Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Twenty years ago the movie makers came up with Police Academy 4 which was a spoof comedy on a metropolitan police department. The center of the plot was citizens patrolling the city streets.

In 2007, our county has proposed the very same thing within our community. They didn?’t bother to change the name of the program of CITIZENS ON PATROL.

Without a Tackleberry or Budda Smith around this time I doubt this program will work. I am not sure who is volunteering for this program but we should all be concerned with wanabee cops driving around our neighborhoods in patrol cars. Since they are volunteers it concerns me that there will be very little leverage over these volunteers and keeping them in line with the program. Why don?’t we take that money and hire a couple of deputies?

We can only wait to have them take the law into their own hands.


By Tackleberry

Cat removal

I am wondering if Tackleberry can remove the neighbor's cat from by Oak Tree with his 44 magnum?

Police shortage

It is interesting that high density townships like Violet don't pay for police protection even though they are now ''Home Rule''. As we see the community urbanize we also see an increase in crime. Conveniently the trustees can simply blame the county sheriff if there is a crime problem. Now if we do a little quick math we will find that with a population of around 20,000 people and at any given time there are two deputies available for the township areas.I would say we are probably looking at one sworn officer for every 2000 people in the township. In the City of Pickerington you see one sworn officer for every 500 people and they need more. If the argument is well we can call in the sheriff's department then so can the City.

As we continue to attract commercial development ''for our schools'' we also will attract the criminal element. There are those that want to ignore the issue until they find it on their doorstep one morning. Block watches and other programs to add eyes for the police in our neighborhoods are all well and good. But when we spend money with old police patrol cars then there is a real police shortage and none of our politicians are willing to admit too.