The Clergy Community Coalition has turned in a missing one-page financial disclosure, clearing one of the hurdles to getting a levy for public hospital funding on the November ballot.
The group wants the city of Dayton to allow a 1 mill tax levy on the November ballot. Over ten years, it would generate $20 million toward building a public hospital in west Dayton. Dayton's city commission has rejected the coalitions efforts two previous times.
On Wednesday, the clerk of Dayton’s city commission is expected to change her recommendation, stating the coalition’s petition packet is valid and complete.
Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the matter July 23.
The document that the coalition just turned in lists donations and money spent toward the initiative.
"It has two donors on it," said Nancy Kiehl, the group’s secretary. "It's a total of $300 that was used for buying the paper and the pens and the clipboards for the ballot initiative. And also two town halls were done, and we purchased pizza and water."
According to Kiehl, these expenses are from March 29 through June 20, 2025. She also noted both the city and the coalition are learning the process to move a citizen's initiative forward to ballot since this is the first time anyone has attempted this.
The Dayton City Commission clerk had previously recommended rejecting the coalition’s petitions because no financial disclosures were included, as required under the city charter. This led the commission to delay voting on the overall petitions.
According to Kiehl, the omission was an oversight.
"We are a group of salt and pepper activists who are trying to make good trouble in order to bring a hospital to west Dayton because services are so greatly needed and it's a health care desert in West Dayton," Kiehl said.
The group did have the required 1,250 valid signatures from Dayton residents who are also registered voters. It was the coalition's third submission. The Dayton Commissioners voted to delay deciding on whether or not the petition would advance to the November 2025 ballot until attorneys for both sides worked out legal questions regarding the submission of a financial document.
The coalitions' effort roots back to 2019, when Good Samaritan Hospital was demolished in Dayton. In part of the space, Premier Health oversaw the erection of an urgent care that's part of a larger development where the hospital had stood. Kettering Health also operates a hospital near lower Salem Avenue, the Kettering Health Dayton campus (formerly called Grandview Medical Center).
But coalition member Bishop Richard Cox said the urgent care does not provide the kind of health care people living in the community need.
"They are not opened 24 hours," explained Cox. "They can't do nothing in an emergency situation. You have a heart attack, urgent care can't serve you. If you've got cancer, urgent care can't serve you. If you get shot, you can't go to urgent care. And not all insurances pay for urgent care (visit)."
