High court made wrong call on levy

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The Ohio Supreme Court missed an opportunity to right a wrong regarding the Delaware Area Career Center’s levy.

Despite passing by 61 percent with more than 10,000 yes votes, the levy, which renewed funding for operations and building improvements including a planned campus consolidation, remains in limbo some five months after the November general election.

Due to a mistake at the Delaware County Board of Elections and through no fault of DACC, the levy did not appear on the ballots of the four counties outside Delaware County that are served by the career center. That means approximately 1,000 households eligible to vote on its levy in those counties never had the opportunity to do so.

As a result, Ohio Tax Commissioner Joe Testa invalidated the election outcome. First, we question why Testa’s office has the power to take such action. Shouldn’t that fall under the purview of the Ohio Secretary Of State, which oversees elections?

Second, a measure of common sense was required by the state’s highest court in this matter. The fact is that even if every other household had voted “no,” DACC’s levy still would have passed by about 9,000 votes.

The school, rightfully so, was working to validate the outcome. Without such validation, work at the campus will continue to be held up indefinitely due to lack of funds being collected for the DACC.

That’s just wrong.

The school has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to grant the levy’s passage, and while initially the Court did not do so, DACC filed a Motion for Reconsideration, supported by many other school and election organization leaders.

The court ruled 4-3 on Friday it would not hear the case. That is disappointing to say the least for the career center, its students, parents and those in Delaware County who voted for the levy’s passage.

The career center is a wonderful asset to Delaware County students. This error needed rectified — sooner rather than later — by the Ohio Supreme Court to enable the DACC to continue expanding and teaching our county’s students.

The court’s justices failed to do that, displaying an obvious lack of understanding of the importance of this levy in Delaware County.

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