Present for the most recent meeting of the Miami Township Trustees, Monday, June 2, were, from left: Chris Mucher, Marilan Moir and Don Hollister. (Video still)
Miami Township Trustees talk finances, upcoming levy, solar
- Published: June 10, 2025
At their regular meeting Monday, June 2, the Miami Township Trustees discussed Township finances, a renewal levy that will go before voters in November and a recent public meeting about utility-scale solar.
At the beginning of the meeting, Trustee Chair Chris Mucher said he has asked Fiscal Officer Jeanna GunderKline to engage a private accounting firm to audit the Township’s finances, so that trustees are “all on the same page as to what money we have to spend.”
“Until that point, I’m not comfortable certifying any payment of expenses,” he said.
Mucher added that the request for a private audit was spurred by disagreements between himself and Trustee Marilan Moir at previous meetings about whether or not the Township could afford to donate its general fund reserve to local nonprofit Tecumseh Land Trust.
As the News reported in past issues, the Trustees originally passed a resolution last month to set aside its $92,000 general fund reserve and other funds in order to fulfill a previously made $113,000 funding commitment to TLT. At a later meeting, Trustees Moir and Don Hollister voted to rescind the resolution and replace it with one that lowered the commitment of funding to $50,000; Mucher voted against the rescission and replacement resolution, which passed 2–1.
At the June 2 meeting, Moir said she and GunderKline have already worked to be placed on a waiting list for the regional office of the state auditor to review the Township’s finances, and have also been working with a certified public accountant.
“I’m not sure what you want [another] auditor to show,” Moir said.
“I want them to show how much money we have in each fund,” Mucher replied, and reiterated that he would not authorize any expenditures, including payroll, until then.
The trustees later clarified that Moir and Hollister can continue to authorize expenditures, so that there is no lapse in payroll, bills or other expenses.
In the meantime, Moir said, the Township will need to work to place a 3.9-mill renewal levy for Miami Township Fire-Rescue operations before voters this fall. The trustees passed a resolution of necessity to renew the levy at a special meeting in January.
The levy was intended to be on the ballot in May, but previous ballot language for the levy was rejected by the county’s Board of Elections. For that reason, Moir said, the Township’s legal counsel firm Brossius, Griggs & Johnson reviewed the previous ballot language and will advise on future ballot language.
The deadline to file a levy issue with the Board of Elections is Aug. 6.
The five-year levy, which has been in place for more than 30 years and was last renewed in 2020, nets MTFR about $580,000 annually. Moir said the levy represents about 40% of MTFR’s annual operating funds.
Trustee Hollister later discussed a May 21 public meeting in which the trustees heard from about 30 local residents on their views regarding utility-scale solar, or solar arrays of 50 MW or larger.
As the News has reported in the past, the trustees acted as intervenors in opposition to Vesper Energy’s 175-MW, 1,500-acre utility-scale Kingwood Solar array, which was denied by the Ohio Power Siting Board in 2022; the project is currently being reviewed by the Ohio Supreme Court after rehearing requests and appeals from Vesper Energy.
In December 2023, Vesper unveiled a potential new project, the Aviation Energy Center, and in July 2024, announced that it had located a potential 10,000-acre swath of land on which to site the project, with 3,500 acres of that land potentially located in the northeast corner of Miami Township, east of U.S. 68 and north of S.R. 343, where both roads intersect.
In mid-2023, trustees requested an exclusion from Greene County that declared all unincorporated land south and east of the Little Miami River in Miami Township a restricted area for utility-scale solar farms for two years. The exclusion would prevent any future utility-scale solar projects — including the Aviation Energy Center, if it’s sited within the exclusion boundary — from moving ahead. This month, the exclusion expires.
Based on feedback from the May 21 public meeting, which he said was predominantly in opposition to utility-scale solar, Trustee Hollister brought forth a resolution that would permanently exclude utility-scale solar arrays in the same portions of the township.
Because the resolution was not submitted for review by the other trustees until just before the meeting, Trustee Moir requested that the board hold off on voting until the next meeting.
Moir also expressed a desire to talk to more local residents who are in favor of utility-scale solar before moving ahead with a vote on the resolution.
“This is a big move,” Moir said.
Representatives from Citizens for Greene Acres, a collective of township residents opposed to utility-scale solar within the area outlined above, asked that the trustees go ahead and vote on the resolution that evening.
“This has dragged on and on and on,” Jennifer Adams of CGA said. “We would like this to be in place before [Vesper has] the opportunity to potentially present a new project.”
Ultimately, the trustees decided to hold off on voting on the resolution until their next meeting, Monday, June 16.
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