Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

1st part of statement to Council

There is a distinct difference between a politician and a public servant.

Politicians make decisions based upon their own best interest in the next election. Public servants make decisions based upon their perception about what is best ?– long term ?– for the community they serve.

A politician will tell you that ?“we don?’t need all that money, let?’s find a way to give some of the people a break on their taxes.?” A very popular notion that doesn?’t fit our current situation ?– AT ALL!

A public servant will look at our community and realize that providing the citizens with an opportunity to increase this city?’s revenues while increasing the income tax primarily on those who work in the city, as opposed to those who live here, is something that is essential for the long-term fiscal health and well being of the city.

In the past, the politicians who occupied these seats mortgaged the future of our city by making decisions that were politically expedient, but without concern or foresight as to how those decisions would impact the community in years to come.

Today, our citizens live with the consequences of those decisions, and the bills are coming due. The primary concerns I have about our situation are these:

1. Our infrastructure has been and is today unable to keep up with the growth of the community.
a. This past week we had a culvert that should have been replaced years ago wash out; making one of our city streets impassable. That culvert replacement project was on our 2007 CIP and removed due to budgetary constraints. It was on our 2008 CIP and removed due to budgetary constraints. Now it?’s an emergency situation and we HAVE to do it even though we?’re not sure where the money is going to come from. Don?’t we owe it to our citizens to address these issues before they become an emergency? Before a street collapses?
b. We?’ve talked in the past about street paving. We would all agree, as our Service Director has pointed out, that a sensible plan is to pave 10% of your streets each year. There are approximately 55 miles of Pickerington city streets. Paving 10% a year would have us paving 27.5 miles between 2004 and 2008. In that time, we will have paved 6.36 miles. In the past three years instead of paving 15 ?½ miles, we?’ve paved 3. At an estimated $85,000/mile, that leaves us roughly $1.8 million behind over the past five years. That says nothing of the nearly $500,000 we should be spending each year on paving. You?’ll notice that I?’m not even taking into account the nearly $10 million we are already spending on the Diley Road widening project. And I know that we would all agree that Hill Road will need to be widened; we need the east/west connectors that have been talked about; and we?’re just a few short years away from needing more stoplights on Refugee, Hill, and Diley Roads. Where is all of that money going to come from?
c. Our sewer plant is at capacity and we have the EPA breathing down our necks. Over the past year we?’ve agreed to spend nearly $10 million to upgrade our facility. The money to pay for this construction has to come from somewhere.



By Jeff Fix

2nd part of statement to Council


2. Our safety situation needs to be improved
a. Chief Taylor told me a couple of years ago and again this week that he is six officers short of being properly staffed. With six more officers he could add one patrol to every shift, increasing the average number of officers on the street from 2.5 to 3.5. Most if not all of us have ridden with our police force. Having only two officers on the street at any one time is a bit frightening to me. When one has to go to an accident, we are left with one patrolman to cover the entire city; and on occasion that patrolman is directing traffic around the accident. How, realistically, can we expect to reduce crime with very little presence in the community. We are fortunate and blessed that there is no ?“crime wave?” impacting our community. Do we need to wait for that to happen to provide our police force with the manpower they need to properly protect our community?
b. Our police force is getting by with patrol cars, many of which should have been turned over by now. Our city has 10 patrol cars, four of which are down for repairs as we sit here this evening. The cost of maintaining older cars continues to escalate but we don?’t have the budget to buy one new car this year. At what point should we decide to provide our police force with cars that run?
c. Last year our police dog, Czar, passed away. We have not had the funds to rebuild our K-9 unit after his passing and we now rely on Columbus police to help us in situations that call for a drug-sniffing dog. To make our schools more safe and drug free we should have our own K-9 unit. To make our streets more safe we need a K-9 unit that can check stopped and suspicious cars for drugs. We owe it to our citizens to make safety a priority. Bringing in incremental income to make that happen should be a priority for this council.

3. Our debt situation is ridiculous
a. Today this city has $29,717,773 in total debt. That?’s over $2,000 in debt for every man, woman and CHILD that lives in this city.
b. $10,308,963 of that is Utility debt. This does not include the projected $10 million we will spend on updating our sewer plant this year and next (So we?’ll have roughly $20 million in utility debt by the end of 2009.
c. Of this debt, $3,256,750 are TIF debts. Some of these pay for themselves, some rely on general funds to pay for them.
d. Since incurring its first debt in 1979, Pickerington has paid $7,522,914 in interest, and only $6,270,945 in principal. Some of our current notes have NO PRINCIPAL paid on them this year, and some have not had principal paid in years past. Does this really make sense to anyone?




By Jeff Fix

3rd part of statement to Council


4. Investment
a. Our predecessors invested in bringing more residents to this city. They did so by giving residential developers breaks on tap-fees, high-density neighborhoods, you name it. They did not invest in bringing a balance between commercial and residential development to our city and they did not plan for the infrastructure needs that a city this size would have. They left that mess for us to clean up. So here we are.
b. This city, in order to find that balance between commercial and residential tax bases, needs to have the ability to invest in a variety of ways, in bringing good, balanced commercial development to this community. Today we have two significant opportunities that our Development Director/City Manager has been working on for quite some time. Both of these opportunities will require and investment by the city to build the infrastructure necessary to bring the developers here. Given our current budgetary constraints, both of those developments will likely go away (or go to Canal Winchester as the last opportunity did). In my business we have to invest in our development machine in order to get it moving in the right direction. We have to provide our development team with the resources and tools necessary to attract quality franchisees. The same is true here. We have to provide our development department with the tools and resources they need to attract quality businesses. Today we aren?’t doing that, we don?’t even have a Director of Development because we can?’t afford one. What does that say about how we want to grow this community?


The bottom line to me, is this: none of us like going to the voters to ask for more money. The fact that we can shift some of the tax burden to those who work here, much more significantly than those who live here, makes this doable for me, and I believe for the voters in this community.

There are those who will say that this city needs less to do the bare minimum. Pay our debts on Diley road, pave a couple of miles of street each year, and maintain our current staff. Could we GET BY with less? Yes. Were we elected to help the city GET BY? I don?’t think so. I believe it?’s the responsibility of this council to get beyond being politicians, to be true PUBLIC SERVANTS and look out for the long-term best interests of this city. GETTING BY doesn?’t cut it for me. Not as a councilman and not as a citizen of this community. We OWE it to the people of this city to give them the opportunity to help us raise the revenues we need to make this city a truly great place to live and work for the next generation of our citizens. Given that I will be voting in favor of putting this measure on the ballot, and for the credit terms as they are before us this evening, and I encourage all of council to do the same.


By Jeff Fix

You just described Keith Smith

Thanks for confirming to the seniors who and what Mr. Smith is.

By 1st part, paragraoh 3