BY OAK HARBOR MAYOR QUINTON BABCOCK

The opportunity for Ottawa County today is perhaps greater than ever if we choose to capture it.

There is an old joke in Oak Harbor that the county line stops at Lacarne (for those unfamiliar, Lacarne is an unincorporated town roughly halfway between Oak Harbor and Port Clinton). The joke is usually said when a local agency makes an investment in the east end of the county without commensurate attention to the west.

As in: “Did you see they are going to spend all that grant money in Port Clinton? I can’t believe that.” To which an Oak Harboran might reply, “Yep. You know the county line stops at Lacarne.”

It’s worth noting that there are several versions of the quip. For example, in Genoa, the joke usually goes “the county line stops in Oak Harbor.”

These days, I think the location of the county line is less clear than it used to be. The Beacon’s intentional approach to covering events in Oak Harbor and west is just one example of the line being less clear than when my grandfather was my age. While a strong rivalry remains, gone are the days when Oak Harbor and Port Clinton high school students would routinely engage in petty crime and hijinks in service of the rivalry game.

Nonetheless, barriers indeed remain. When I speak to many of my friends on Catawba, references to places like Oak Harbor, Genoa and Elmore are often taken in the same tone as foreign destinations—albeit with less enthusiasm. Many have never been to experience the delightful small businesses in these communities or wonderful attractions like Schedel Arboretum & Gardens that I know they would love (of course, the geographic reverse is true, though to a lesser extent).

As Mayor in Oak Harbor, I think a lot about the opportunity to challenge these barriers.

A few years ago, PC Mayor Mike Snider and I worked with our legislators to seek funding collaboratively from the state. By casting a vision that contained both communities, we were able to secure approximately $500,000 combined for improvements to Oak Harbor’s riverfront and to the Greater Port Clinton Area Arts Council’s Art Garage on Perry Street. Last year, we were able to bring Genoa into the fold using a similar approach, and they received $100,000 for improvements to their historic theatre and townhall.

In this biweekly column, I hope we can challenge these lines together. We’ll look at what’s happening in Oak Harbor and elsewhere west of Lacarne, celebrate what makes our communities unique, and explore the impact we can create when we work together.