Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

The Next Step

Thanks, Dan, for your thoughtful posting. As you indicate, were the City and Township to merge, everything would be on the table, from the form of government, to the manner of electing councilpersons, to the tax structure. Moreover, the voters would have to approve all of this.

But this is putting the cart ahead of the horse. The first step would have to be the formation of a study committee to carefully examine all the pros and cons of a merger, and of the various merger options. This committee, with the advice of appropriate experts, would prepare a report for the consideration by our City Council, our Board of Trustees, our School Board and our entire community. I do not believe a community survey would be very meaningful until we reached that point. No one yet has had the opportunity to carefully think through all the issues that something like this would raise.

My sense is that this community would be better off without a township, and without dependence on the county for police service. I think that even those who now favor secession of the City from the Township agree with that. I suspect that a merger, if properly and carefully structured, could reduce our overall tax burden, by reducing the overall cost of governance, and by distributing these costs more evenly throughout our community. And I suspect that we would be better off if we had one, and not two, zoning and land use plans, building codes, police departments, etc.

But I have to tell you that, at this point, these are just suspicions. It would take a great deal of careful work to determine accurately the answers to these and other important questions. That work would have to be done objectively, and the committee would have to recommend the approach to all of this that, in their honest and informed judgment, would best serve the interests of this community. That could conceivably be the status quo. If the committee began its work with an axe to grind, its efforts would be wasted.

At this point, all that I can say for certain is that the questions of whether it would be in our best interest to merge the City and the Township and, if so, what form the new city should take, are worth investigating. Let's see if there is something better than the ragged and shopworn options now on the table. That is all that I am proposing.

What do you think? Is this worth at least discussing in person over a cup of coffee some evening at Tim Horton's? If so, let's set a date and get started.

By Yosemite Pam

Not at all

That wasn't my intent. The three minority members have had my respect and support. I have mentioned to them numerous times that they cannot continue to get so consumed by a single issue like this political maneuver of councilmen who have virtually no experience in these matters and lose sight of what they are in office for.

Don?’t you think that some time could have been spent?….oh let?’s see?….doing the annual update to the impact fee study, adding everything new that has happened into the growth management study and building new models, finishing the job they started well over a year ago and upgrade and modernize all the traffic lights, update commercial design standards, update the zoning code?… and on and on and on? (these are just some of the issues mentioned elsewhere in this forum)

I mean come on, a lot of good things happened before this Fix character got elected and virtually any of those things could have been expounded upon. I think the minority could very well have dismissed this agreement as folly and not discussed it after they made the initial responses to it instead of restating their opposition ad nauseum. Had the minority managed to stick to issues and continue forward movement, or more easily said, led and not followed, the majority of council would have had real issues to be debating and acting on rather than the pig in the poke they are now consumed with. By continuing to bicker at every turn, all they have accomplished is the empowerment of this preposterous excuse for a mayor and council majority.

We are possessed with deliberating with a politician for politics?’ sake. We have a councilman trying to sell the city a used Cadillac when we have two new Chevrolets in the garage. We don?’t need a Cadillac, don?’t want the Cadillac and can?’t afford the Cadillac. Why are we discussing a Cadillac? Because a one-dimensional used car salesman cannot think outside THIS sale. What will it take to get you to drive this car home today?

Fix has solicited me as well as others I have talked to to try to get our reasons for opposition and to try to get us to see the light. This is rather funny as most of us have already talked and find his arguments for the plan hysterical. Quite frankly, when the rubber meets the road, this oily slickster salesman doesn?’t have one shred, iota, bit, scrap, or speck of financial analysis to substantiate his claim that any of this is good for the city.

All he can say is ?“Trust Me?”.

All I can say is ?“Peddle your wares elsewhere, I am not interested?”.

Hi Pam

You have mentioned in the past that you have friends in city and township government and that you supported them. In consideration of your friendship and support do you think that they would be willing to totally table this economic agreement today indefinitely and instead throw their support behind the merger committee you propose?

Won't that help put the horse back in front of the cart?

Rather then preach here, how about reaching out to your comrades in elected offices and report back what they told you. With their support and your obvious commitment, you will gather a quick following including me, I promise.

You GO GIRL!!

Find community support first

I talked with Mr. Hackworth on the subject of a merger. I am not sure he is sold on the idea and he thinks we need to find support in the community both in the Township and in the City before spending a lot of time on the subject.

I also asked about why he hasn?’t pushed a Hudson like program to limit residential and encourage commercial growth. Apparently the city was faced with a sewer fund going insolvent. He still wonders how they planned on financing the 2003 sewer plant expansion. If they would have bit into that huge sewer plant expansion in 2004 the city sewer and water funds would have been in default by now. Recently the council did pass legislation to correct that problem in the utilities funds. The second problem is that if only the city controls residential growth and the township doesn?’t then it doesn?’t help our schools. Third the BIA law suit tied the hands of the city and delayed any action the city might do in the future in terms of moratoriums or strong growth controls on residential development. Once the BIA had reached an agreement with the City?’s insurance carrier they basically told the city to take it or be on their own. The good news is that some of those restrictions are expiring now and in a few years all of the restrictions will be gone.

Right now none of us are willing to put our name onto a movement to merge the City and the Township into a new city. The second point is and Mr. Hackworth pointed this out is that once on the inside of government there are more restrictions that you think there are and some of the ideas you held as a private citizen are no longer valid.

Yosemite Pam; I believe the only way to truly get people on board would be to do a survey and try to make that survey as unbiased as possible. If a wide majority of BOTH the city and the Township residents agreed that they would support a merger then maybe it would be time to put together a commission. I remember the Attorney Richard Braum saying that this commission needs to have people already in government and other professionals to provide actual facts about government. Clearly as we saw in the 2001 PATA newsletter private citizens don?’t always get it right. That is not to say that private citizens would be barred from any future commission. In fact, I think for this to fly it would require that the local citizens start the effort and then invite the local government officials in on the talks to provide background and information. I doubt that you will get much support from elected officials without some kind of a survey showing community support for the merger. I think once you get elected officials support you might very well get some expert help from those bodies in the form of legal advice and financial analysis. That would be essential for success.




By Dan