vote against this hospital ballot initiative," he said in a previous interview with WYSO. "There has been no site identified for this project. The funding is woefully insufficient. I just think it's unfair for Dayton residents to have to pay for a hospital for folks that would use it outside of Dayton, in Trotwood and Harrison Township. I just think it's a bad model."
"There has been no site identified for this project. The funding is woefully insufficient. I just think it's unfair for Dayton residents to have to pay for a hospital for folks that would use it outside of Dayton."
Significant cuts and changes to Medicaid from the new federal tax and spending law would also impact the project. Shaw said this could make it "unrealistic and unsustainable."
Commissioner Matt Joseph also voted no and said he was uncomfortable with the vagueness of the proposal.
"When we go out for a tax increase here in the city, we hold ourselves to a really high standard. We make sure everybody knows exactly where the money's gonna go, what the plan is, what our goals are for the money," Joseph said in a previous statement to WYSO.
"You lay out the partnerships, you lay out where the dollars are going to go, you set out the goals and how they're going to be measured. This did not have most of those elements. I know that folks talk about partnerships, but without having those on paper, it's not the right time to go to ballot. It's not [the] right time ask our residents to sacrifice."
Since the July petition was rejected, it is required by the Dayton City Charter to collect an additional 1,250 petition signatures or at least 2,500 signatures overall to bypass the commission's decision and get the initiative on the ballot for the November 2025 election.
"So if the citizens have a successful petition after the 90 days and it goes before the commission and they vote it down, which is exactly what happened to us, then the citizens have 20 days to go around the city commission in order to put something on the ballot," said Nancy Kiehl, Clergy Community Coalition secretary. "And we hope we're successful with these 2,800 signatures."
The Hospital Ballot Committee and the Clergy Community Coalition said they have received close to 8,000 signatures, over the course of four separate campaigns, supporting the addition of the initiative on the ballot.
"If it passes in November, then we have the taxes that are going to be collected next year and then there's not actually going to be any new funding or monies coming to the city until 2027," Kiehl said. "And in the meantime, the hospital board will have to be formed by the mayor. And those 11 individuals will be possibly hiring a hospital architect, finding land. So it's all incremental and it will take time."
The group said this project gained traction after the closure of Good Samaritan Hospital in 2018. Since then, citizens have been calling for better access to health care in West Dayton.
"They believe in the right of citizens to vote for a ballot initiative and to make their own decisions," Kiehl said. "And when they make this sort of gate, put a gate in front, then it really made a lot of people upset. And anger is a good impetus for making people want to do something, make change."
"Anger is a good impetus for making people want to do something, make change."
According to Cox, the Good Samaritan Hospital closure and demolition directly affected 35,000 residents just in northwest Dayton.
“How many people were affected because they lost loved ones because that hospital was closed? And they cried that their loved ones would still be alive if that hospital was open,” Cox said.
If voters approve a ballot issue, it would provide $2 million per year over 10 years in property tax as “seed money” for the creation of Ohio’s second public hospital.
"The seed money would get us started. We would then, as I've been saying all along, go to the state and get them involved because they need to be involved in adequate health care," Cox said. "And we would try to go before the state legislature and we have had people in the legislature who are in favor of this project. But then we'll go on to the county and get them involved."
Cox said the group also has some partners they are negotiating with that plan to invest in the project.
"We have some private people that we're working with, and soon after that, we will begin to reveal some of the things that we're doing," he said.
Kiehl said the group hopes that Dayton would have a hospital standing by 2032 if it is approved, and they plan to release a more detailed plan for bringing the project to fruition once it is voted upon by citizens.
"On Sunday, I spoke with a woman and she said to me, 'Thank you for not accepting the no,' which was the 'no' from the commission back in July," Kiehl said. "And that was the community responding that we went out and we gathered these signatures. And there were 29 circulators collecting petition signatures."
Cox said he wants city commissioners to know that they still hope to work with them on getting this project going for those citizens.
"We elected you to serve us and we want to work with you to make sure that the citizens of Dayton, in this upcoming election, get the services they need from the people that they have elected," he said.
Staff Reporter Kathryn Mobley contributed to this report.
