The St. Albans Township and Village of Alexandria Merger Commission has been granted a year extension to continue researching and crafting the merger conditions and ballot language.
The merger commission, created to explore merging the governments of the 500-person village and the surrounding township of another 2,000 people, was supposed to be done with the ballot language by Aug. 7 this year, which would allow the residents to vote on the language in 2025.
With this extension, the commission will have another year to conduct research and another year of funding from St. Albans Township and the Village of Alexandria. The conditions for merging and the ballot language now must be drafted by August 6, 2025, to be on the November ballot.
At the Alexandria Village Council meeting on July 2, Mayor Sean Barnes, a member of the merger commission, requested an extension for the commission. The members of the commission that are on the village council abstained from voting, and the extension was granted.
At the St. Albans Township Trustee meeting on July 10, the trustees made a resolution where two of the three township trustees voted to give the merger commission a year extension. Randall Almendiger, one of the three trustees, voted “no” to an extension of drafting the conditions.
“They (the residents) like their township the way it was, as I do, and I’ve been at my corner for 34 years,” Almendinger said.
In November 2023, residents voted to explore a merger by creating the commission. The vote was not for the township and village to merge, only to form the commission that would research what would happen if the two municipalities merged. The commission is made up of five St. Albans residents and five Alexandria residents. St. Albans Township is responsible for 80% of the commission’s expenses and Alexandria is responsible for the other 20%. The work of the commission is evenly split between the 10 residents, but financing the commission is based on population, meaning St. Albans carries most of the cost.
The merger commission recently decided to meet weekly, rather than monthly, to speed up the research process.
Carianne Meng, a member of the merger commission and Alexandria Village Council, said that the commission would benefit from an extension because there have been delays in finding important information to determine conditions if there was a merger.
“We have encountered delays with determining earned income in St. Albans Township, and this information is critical in deciding matters pertaining to taxes and levies,” said Meng.
Meng said the commission would also benefit from the certification of property values from the Licking County Auditor on August 1, 2024.
Caroline Zollinger writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.