Civil Municipal View Feb2023

56 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 the process to entice them to do that.” A project to update a 13-acre park surrounding Harrison Community Center is another initiative underway in the community. Harrison employs a recreation commission manager, who works with a staff of volunteers to organize and implement recreational events throughout the year. Also on the city outskirts of Harrison is the largest of the Great Parks of Hamilton County. Spanning nearly 6,000 acres, The Miami Whitewater Forest has a large lake,campground, golf course, and hiking trails that connect to residential neighborhoods. “Our Recreation Commission is given a fairly nice budget to operate on, and part of that budget includes capital improvement funds so that they can look at each of our parks and identify which one needs attention and then address it.” Mayor Neyer says, ”We also have an Impact Fund, so for every new bedroom in the city, there’s a fee collected, and the city matches that. That fund is set aside specifically for the maintenance, operation, or construction of recreational facilities or projects. There are roughly a million dollars in that fund currently.” Focusing on two key initiatives, Mayor Neyer sees a strong future for the city of Harrison, suggesting that a restructuring of the tax code to remove the need for a fire levy every five years would be a valuable strategy going forward. He maintains, “A fire levy is not a guarantee, they’re tentative and it’s flat funding for five years, and then it adjusts if you pass a new one. If we revise a tax code, that funding will adjust annually, and we will not need to request a levy in the future. I think that’s critical to maintaining our safety services on the fire front.”