Jim Roper, Perry Township Trustee

A sincere thank you to everyone for your support and your words of encouragement over the past few months. I am particularly grateful for the support of my wife Kim and our sons Drew and Matt. You are the best.

We live in a great community and my goal is to make it even better. I am proud to call Perry Township home.

I look forward to serving you for another four years.

STRAIGHT FORWARD ANSWERS TO 12 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
(Questions 7 - 12)

By Jim Roper and Andy English

As you can imagine, we have been getting numerous questions from residents about recent campaign mailings. We have not and will not engage in negative campaign tactics. At the same time, we cannot let misleading or false statements stand. Below are straight forward answers to questions that have been asked of us.

7. A MAILER FROM JILL REARDON ALSO STATES PERRY TOWNSHIP IS IN DEBT MORE THAN $120,000 FROM A BAD CONTRACT TO SWITCH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

Perry Township is not in debt. Moreover, as a result of sound spending, Perry will not need any new or additional tax levies over the next four years. We are in very good financial shape.

Perry belonged to a group called the Ohio Public Entity Consortium (OPEC), which consists of about 150 small government groups like Perry Township. In all, over 3,000 government employees are in this consortium for group healthcare benefits.

OPEC is being accused of mismanaging millions of dollars in funds. Perry Township did not manage any of these funds.

OPEC claims local governments should have to pay for this mismanagement and Perry’s allocation would be $120,000. Perry Township denies this, as do all of the other local government entities that were damaged by OPEC’s mismanagement. Townships and others have filed numerous lawsuits against OPEC and Perry is currently deciding which legal option is best for our township.

8. DID PERRY TOWNSHIP REALLY ENTER INTO A BAD CONTRACT WITH RUMPKE FOR TRASH HAULING THAT COST AN EXTRA $54,000?

No. When our last three-year trash collection contract was up, we put a new contract out for bid. Rumpke had the best bid and the lowest bid. Due to increased fuel costs and increased dumping costs at the landfill, Rumpke was forced to add a small monthly increase for each household for the new three-year contract. Neither Perry nor Rumpke has any control over rising fuel costs and increased dumping fees at the landfill. Again, we accepted the best and lowest bid.

9. DO YOU REALLY NOT KNOW JILL REARDON?

We obviously know who she is and we have addressed her by name. She has never spoken to us about any of her ideas or what changes she would make to Perry Township.

10. DID YOU EVER TELL PEOPLE THAT MS. REARDON NEVER ATTENDED ANY PERRY TOWNSHIP MEETINGS?

No. However, we did tell people in Brookside Estates that Ms. Reardon never attended any of the public meetings when the Korean Church zoning issue was discussed. The most important meeting took place after she became a trustee candidate and she chose not to attend.

Also, Perry Township records indicate that we had 18 general public meetings since Ms. Reardon has been a candidate. She attended 5 of the 18 meetings. She did not speak or ask to speak at any of those meetings. We have no record of Ms. Reardon ever attending a Perry Township meeting before her candidacy.

11. DID YOU EVER TELL PEOPLE THAT MS. REARDON WAS LATE FILING ELECTION PAPERS?

No. However, we have told people that Ms. Reardon did not timely file her responses to the Columbus Dispatch Voters Guide and the League of Women Voters Guide. All candidates were given weeks to complete those questionnaires and were given a clear deadline to give information about themselves and answer questions.

12. WHY HAVEN’T YOU FILED YOUR CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS AND HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU RAISED AND SPENT ON YOUR CAMPAIGN?

We are self-funding our campaigns. Also, we both signed waivers that we planned on spending less than $2,000 for our campaigns. Candidates who do this don’t have to file election reports. Jill Reardon has collected over $13,000 in donations from outside donors. That is why she had to file campaign financial disclosures

Campaign finance reports can be viewed on the Franklin County Board of Elections website.

Voters can see who has donated money and how a candidate has spent that money.

For the record, as of the last reporting period, we have spent less than $2,000 on each of our campaigns and the only expenditures were for yard signs, school magnets and door hangers.

Fiscal Responsibility - Taking Advantage of Grants

One of the ways that I’ve been able to help reduce township costs is by assisting our Police Chief in obtaining grants. The best thing about grants is that we get new equipment at no cost to taxpayers.

Over the years, Perry Township has obtained grants from a variety of sources such as The Department of Homeland Security, The Department of Justice and even non-government sources like Firehouse Subs for a variety of police needs such as new computers, servers, radios and cameras.

The pictures here show some of these items: The interior of the police cruiser shows a laptop, an in-car camera and an in-car radio which were all obtained by grants. These three pieces of equipment for just one car would have cost have cost the Township well over $10,000. Also shown is our new fingerprint machine (valued at $28,000) and a defibrillator.

As someone whose law firm represents dozens of police departments throughout Ohio, I will keep a look out for even more grant opportunities for Perry Township. Saving money and improving your police department at the same time isn’t easy to do, but that is exactly what I have done as your township trustee. And that is exactly what I will continue to do if re-elected.

Jim Roper
Chairman, Perry Township Board of Trustees
Trustee Liaison, Perry Township Police Dept.

2018 – A Critical Year for Perry Township

Exactly one year from now, Perry Township will be in negotiations with our police officers on a new three-year contract. Our current contract expires at the end of 2018. We always begin negotiations on the new contract in the fall of the expiring year.

I have been the lead negotiator on behalf of Perry Township for our last three police contracts. No current trustee or trustee candidate has any experience taking the lead in this area. The Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) will have professional negotiators present on behalf of our officers. Perry Township needs a professional at the other end of the table. My 30 plus years of experience as an attorney, and my prior involvement in negotiating our prior police contracts, makes me uniquely qualified to fill this important role on behalf of the Township.

Our Police Department is our greatest asset. It is also our greatest expense. It is critical that we take care of our police officers since they take care of us. At the same time, we have to be mindful of taxpayer dollars and we have to live within our budget.

Experience matters when negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with the police union. You have trusted me with this responsibility in the past. And you can trust me negotiating our next police contract in 2018.

Jim Roper
Trustee Liaison, Perry Township Police Department