Dunkirk discusses housing meeting

By ALEC KELLER

Times staff writer

DUNKIRK — A Dunkirk council member gave her takeaways from a recent Hardin County Housing Coalition meeting.

At Monday night’s council meeting, Councilwoman Dorothy Baum relayed to council that she appeared on behalf of the village in a casual meeting held by the coalition.

The coalition, which was formed with the intention to attract workers and maintain the county’s population through housing, also had a representative from Alger, Holli Underwood, president and CEO of the Hardin County Chamber and Business Alliance, and Kenton’s mayor, Lynn Webb in attendance.

Baum said that someone at that meeting who was an unidentified loan officer, gave their opinion on what they envision in terms of the topic of housing.

“So they started talking and she right off the bat said, ‘well I’m not sure this would benefit the smaller villages in the county’,” Baum said. “But what they wanna do is build homes. They’re not going to do low income or subsidized. They want to build homes and sell them to people.”

When Baum was asked about Dunkirk’s standpoint on the matter, she relayed to council that her response was the village doesn’t really have a need for homes, but rather business.

“Basically, we need business,” Baum said. “We need the homes. But if you build business, people will move to your area. But they’re not gonna move into your area if they don’t have somewhere to work.”

She expressed to the coalition that while Dunkirk has a lot of land, there would be a difficulty in getting land from the torn down lots due to uncertainty of the landowner being willing to sell.

“It’s a farming community,” Baum said. “It’s gonna be hard to get a farmer to sell his land.”

Council discussed that there are some open lots in the area, and brought up the possibility of speaking with some landowners in the near future.

Dunkirk Mayor Teresa Cramer said that every house that comes up for sale gets sold. She said there is an interest of people moving into the village, whether it be for a child being in the Hardin Northern School District, or otherwise.

Baum also touched upon House Bill 96 being a topic of discussion at that specific meeting.

Solicitor Mark Schwemer described that housing is one of the many provisions in HB96, which is the 2026-2027 operating budget for the state.

“It’s got everything under the sun,” Schwemer said. “The state budget bill is exactly like the federal budget bill where they tack everything they can onto it.”

When asked by council when they are going to meet again, Baum replied they will and that they meet once a month. A meeting date has not been provided as of presstime.

In other action, council:

– Heard from Schwemer that an ordinance is in the process of being drafted in relation to village cybersecurity. It is now by law per the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) Section 9.64 for each village to adopt a formal cybersecurity program. This is also a provision through HB96.

– Granted permission for fiscal officer Jodie Ribley to begin refinancing for the sewer separator loan. Ribley said they will be refinancing for approximately $1.8 million and saving the residents $477,000.

– Approved an ordinance to amend the village’s budget for 2025.