A petition to annex 277 acres into the village of Batavia has been filed with the Clermont County Board of Commissioners.

According to Mayor John Thebout, the village’s intention is to bring county offices back into the village.

“The county has continuously moved facilities out of the village to property on Bauer Road,” Thebout said. “We maintain that these offices should be in the village. We are the county seat. We’re moving up there to get what has left this village in previous years.”

The petition, for the annexation of 28 parcels of land east of the village, is the third annexation petition filed by the Batavia in the past two years. The first annexation brought the UC Clermont College campus into the village. The second annexation brought the sheriff’s office and Clermont County Municipal Court within village limits.

The petitioner in this annexation petition is Glen Wiedenbein, who also requested property he owns be annexed in the second annexation. Other, government owned properties included in the petition filed last week include the county office complex near Bauer Road and Batavia High School.

The county has 45 days to act on the petition. After the county acts on the petition, the village must wait 60 days before accepting the petition by ordinance. The ordinance would take effect 30 days after it was passed.

“If all goes without delay, this will be done by the beginning of November,” Village administrator Dennis Nichols said.

Once the properties are in the village, property owners are able to receive certain services from the village, such as police protection, and the village is able to collect a 1 percent earnings tax from employees who work at the annexed properties.

Nichols said that his best estimate is that the village would collect an additional $200,000 per year in earnings tax revenue from this annexation.

Nichols said that when he was hired, he was charged with rehabilitating the village’s finances. At that time, he said, the village had already laid off police officers, street workers, and the administrator’s position had been cut to part-time due to shrinking revenue.

“We have been seeing declining revenue since 2005 because of other government entities moving employees out of the village,” Nichols said. “They’ve moved to the outskirts of the village, and that’s not supposed to happen in the county seat.”

Nichols said that annexation will benefit everyone involved.

“This is going to enhance the community,” Nichols said. “This is good for us, and good for them.”