DevelopOhio

The Ascena Retail Group, based in Licking County, recently filed a lawsuit to prevent an August vote on a proposed joint economic development zone (JEDZ) between Etna Township and the City of Reynoldsburg. Ascena’s lawsuit claims that “members of both the Reynoldsburg City Council and Etna Township’s trustees … met either privately or in executive session in violation of Ohio’s open-meetings law before their May 5 approval of the JEDZ contract,” according to The Columbus Dispatch. The Etna Township JEDZ proposal would “impose a 1.5 percent income tax on anyone working in the zone — 58 parcels covering about 1,500 acres — and a 1.5 percent tax on the net profits of any business operating in the zone over the next 99 years,” the article said.