Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

If I remember

Wasn't Bushman out for herself in many of her actions? Did she benefit in real estate during and just after her departure from city ''service''?

show us the money!!

Pam

What makes you think that the citizens of Pickerington and Violet Township want to merge? Forming a citizen committee may seem like a good idea but if both parties are that far apart it will never materialize into an agreement.

When you have a councilman like Fix that likes to use only sound bite clips to put forward his argument. An argument that quite frankly he doesn't understand then you have the uninformed leading the masses that will soon turn on you all.

Instead of this crap about us being ''one community'' put some real facts into your argument. Does the City really need the Township? They can with an action of council create their own paper township and withdraw from the township. I know there are some sentimental reasons why we shouldn't but once we get over that issue will it be better for the community? I have asked at least two members of City Council what the Township does with our $200,000 per year that we pay in property taxes to them. Neither can give me an answer. Can you answer that question? I believe before you start any kind of merger talks you will need to know those answers.

Everytime this subject comes up those in the township want to use the example of Pataskala and their merger. They didn't think it through and they ended up not having enough revenue to fund a police department and other services. I have heard from friends in the Township and they make fun of the City people for paying all of the taxes. Basically the township residents have it made right now and why would they want to increase their taxes?

If you look to ''our pages'' to the left you will find a couple of graphs. I believe these graphs came from a study the City did last year or before. Clearly they show that big box developments over 50,000 sq ft lose money for the City. How can a Big Box in the township make money with a lower tax base? Who provides the services to this area and who builds the roads? It certainly isn't the township.

Is the purpose of a merger to develop more land in the township commercially? Well that is one of the few areas that the Township has authority and they currently have all vacant land in the Township zoned residential. Are you folks in the Township serious about economic development or do you just want to stand back point figures and bitch? Get your trustee off their collective butts and do a plan to justify rezoning areas of the township where appropriate. I know it takes money. Show us you are all serious and run an operating levy to fund some of these actions. In other words put your money where your mouth is.


By Bill

Response to Pam

Pam,

I certainly appreciate the thought you put into your posting and your continued hopes for a united community. Many thoughts have also been posted as to the why?’s or why-not?’s this can happen. Using your word of fundamental, I have to say that I think that an agreement of this magnitude and scope (and yes, controversy) is not the place to start. That may be the simplest answer to this quandary. Perhaps the factions involved in spurring this controversy, for whatever reason, need to look at something simpler and easier for the community to digest to tackle as their first attempt at documentable cooperation.

I also think the community could better digest ?“cooperation?” if it involved the schools. I think they are an equal partner in the overarching community. While I think some thought was given to the schools in this overall package, since the best possibilities for profitable development in our lifetime along SR33 lie in the Canal Winchester school district, I personally feel our schools weren?’t given the same preference and that weighs in my decisions to support or not support this proposed agreement or its sponsors or detractors.

You?’ve made your comments about merger before. I also read comments about paper townships. Weighing both sides I have to begin to think that if the city and township are not willing to scale back their plans to something more agreeable and certainly more manageable, then perhaps it is time for the city to begin to look at what s healthiest for us and the schools and let the township find their own way. I think that a merger will never sell unless the number of voters in the city is greater than the number in the township. You state, and we all see the differences in perspective. We pay 1% and they pay nothing.

You know, while recovering from an illness last month with some time on my hands, and after reading in this forum about paper townships, an hour on Google and I had enough information to start to see the light on the potential gains of forming a township for the city. See, that?’s the problem with most of our political representatives. They sit there and expect you to take them at their word but this is the information age and mountains of information is a few clicks away.

My research indicated that there are several successful precedents for the paper township approach. There are also the Pataskala attempts. Sticking to demographics and geography similar to Pickerington, I have found that there are several other cities that pay less for fire services than what we pay annually to Violet. So, in other words, we could start a city fire department at the same rate we pay now or less. No one can justify any degradation in service; that is an emotional and not factual argument. A trained and qualified fire department is just that. Something I found interesting in looking into this is that potentially city residents?’ homeowner?’s insurance rates could go down. This has to do with the calculations they use in determining rates looking at the number of fire hydrants. There is virtually no house in the city that you can?’t spot a hydrant from the front yard but the township can?’t say that.

Anyway, there?’s not enough room allowed in this forum to continue to report my findings but any of you can hit Google.

Pam, I wish you luck if you get this citizen?’s group started, but let me caution you that you need political buy-in too. If none of the elected officials want what you (or we) want, you?’ll get nowhere. Whatever you come up with has to fit into the majority of the body?’s
political agenda. Another option is to do as we have always done in the past and wait for the next election and HOPE.

By KT Smith