Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Take a look at the 2005 Facilities Review Committee Report, a PDF document under ''Our Pages''. It may be eye-opening for you.

Effective Communication

I tried to open the PDF site on the school facilities report and the data is no longer available. None of the questions presented below that were even closely related to my questions. So maybe someone should first make sure a site is still available before scoffing at someone's questions. I certainly hope our Pickerington teachers don't treat our students this way when they ask questions.

What Any Mouse is now suggesting is that we all review the minutes of the board meeting for the last fifteen years and infers that is our duty. The fact is most minutes of any meeting are nothing more than summaries and trying to get verbatim transcripts which by now are probably not available is a waste of most people's times. Obviously Any Mouse is either a board member or a PLSD staff member. Those actual documents that show the reasoning behind why the Central High School only got a 15 year roof versus a 30 year roof are either never existed or they are so buried by now that it would take the remainder of the summer to piece together the facts.

So assuming that Any Mouse is a Pickerington School Board Member then a three sentence answer would have sufficed.

The same goes for the planning argument. I never got into the 1997 facilities report because most of the data contained there was not followed and that is where I believe most of the criticism of the board came from or at least from a very vocal group.


What has been suggested here on this site is that the school hire someone to poll the residents of the district and find out what they want. Clearly being on a school board you are normally surrounded by school zealots that are very much in favor of any facility anytime or should I call them the receivers. This group includes the teachers. Then there are the givers who pay the taxes and vote but they do not receive any DIRECT benefit from the school system.

Trying to read the public by doing polls on the School District web site or the PATA web site only draws those that have time on their hands or the school zealots. With a school district that is at 19th in size in the state, PLSD is going to need a more sophisticated system of placing bond and levy issues on the ballot. I believe that the City of Pickerington and in some ways Violet Township are now beginning to realize they are no longer that sleepy little town outside of Columbus. With a school district this large it will require an even bigger effort to get future levies passed. Once the board can get an accurate reading on the voters they may be able to present an unified message to the MAJORITY of them and pass some of the future levies. The poll may even show that the voters will not support any kind of levy.


In politics voters have kind of a herd mentality. I will tell you that 99% of them will do little or no research on the issues presented or the candidates running. Like I said earlier the lady down the street knew of no one on the ballot and she was asking me. The only thing she was sure of was that she was not voting for the school levy. To pass money issues will take more than presenting the school's need.

Doing a scientific poll and actually listening to what to the voters are saying will give the levy committee and the school board a lot of insight on the prejudices and feelings of the voters. You can then fashion your message to them to take advantage of what you learned in the poll. I am not saying that I am that person but I do know that there are professional consultants that are extremely good at creating a well energized campaign and getting the majority of the voters to support a levy.



By Power Walker

try again

I was able to open the pdf school facilities report on the our pdf area on this site with no problem just a minute ago, please try again.

Our PDF pages

I now see where the 49 page report is posted. Actually it is in the ''Our PDF Pages''. It appparently must be assessed from the home page. because it doesn't show up on my screen on the discussion page.

I have to go to work now I will read it over in the next day or so and give my comments about the report. Has this report been adopted by the School Board or was this just an avisory committee report?

By Power Walker