By Sam Wildow
PIQUA —Voters in Piqua re-elected Kris Lee to the third ward seat on the Piqua City Commission on Tuesday.
Lee received 1,413 votes, or 66.65% of the vote, and his opponent, Nolan Campbell, received 707 votes, or 33.35%, according to unofficial election results.
“I’m overjoyed,” Lee said. “I’m going to work hard and give them (the citizens of Piqua) everything I can to support and do what’s right by them.”
Lee was also supportive of his opponent, encouraging more people to get involved in running for local office and participating in city government.
“I’d like to thank Nolan Campbell for his effort, and we need more young people like him running and in the process so they can be heard,” Lee said.
Lee plans to continue to be open and available to city residents, as well as supportive to small businesses in town. He discussed the possibility of the city utilizing funds it received from the federal government as a result of the pandemic to provide loans or grants to small businesses. He also plans to work to continue to attract new businesses and industries to the area.
“I’d like to thank my family, my friends, all my supporters,” Lee said. “We’re just going to work hard for the city of Piqua.”
Also in Piqua, voters approved the substitute tax levy for Piqua City Schools. There were 1,695 votes, or 61.04% of the vote, in favor of the levy and 1,082 votes, or 38.96%, against the levy.
“We’re really pleased with the results,” Piqua Superintendent Dwayne Thompson said.
This levy collects a fixed amount of less than $2.1 million dollars in taxes. The levy is 4.88 mills for each one dollar of valuation, which amounts to $0.488 for each one hundred dollars of valuation for the initial year of the tax, for a continuing period of time, commencing in 2021, first due in calendar year 2022. There is no increase in taxes to voters as this substitute levy is replacing the emergency levy first approved by Piqua voters in 2003.
