After much debate for the past several months, the Columbus City Council voted 6-0 Monday to adopt two 5-percent ticket taxes to fund the arts and improvements to Nationwide Arena.

And while local sports agent Bret Adams, activist Mike Gonidakis and their group of opponents plan to gather signatures for a ballot referendum on the arts tax and file a legal challenge against the arena tax, Arnold Sports Festival founder Jim Lorimer now no longer opposes the taxes, saying before the vote Monday that he thinks a referendum would divide the community.

The council also approved 6-0 a memorandum of understanding in which the city will contribute $50 million in public improvements for site development and infrastructure related to the proposed Arena District soccer stadium for Columbus Crew SC and conversion of the Crew’s current home, Mapfre Stadium, into a community sports park.

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Ohio House is set to vote Wednesday on a bill that now contains $15 million in state funding for the new Crew stadium. The funding amendment was added to an unrelated bill, along with a host of other capital items. It includes $20 million to reconstruct the underground Statehouse parking garage and $2 million for upgrades and repairs at the Governor's Residence in Bexley soon to be occupied by incoming Gov. Mike DeWine.

Rep. Mike Duffey, R-Worthington, sporting a “save the Crew” scarf, said the amount was worked out among the city, county and Crew investors to make the deal come to fruition within the timeline.

I think the original hope among some folks was that the number would be higher, but the legislature kept pairing it down,” said Duffey said, who added he would prefer no public money go toward sports stadiums.

“That said, we’ve worked really hard to get to this point, and I’m not going to second-guess or oppose it," Duffey said.

In the city's deliberations, Councilwoman Elizabeth Brown abstained from both votes. She said she did so because her father-in-law is Tom Katzenmeyer, president and CEO of the Greater Columbus Arts Council, which proposed the ticket tax.

The 20,000-seat Crew soccer stadium and community sports park projects are part of a proposed $645 million development that includes offices and housing near the new stadium.

“I knew we were going to win this fight,” said Morgan Hughes, a leader in the fight to prevent Crew SC from moving to Austin, Texas.

Franklin County has also pledged $50 million toward the project.

Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam and Dr. Peter H. Edwards Jr. and his family of Columbus plan to buy Crew SC from Anthony Precourt, putting a total of $400 million into the partnership under the memorandum. The new $230 million soccer stadium would be the centerpiece of the “Confluence Village” development that would include 270,000 square feet of commercial and office space and 885 residential units, 20 percent of which would be designated as “affordable housing.”

The developers still need to purchase some of the land that would be involved.

Community activist Joe Motil and Franklinton Area Commissioner Christopher Merkel criticized the city for rushing the deal through.

Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, said Major League Soccer required a deal quickly; the deadline was Dec. 31.

Councilwoman Priscilla Tyson, holding up a Crew scarf after the vote, said the development would enhance the city's quality of life.

As far as the ticket taxes go, Council President Shannon Hardin called them “a fair plan, a bold plan, a realistic plan.”

The first tax will be on performances and sporting events costing more than $10 a ticket at venues with more than 400 seats, not including Nationwide Arena. That tax will raise $6 million for arts groups through the GCAC.

The second 5 percent tax will generate an estimated $2.4 million for arena repairs and $600,000 for the arts. Adams said his group proposed an amendment with all the money raised at arena events going to the arena, but the city council rejected that.

The taxes would begin to be collected on July 1, 2019.

Lorimer had opposed both the initial 7 percent ticket-tax proposal and the later 5 percent proposals, but he wrote a letter to Hardin on Monday saying he would not oppose the taxes.

In his letter, Lorimer wrote that one reason he changed his mind is that the exemption from the tax of nonprofit associations and smaller groups "will positively impact many of our event coalition members."

Lorimer also told The Dispatch that he had conversations with "leadership in the community" who persuaded him to change his mind. He said his sports events will still be taxed.

Fischer was one of those leaders, who said that the smaller and separate taxes are better, since venue owners had been concerned that the 7 percent tax would leave them at a competitive disadvantage with other cities.

The legislation was amended so nonprofit exemptions would include labor groups and trade associations, such as the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. Also, fundraising events by nonprofits won’t be affected.

Tickets for Ohio State sporting events won’t be taxed. The university has pledged $1 million a year to local arts groups, and there was legal precedence suggesting the city would have trouble going that route.

Columbus Blue Jackets President Mike Priest supported the 5 percent tax for Nationwide Arena events because it would go toward capital expenses needed at the arena and is less than the 7 percent tax the team opposed.

On a busy night, the last council meeting of the year, the body also passed two more high-profile items. They involved:

• Requiring companies receiving tax incentives to expand to pay a $15-an-hour minimum wage. “We want to raise wages in the city,” Brown said.

• Updating the city's retaliatory eviction law, which council said is outdated and difficult to enforce because of the lack of definitions. About 18,000 evictions a year are filed in Franklin County Municipal Court, the highest in the state.

The council delayed a vote on campaign contribution limits.

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik