Ohio State Rep. Tom Patton, Who Proposed Ban on Projects Like Superior Midway Before Apparently Learning About Them, Withdraws Ban After Becoming Informed

Ohio State Rep. Tom Patton this afternoon announced that he is withdrawing the language in the proposed state budget bill amendment that would have banned center lane bike projects in cities with more than 300,000 residents, a proposal that would have killed the fully funded and approved Superior Midway project in Cleveland, a city he seems to rarely visit.

The Strongsville Republican today in a statement said, “This week, I was able to have conversations with Grace Gallucci, Executive Director of NOACA, during and after Finance Committee today to go over some of the issues surrounding the bike lanes amendment proposed in the transportation budget. Afer our discussions surrounding concerns of routes of first responders and other concerned parties, we have been reassured that through the development of the plan, these concerns will be addressed. This is what the legislative process is about, to ensure we bring leaders to the table to discuss issues impacting residents, our communities and beyond.”

He continued: “The proposed amendment was to bring this issue to the forefront to open dialogue on this important topic for our region. As a result of our engagement of bringing these parties together, the amdendment will not move forward as we continue to have productive conversations with stakeholders through our deliberate committee process. I look forward to these individuals meeting this week to see what comes of these important discussions.”

Advocates who spoke to Scene this week worried that Patton, in proposing the amendment, was acting without proper information, instead relying on anecdotal complaints about traffic patterns and truck deliveries while ignoring a decade of planning and research that had gone into the project.

That information, according to his statement where he declares having just learned about a lot of this, could well have been gleaned before introducing the language, of course, but what fun would that be. Instead, Patton preferred to learn only after throwing a Molotov cocktail into the bill just to see what would happen.

Bike Cleveland, state and city officials and other supporters of the project put on a full-court press and defense this week, reminding Patton what was at stake.

“If this amendment is adopted, it will kill hundreds of good paying union construction jobs, cancel $25 million infrastructure project to modernize our city and set Cleveland back years on our ability to innovate and retain/attract talent,” councilman Kerry McCormack told Scene. “If the state unilaterally kills this critical infrastructure project,” he added, “not only could we lose millions in federal infrastructure dollars, but we could jeopardize our ability to get federal funding in the future.”

This isn’t the first time Patton has used the state budget process in ways that reflect poorly on him. Back in 2019, when he didn’t even represent Hunting Valley anymore, he attempted to have language inserted in the budget that would have capped the amount of property tax the residents there, in one of Ohio’s most affluent enclaves, would pay to Orange city schools based on the number of Hunting Valley kids, who largely attend private schools, went there.

It was thankfully blocked by Gov. Mike DeWine.

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