AQUILLA VILLAGE, Ohio — They are the places most maps never show — the hundreds of small villages scattered across Ohio, many with populations consisting of just a couple hundred people.
Voters in Aquilla Village, located just southeast of Chardon in Geauga County, are set to determine in the ballot box whether or not to dissolve their village after 78 years.
Residents and local leaders told News 5 that the vote comes after years of seeing rising costs for basic services and the village running out of money. Dissolving the village would mean joining with neighboring Claridon Township.
Tucked off Aquilla Road, this cottage community of about 300 was once known as the Berkshires of Ohio, a summer getaway for the middle class looking for life on the lake.
Even with its beach long gone, this village spanning 0.15 square miles is still filled with plenty of lifelong residents.
"It was a campground back in the 1920s-1940s," resident Rose Cook recalled. "People built cabins and then stayed here year round."
Even though Rose Cook didn’t vote in 2020, 2016, 2008, or even her entire life, she said there’s too much at stake in this election, and, for the first time, she registered to vote.
"This year I’m going to because of this village is a big part," she said.
Gary Esmonde grew up in Aquilla and just moved back after renovating a home on Goredon Drive.
"When I grew up here, everybody knew everybody," he said.
How would dissolving Aquilla Village impact its residents?
News 5 spoke with the Geauga County auditor about what the impact of dissolving the village would have on the residents and their taxes. We're told that residents would see their taxes fall to about 46% of the current amount, with a $100,000 home value tax going from $471.20 in Aquilla Village to $214.86 if residents were absorbed into Claridon Township.
More villages could vote to dissolve as lawmakers discuss more oversight of struggling villages
A bill in Columbus spearheaded by state reps Adam Mathews and Tom Young seeks to shrink the number of struggling villages.
House Bill 331, which has already cleared the House of Representatives, would require an audit of all villages every 10 years after the U.S. Census to make sure each village provides at least five of the following services:
- Police
- Fire
- Garbage collection
- Water or Sewer service
- Emergency medical services
- Road maintenance
- Park services or other recreation services
- Human services
- Public library established and operated solely by the village.
If a village is unable to meet that requirement, it would automatically trigger a ballot measure on whether or not to dissolve at the next general election.
Additionally, a vote would also be triggered if an elected village position does not have at least one person on the ballot for each vacancy.
Mathews told News 5 that the bill comes after seeing how many taxing entities Ohio has compared to other states.
"You can have a sense of place without having a taxing entity taking out of people’s budgets," he said. "All the villages, they have the final say. This is not an automatic dissolution."
How prevalent are these small villages?
Right now, Aquilla Village is the only municipality in Ohio set to vote this fall to dissolve, but it is far from the only small municipality in the state.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the smallest village in the state is Miltonsburg in Southeast Ohio, with a population of 39.
Here in Northeast Ohio, the title of smallest municipality belongs to Linndale, with a population of 113.
Census data shows there are 29 villages in Northeast Ohio with fewer than 500 residents.
Since 2004, only 14 villages have dissolved in Ohio.
| Village of: | County | Date Dissolved |
| Lawrenceville | Clark | 1/18/07 |
| Saint Martin | Brown | 6/4/13 |
| Fort Shawnee | Allen | 12/3/13 |
| Cherry Fork | Adams | 11/20/14 |
| Uniopolis | Auglaize | 2/7/15 |
| Orient | Pickaway | 3/3/15 |
| Somerville | Butler | 1/19/17 |
| Salesville | Guernsey | 3/9/17 |
| Brady Lake | Portage | 1/23/18 |
| Limaville | Stark | 6/27/19 |
| Smithfield | Jefferson | 11/17/20 |
| Newtonsville | Clermont | 3/23/21 |
| Amelia | Clermont | 1/18/22 |
Thirty miles to the south of Aquilla, Hal Lehman reflected on his 22 years as mayor of Brady Lake, which voted to dissolve in 2017 and formally dissolved in 2018.
The Portage County village, with a population of around 500, had been around for 90 years. Inside his makeshift museum for the village, Lehman said that it became harder to fill council positions and increasingly difficult to compete with bigger villages and cities for grants and funding.
"It just got so hard to try and keep up," he said. "I think it was [for the best to dissolve], but in my heart it wasn’t. You used to know everybody in the village but times are changing."
As a result, Lehman said Brady Lake has not been able to host the community-based events it used to when it was incorporated as a village, but he hopes that can change sometime in the future.
As for what Aquilla voters should consider, Lehman offered this advice:
"You may have to dig a little deeper; you have to weigh the pros and cons and how much it could change," he said. "It could get better, or it could get worse."
A vote to change the future, Lehman said, no matter what, can’t erase the past for these often overlooked pockets of paradise.
"We got memories, you can’t get rid of memories," Lehman said.
Author's Note: Over the course of six weeks, News 5 spoke at length with Rich Wolfe, mayor of Aquilla. Wolfe repeatedly declined to comment on-camera for this story but did contribute background information to help offer a complete picture for the story.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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