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Editorial: Nixon provides effective leadership that Lima needs
Lima City Council is a more deliberative body than it's been in recent history. With so many members of council taking the initiative to ask more detailed questions of the administration, you need a council president who understands the delicate balance of knowing when to push the agenda forward or when to allow more discussion.
That's why The Lima News believes John Nixon deserves four more years as City Council president.
There is a difference between being a good councilman and being a good council president. We appreciate, and applaud, that more members of City Council see it as their duty to seek more details from the administration before passing legislation. Ray Magnus, who is challenging Nixon for the council presidency, certainly asked tough questions on council, sometimes, we believe, to the point of political grandstanding. That's why we question whether he can put his strong opinions aside and fill the roll of a council president who can be impartial and objective.
The Magnus-Nixon race is a rematch of four years ago. Magnus, then a two-year veteran of City Council, took on Nixon, who had been elected by fellow councilors to the president's chair after more than a decade and a half on council. Magnus' campaign of four years ago appeared to make him think the council president and the mayor split administrative duties. He said Nixon had been in office too long, was a yes man for Mayor David Berger and the city needed change. Nixon carried 65 percent of the vote.
Four years later, Magnus is using a similar tact. He has some reason to think it could work. The economic condition of the city has grown worse during the last four years. However, blaming that on Nixon is simplistic and ignores the bigger impact that the national recession has had on Ohio's economy.
Truth be told, Nixon has been part of a city government that has weathered a difficult storm much better than other local governments. The Berger administration began working with council members early in the financial storm to cut costs. We've seen controversy recently over Berger's plan to use furlough days for some employees moving forward, but that's something Allen County has been doing for a couple years after voters rejected a tax increase. The village of Fort Shawnee faces financial ruin if voters don't approve a last-ditch property tax increase. In Lima, the administration and City Council are talking — sometimes heatedly — about how to address a problem before it hits.
Nixon has moved those talks forward rather than letting them bog down all aspects of city government.
Magnus brings strengths that Nixon would stand to employ himself. Magnus consistently challenged the administration during his four years on council. In one dramatic case, Lima taxpayers saved almost 20 percent on the cost of land for a new water tower because Magnus questioned the original sales price, something neither the administration nor other councilors thought to do.
But Magnus too often would let such things turn into a circus, holding news conferences and stonewalling in council meetings rather than having reasonable discussions.
Nixon, for his part, frequently works behind the scenes with the administration, giving Lima residents no idea of whatever opposition Nixon says he brings to plans. Magnus repeatedly has said Nixon hasn't voted against the administration in more than two years — and that was a vote that would have cost residents an extra $3.5 million over five years in trash collection fees.
While we would like to see Nixon pose some of his questions in view of the public — in a council meeting — the fact remains that he has helped move the agenda forward. With more state budget cuts and a still-uncertain economy, Lima needs the continued effective leadership Nixon provides.
Coming Friday: state Issue 1, raising maximum at which a person may be elected a judge.
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