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5 ballots could decide levy
By DAVID SKOLNICK
BERLIN
The passage or rejection of a 2-mill additional tax levy for a new fire truck for the township likely will be resolved by 5 unopened ballots.
The levy proposal to raise $87,535 annually for five years lost by one vote — 212 to 211 — when ballots were counted May 4, the date of the primary election.
Five people cast provisional ballots in Berlin Township, said Thomas McCabe, director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections.
Provisional ballots are cast by people who move into a precinct or fail to change their voter registration location within 30 days of an election, or are unable to provide proper identification when voting and are later able to do so at the elections board.
The Mahoning County board will count provisional ballots Monday or Tuesday, McCabe said.
The board of elections expects to meet May 24 to certify the results of the May 4 primary.
If the Berlin fire levy’s margin of victory or defeat — after the provisional ballots are counted — is one-half of one percent or less, it would be subject to an automatic recount.
The date of a recount, should one be needed, would be scheduled at the next elections-board meeting.
The $437,675 that would be collected by the tax levy over five years would pay for all but about $50,000 of the new water-pumper truck’s cost, said trustees Jodi R. Kale and Jason Young. The rest of the money would come from the fire department’s current budget, Kale said.
The department’s lone pumper truck is 25 years old and in need of repair work, Kale said.
Township officials were left with no other choice but to seek the money through a tax levy after unsuccessfully applying for grants to pay for the truck during the past eight years, Kale said.
If the levy is rejected, it will be back on the ballot in November, Young said.