In a modern world increasingly built on regional economies and improved transportation and logistics, regional councils are ideally positioned to help Ohio meet the demands of the 21st Century.
The Ohio Association of Regional Councils comprises 21 agencies serving 1525 municipalities, villages, townships and counties and representing 10,500,000 residents of those communities around the state.
Most of Ohio’s regional councils are federally mandated Metropolitan Planning Organizations that bring local officials together to determine transportation priorities and how to allocate federal transportation dollars. Six of the councils are Areawide Water Quality Management Planning Agencies, designated under the Clean Water Act and certified by the Governor of Ohio. However, all the councils have long histories of coordinating transportation, environmental, and land-use planning, and helping local initiatives within the framework of state policy.
Led by hundreds of local elected officials, they do more than just serve local governments: They are a unique forum for those local officials to discuss issues of the day. Geography and economy define a region, but provide no forum or structure for the disparate jurisdictions within a region. Regional councils are the glue that holds a region together. And they are the bodies that can deliver on the federal goods: infrastructure dollars and support for emerging issues like homeland security.
In these papers, we will explain:
- Why the state needs a more-formalized recognition of regional councils and the role they play in the state;
- Why Ohio needs policies that encourage intergovernmental cooperation in Ohio’s fragmented regions;
- Why regional councils should have a greater role in state transportation and environmental policy;
- Why Ohio needs to update its outmoded land-use policies;
- and Why better collaboration and coordination for water and sewer infrastructure in Ohio will protect the environment and promote economic vitality.
We want you to understand the enormous potential that regional councils could have in helping you if you become governor. But we also want you to understand the limits within which we work and ask your help in formalizing and strengthening the role that our agencies play throughout the state.
That is why we are presenting these four position papers, which outline the goals that we think are as important to the state of Ohio as they are to the communities we serve.