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not worth fighting for now
I think it is not worth fighting for at this time. I think city residents would be willing to form the commission and would get some miniscule township support too. The energy and time expended on this issue by the commission would be better used in other places right now. Maybe helping stem the tide of foreclosures in the community, helping families in need and there are a lot of them you would be surprised.
Launching this political torpedo in these times would not be a productive use of peoples time and energy. Paying more for services we already receive at a fair price would not be welcome in this economy either. I am still looking for that reason to convince township residents why this should be pursued.
There are more ways to be one community in vision etc than merger. Until those ways are fully explored with both sides as willing partners, I believe there will be people on both sides that would not support the merger effort.
Posturing about who is in office is futile unless you run for office.
If you live in the city, I suggest moving to the township to pay less for the same standard of living!
By closet philosopher
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The reason for a merger
How did I know that Pataskala would come up in this discussion? Obviously Pataskala is the poster child for how not to do a merger. It also points out loudly that if the community chooses to do a merger then they must do it for all of the right reasons not some knee jerk reaction by a few activist. The reason I was given for the Pataskala merger was they were afraid that Reynoldsburg was gong to annex all the way to Newark. Eating up their school district and destroy their way of life. To sell the idea they promised no new taxes and it left them with revenues short falls of the operating expenses of running a city in Ohio.
If the narrow minded look to Hudson they wanted to control the school growth and improve the school tax base. They clearly accomplished most of the goals that they set out to do in the early 90s. I understand they have lifted the 100 homes per year and business has been expanding in the newly merged city. They also covered all of their based when they created the new charter for the newly merged city of Hudson, Ohio.
My point here is that if Pickerington and Violet (as a community) decide to merge it must be for all the right reasons and it should provide some benefit to both parties. All of the bases should be covered especially those that deal with finance and future revenues. So the merger commission should have people appointed to it that know the city and the township and people that are familiar with public finance of both. If a group were to be formed then the bomb throwers (activists) that start the action must step aside for the people to do the work of asking the hard questions of when and where this all leads. People with enough knowledge to know the facts and people willing to research the real questions of where this leads the community not just the city or the township.
So let me throw out some issues so that we have things to discuss and to challenge. According to a couple of sources the population of Pickerington is around 16,000. The unincorporated areas of Violet are around 19,000. The Chamber of Commerce says the gap between the two entities is less than 2,500 citizens. I doubt that I will get an argument that the city housing is growing at a higher rate then the township. I guess the question is how long will it take for the city to have more people than the township? Four, five years maybe eight years?
At some point in the very near future the city voters will have the ability to control who is elected to the township trustees board. It appears that Kathy is working on that or at least thinking in that direction.
Future growth in the school district will occur in the township areas. Without cooperation of the county the township trustees are very limited in their ability to promote commercial development and balance that future growth. Obviously we saw that Kroger?’s was built and a few stores in that strip mall but when it came to the big box and widening Refugee road the township was at the mercy of the county. I would not expect cooperation from the county because of the challenges of Weltlich and the claims he made against a sitting county commissioner. Good luck on getting the county to fund 20 plus million on anything.
By BB
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Merger contiuned
Our Closet Philosopher mentioned the bonding with the county. The fact is the township is very limited on what it can borrow. It is limited not by the assessed value in the township ($500,000,000 plus) but its lack of ability to pay back any bond. The state law limits the townships on what they can pledge to pay back any loans. Second; for road improvements they have no authority to upgrade a county road and most of the future development would occur on county roads. Since the township never opted to have a water and sewer department they can not provide those vital utilities without the county. They have no authority to impose income taxes and thus commercial revenues within the township provide little or no revenues to the county or township unless they can collect a small portion of retail sales taxes. Most revenues would be from property taxes and as a percentage it provides very little to the host governments.
Now does the Kroger store charge its customers less at the store across from North when compared to the store in Pickerington? In fact, I have seen more than once the price of gas was higher on the North store.
It is my understanding that the majority of the debt that the city has is on the utilities departments and that debt is being paid back with user fees and that should not affect any one living in the township other than those living in Mingo Estates who use Pickerington water. The nearly $8Million on Diley Road is on the general fund and over 40% of that project is physically located in the township. The talk of cooperation stops once the bills come in. Clearly this project(Diley Road widening) will provide opportunities to the community but the township refuses to pay their share of development expenses in the PLSD. In the very near future projects like this will be needed to expand and grow the rest of Violet Township. Good luck in waiting on the county. What you should also be worried about in the school district is that other entities like Canal Winchester and Reynoldsburg could raid the taxes away from us by building in our school district to provide roof tops for their retail operations (Meijers and Walmart). We may hear the trustee puff up their chest in how they plan to stop future annexations but will that threat always come from Pickerington? Remember a 100% annexation is a 30 day process and if the annexations are smaller or less than 200 acres then there is NO STANDING in court by the trustees. I understand that that Canal has already annexed a 200 acre plot down south with the township?’s blessings. Remember when Weltlich professed to have such a great relationship with Canal? Does that relationship exist today? What will happen in another election cycle or two?
Any merger commission would need to have a very detailed plan on what it planned to do in the future and how it expected to grow the community. Not lets merge now and worry about the revenues later. I would expect this commission to take years with plenty of public input.
Not Pataskala, Not Hudson, but PICKERINGTON
By BB
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Will we be ready?
In the sprit of developing a strategy to plan for the future of the community and the school district I am wondering if a merger might fit into that strategy?
Clearly the powers between a home rule township and a home rule city/municipality are very different and the only way a township can come close to those powers is to borrow them from a local municipality. These JEDDs and CEDAs have been developed to only add to the longevity to the township form of government and to deny the rest of the citizens the revenues needed to run the local community. These agreements are a discussion in themselves.
I remember attending a meeting/seminar paid for by the township which featured Richard Brahm a well known local attorney who specializes in annexations and mergers. The first issue he stressed was to make sure you merged for all of the right reasons and to be honest in how you approached the expectations of this move. The reasons to merge must be accompanied with a plan to obtain the goals laid out in the original merger issue.
So I guess the very first step would be to suggest or promote a reason to merge. Can any of us look forward five or even years to determine what will happen with our economy and our school district? Will we still have the same elected officials carrying out the same policies? As we see in some of the postings there is restlessness already about some in office and I am sure there may be an effort to unseat them this fall. If they are unseated what and where does the community head from there?
So let me ask this question: If you plan to be here in ten years what would you like to see? Will your children still be in school? Will you expect good or in our case excellent schools? How do we plan to support those schools? Do we do it like most neighborhood communities and support the schools with residential property taxes or do we try for a mix of commercial and residential? Do we really want heavy industry? Would we rather have professional offices and maybe some high tech facilities? Most upscale communities have a private/parochial school do we want a school? How about a tech school or college?
I know the Closet Philosopher mentioned that the kids in the neighborhood were helping the elderly. I know that is idealistic to think some of these kids will shovel my driveway without asking for 20 bucks but it may happen somewhere in the community I haven?‘t seen it here on my street. Do we want to retain these senior citizens and provide services geared to them?
Finally how will a merger affect each one of us individually? Will the shock be too great for a township resident to adapt to paying taxes to a city and will the extra burden on the current city dwellers be more than they expect and will the new rules or the lack of rules for a larger city affect them negatively?
What I would like to see is that we focus on the big picture of how merging the two entities would help for future planning and development of the entire community and the school district? Clearly the clock is ticking and the township?’s isolation will be shattered one day soon. Will we all be ready?
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