Oakwood City Council members passed the millage rate 4-1 at their meeting Monday night, as well as unanimously passing budget amendments for fiscal years 2019 and 2020.
The millage rate stayed the same at 4.174 mills, but because the digest increased, it was advertised as an increase and three public hearings were held.
"It's been that way since 2016," said City Manager B.R. White. "We had no comments... we had three public hearings and no comments."
Councilwoman Pat Jones was the sole no vote, stating after the meeting that they had an option to roll the rate back, but it would likely need to be raised in the next few years. That could mean certain city services would suffer without the tax dollars with a rolled-back rate, or citizens could potentially pay more in taxes if their property values went up, and that could be a challenge during the pandemic.
In the end, Jones said she decided to vote in favor of helping the people, because either way, the millage rate would be impactful to the community.
Also at the meeting, the council approved budget amendments for the Fiscal Year 2019 budget and the Fiscal Year 2020 budget.
And, final readings for three rezoning requests - bSide Partners LLC, The Ritchie Group, and Southeastern Land Solutions, LLC - were all approved, as well public hearings for a rezoning for the Brennon Ward property to begin the process of annexing into the city to be put on sewer and tabling a request for Oxford Properties LLC until December were all approved by the council.
White said the pandemic hasn't made too much of an impact on their development. "We haven't seen much of a slow down," he said after the meeting. "This year will be the busiest permitting year the city has experienced. We set the record back in June."
