Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Initiative preserves residents' rights

Thursday, March 8, 2007




There is a good deal of misinformation about our initiative petition making the local papers. I'm writing to set the record straight.

The initiative was not a secret. Over 900 people signed it. It was circulated by 21 people at the same time as the referendum petition.

While a referendum petition must be completed in a set period of time, there is no time limit for collecting initiative signatures.

The initiative was held back pending the review of the signatures on the referendum. If there was a problem with the signatures on the referendum, we would have collected more signatures for the initiative. If some members of council were surprised by this initiative, perhaps they should talk with their neighbors more often.

There is no secret agenda for the charter amendment. It is all about preserving the city's right to conform its boundaries, or create a ''paper township.'' All cities have the right to create a paper township and remove the territory from the host township. A city would do this if there was a financial benefit to the city residents.

The initiative is not an endorsement of conforming the city's boundaries, future annexations or more housing developments. The initiative is insurance that the council won't give away the rights of the city and Its citizens, as they did in the master economic development agreement.

A responsible council would conduct a cost-benefit analysis prior to making an important decision like conforming the boundaries. An irresponsible council would give away that right without a review.

The citizens who collected signatures included the council minority and several former councilmen and mayors. Our own resources were used to put the petitions together, without help from the city staff. Our group is united in our belief that the master economic development deal narrowly passed by council was bad for the citizens of Pickerington.

We're not against commercial development or cooperation with our neighbors in Violet Township. We want future development agreements to be negotiated on their merits and be fair to all parties involved.

Anthony Barletta

Pickerington


By Petition carrier

More from TWIP

Two citizen-led measures are heading to ballot

Thursday, March 8, 2007

By SEAN CASEY
ThisWeek Staff Writer

Pickerington voters will have the ultimate say on a master economic agreement adopted by city council earlier this year.

In a unanimous emergency action Tuesday night, city council forwarded a citizen initiative intended to preserve Pickerington's powers to annex land and conform its boundaries to the Fairfield County Board of Elections for inclusion on the May 8 ballot.

If approved, the measure would negate a cooperative development agreement with Violet Township, in which the city committed not to annex residential land or split from the township by conforming its municipal borders.

The effective date of that agreement, which council approved on Jan. 2, had already been delayed by a citizen referendum filed with the city earlier this winter requesting that voters determine final approval of the development pact.

Shortly before council's vote on the initiative Tuesday night, finance director Linda Fersch announced that measure has also been certified and will appear on the ballot in November's general election.

Although the vote to place the initiative regarding boundary limits could prove injurious to the master agreement approved in January, the majority members of council had their hands tied on the matter.

According to Phil Hartmann, the city's law director, the initiative fulfilled all legal criteria, and as such the Supreme Court of Ohio mandates council to submit the measure to the elections board between 120 and 60 days prior to the next election.

Under those conditions, Pickerington has until March 9 to file with the elections board.

''Council really doesn't have any choice on the matter as long as it meets those requirements,'' Hartmann said.

Chambers cleared out quickly after the meeting adjourned as the announcement that both citizen initiatives are headed to the ballot marked the culmination of months of dispute over the joint agreement, which would have directed the growth of Pickerington for as many as the next 30 years.

Councilman Jeff Fix, who negotiated the proposal with Violet Township, has championed cooperation as essential to luring commercial growth to Pickerington. He said the parcels most attractive to developers lie far outside city limits, and annexing them would prove difficult and cost-prohibitive. He said that committing not to annex additional residential properties or turn Pickerington into a ''paper township'' held little risk because the city had little to no incentive to invoke those powers.

After six months of intense debate on the proposal, he won the support of fellow council members Cristie Hammond, Heidi Riggs and Keith Smith.

Councilmen Ted Hackworth, Michael Sabatino and Brian Wisniewski opposed the agreement, however, arguing, among other points, that the city should retain those municipal rights, especially because they did not bear on issues of commercial growth.

Debate over the agreement, which would have established a framework for the formation of joint development districts, gripped city council for nearly a year, but now the public will settle the argument.

You GO GIRL

Hey Carol, I seldom can figure out what you are talking about but you are in print.


Petition gives residents a say
In regard to the initiative petition circulated in Pickerington: This is not a battle between old mayors or former people who served on council. This issue is about we, the people.

We, the people, went down to Pickerington City Council when this started and addressed city council with our concerns about the master development agreement. We, the people, spoke over and over again, but were not heard by the council majority who wanted what they wanted and did not address our concerns.

So we, the people, took it upon ourselves to get a referendum and an initiative petition circulated so we, the people, could be heard and could have a voice in what very much affects us directly. Our voices are heard with the petitions; we want a say in what happens with our city.

... The voters' voices were heard when all council candidates got to be council members, and our votes are what got them there, because we, the people, believed that our voices would be heard when we stepped into a council meeting and expressed our concerns. Since our concerns were not addressed, we, the citizens of Pickerington, took it upon ourselves to petition for our voices to be heard, to have a say what happens to our city.

That is all this petition is about: the rights of this city and the people who live here.

Carol Carter

Pickerington

How can this be?

If I were a betting person I would guess that Ms. Carter is not the manager of a huge corporation selling French fires to our kids. She does understand the issues that this agreement presents to the taxpayers of Pickerington. For that we should be thankful that Carol and her friends walked the streets of Pickerington to get the voters input on the issue. It appears the Mayor and Council majority were not representing our priorities only their own.