NORTHWEST PRESS
Your Community Press newspaper serving Colerain Township, Green Township, Groesbeck, Monfort Heights, Pleasant Run, Seven Hills, White Oak
WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2014
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Colerain police levy results certified By Jennie Key jkey@communitypress.com
It’s now official: The Colerain Township police levy passed May 6. The Hamilton County Board of Elections certified the results, including 55 provisional and unscanned ballots. The certified results for the 1.95-mill levy: 3,358, or 50.08, percent for the levy and 3,347, or 49.92, percent against the levy. The official certified results can change
in a recount, but several officials said while possible, it rarely happens. Board of elections executive director Amy Searcy said each Denney side picked up 20 votes and the levy still passed by 11 votes. “What nearly always happens in these situations is that the certified results reflect what hap-
pened on Election Day,” she said. “That’s what we see here.” There is still an automatic recount required by law because the margin of victory was less than one-half of 1 percent of the votes cast. The board of elections will meet May 23 to randomly select the precincts to be recounted and the recount is expected to be performed June 2. Police Chief Mark Denney said he was pleased the certified results upheld the levy passage and he hopes to begin the work
promised before the voters approved the issue. The department plans to add six officers over the next two years and continue the use of reserve officers. A pay freeze remains in place through 2016, but there will be raises for officers in 2017. The township also intends to cross train some police officers for emergency medical service, starting with school resource officers. The $6.1 million budget for the department is largely de-
rived from tax dollars: a 2.5-mill levy passed in1991, an additional 1-mill levy passed in 2002 and a 1.15-mill levy approved in 2007 are the financial support for the department. The new levy will generate an additional $2 million annually. Officials from the Hamilton County Auditor’s Office say the owner of a $100,000 house paid about $111.39 in taxes for police protection before and the new levy will cost that homeowner an additional $68 annually.
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6-year-old Brandon Smith and Hamilton County Communications Officer Nancy Feist at a ceremony presenting the youngster with a 911 Hero award. GLENN HARTONG/THE COMMUNITY PRESS
6-year-old praised for calling 911, rescuing mom By Jennifer Edwards Baker jbaker@enquirer.com
A 6-year-old Colerain Elementary School student was honored last week for displaying composure beyond his tender age when he called 911 after his mother fell down the stairs last month. Brandon Smith received Hamilton County’s 9-1-1 Hero Award for quickly and calmly providing a dispatcher with details about his mom’s injury and his grandmother’s phone number so the woman, who lives nearby, could also come to their Eagle Creek Road
home. The award was presented to him at an assembly at Colerain Elementary School May 21. “My mom fell down the steps,” the matter-of-fact child told Hamilton County dispatcher Nancy Feist, according to a recording of the call. “How old is your mom?” she responded. “How old are you, Mom?” he asked his mother, who can be heard crying in the background. He told Feist: “Twenty-four.” “Ask her what hurts,” the dispatcher told him. “What hurts, Mom?” he
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asked. “Your knees? ... Her head and her back.” While relaying pertinent information to the dispatcher, the child calmed his mom and younger brothers, 5 and 2. At one point during the call, he instructs his siblings to go watch out the window for their grandmother. “You are doing a good job being 6, OK?” Feist told Brandon. “Let your mom know we are calling your grandma, too.” When Brandon’s grandparents arrived, he proudly informed them he had called 911 and help was on the way. “Brandon did an excellent
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job keeping his mother calm while (paramedics) were responding,” Hamilton County officials wrote said in a prepared statement. “(He) made sure to tell (the dispatcher) that the responders should use the back door to the residence.” His performance on the phone with the dispatcher “reinforces the important role that children can play when using 9-1-1 in an emergency situation,” the release states. “Brandon’s actions and exemplary performance on that day warrant our highest recognition.” Vol. 93 No. 17 © 2014 The Community Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED