May 21, 2013

Feedback: Letters to LJ, May 15, 2012 Issue

I need to offer a clarification to your roundup of library ballot measures in 2011 (Beth Dempsey, “Voters Keep the Doors Open,” LJ 3/15/12, p. 64–68). The story was correct in that Ohio’s Ada Public Library’s request for an operating levy in November 2011 did fail, but your percentages (49 percent for, 51 percent against) were not accurate. In fact, we did not get “beat” at all; we tied. The final tally was 844 votes for the levy, and 844 against. Unfortunately, the bar for passage is a majority. …Whenever anyone asks me now about campaigns, I always start by stressing the importance of voter turnout. I encourage you to think of Ada and that one vote the next time you are in a ­campaign.