We need a merger
Recent events have convinced me, more than anything, that this community needs one government, not two. We need to merge the City of Pickerington and Violet Township. If our elected leaders won't set this process in motion, then we voters and taxpayers need to do so on our own.
Cooperation might get us to the same place, if the city and township governments were willing and able to cooperate. But they are not, as clearly demonstrated by the events of the past few months. Such divisiveness will spell our doom.
As I have said before, we are one community. There is little of consequence that happens in the city that does not affect the rest of the township, and vice versa. We are not going to solve any of our common problems unless we all start to pull in the same directions. Roads, zoning and land use planning, parks, water and sewer, management and control of residential growth, and encouragement of productive commercial development -- all of these require a common, community-wide effort.
Unless we start to view these issues from that perspective, builders, developers and others will continue to eat our lunch. We will be left, not with the kind of community we want, but with a hodgepodge of subdivisions and strip malls. We're heading that way already.
Once more we are starting to hear talk of annexations -- the sort of talk that has gotten us in the miss we're in, with houses sitting on land that should have been reserved for offices, schools filled to the brim, roads that are years out of date, little if any urban planning, and property taxes out of control. It's starting to sound as if the revolution in city hall that we engineered four years ago never happened.
Enough of this nonsense. Let's settle on one good form of government for all of us, combining the best features of the city and of the township, and perhaps improving on both. And let's elect people who will unite this community, not divide it.
By Yosemite Pam
Recent events have convinced me, more than anything, that this community needs one government, not two. We need to merge the City of Pickerington and Violet Township. If our elected leaders won't set this process in motion, then we voters and taxpayers need to do so on our own.
Cooperation might get us to the same place, if the city and township governments were willing and able to cooperate. But they are not, as clearly demonstrated by the events of the past few months. Such divisiveness will spell our doom.
As I have said before, we are one community. There is little of consequence that happens in the city that does not affect the rest of the township, and vice versa. We are not going to solve any of our common problems unless we all start to pull in the same directions. Roads, zoning and land use planning, parks, water and sewer, management and control of residential growth, and encouragement of productive commercial development -- all of these require a common, community-wide effort.
Unless we start to view these issues from that perspective, builders, developers and others will continue to eat our lunch. We will be left, not with the kind of community we want, but with a hodgepodge of subdivisions and strip malls. We're heading that way already.
Once more we are starting to hear talk of annexations -- the sort of talk that has gotten us in the miss we're in, with houses sitting on land that should have been reserved for offices, schools filled to the brim, roads that are years out of date, little if any urban planning, and property taxes out of control. It's starting to sound as if the revolution in city hall that we engineered four years ago never happened.
Enough of this nonsense. Let's settle on one good form of government for all of us, combining the best features of the city and of the township, and perhaps improving on both. And let's elect people who will unite this community, not divide it.
By Yosemite Pam
