Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

open to the public

I think the city is headed in a direction that will surly make it a much less desirable place to live in the near future. I think council has isolated itself by remaining silent on the needs of the city and in some cases actual pie in the sky projects.

Last January or February I read in the minutes that involving the public in developing a tax proposal would take too long. They (the public) simply couldn?’t get up to speed fast enough. It appears that the expense subcommittee that was formed soon after these comments is still active. When someone does go onto the city WEB site and pull out the budget and recite numbers from that budget it causes brain freezes and it is described as ?“mind-numbing?”. In reality the person posting those comments is probably a sitting council member. How comforting.

What has been so frustrating with the current bunch on council is that they are making the decisions and THEY are jamming them down our throats. We apparently in the voting public are not smart enough to figure out the complex issues like debt and taxes.

It has been a while since I have attended any meetings at city hall but many times you sit in the gallery and you only have an agenda. The different members of the council or a commission begin to debate and talk about the issue at hand. They have their blue prints, a copy of the ordinances or the agreement being discussed. Many times the people in the audience have no idea of what the members are talking about. It is not that we are stupid it is that we simply don?’t have the same information of what is being discussed or a lawyer to explain to us those areas that are foreign to most people.

The fact is that most on council have no better of an understanding of any of these issues than those in the audience. However the council has had some time to study the issue and ask questions of those that do have the expertise. Yet this same council expects the public to overwhelmingly pass a tax issue with many parts to it without any advice from experts or actually seeing any of the details.

I have also seen postings here that say no one has bothered to show up at the council meetings to speak their mind about income taxes and other issues. I have seen people speak at council and I have seen them made fun of and in some cases harassed by over aggressive members. Even is you organize a large group they still ignore you and your group's comments. They go ahead and do what they were going to do in the first place.

I remember a few years ago before Diley Road started that ODOT had a meeting at the church and they had all of the plans laid out for the Diley Road widening. I still didn?’t agree with them but I was able to vent a little on just how dumb their idea was. Obviously I had no power to stop the project and the reality finally set in. So far the project looks good and I think it will add to the community. Still concerned with the chuck holes forming already.

continued

I think just as clear is that the council wasted all year holding these meetings with these subcommittees of the Finance committee. Two weeks before the vote on issue 14 the expense committee offered its recommendations for cuts. Then shortly after the vote, the city manager comes up with $1.5 million in cuts. Obviously those cuts are inflated because it was based on new anticipated money from issue 14.

The point that council should learn here is that instead of spinning your wheels assign the tasks of cut recommendations to the Manager. He can normally make cuts that still allows him to run the city and not run it into the ground.

I am stumped by the manager?’s comment that he wouldn?’t recommend that the income tax issue be run again. I read on the councilman?’s blog that they will decide if or when they will run the tax issue again on December 10th.

I guess as a voter I would like to see the city make a decision for or against new taxes. I would also like to see a couple of public meetings in an informal setting where voters can roam and ask questions. This would include drawings and excerpts from the budget blown up so everyone had the same information. Create a feedback on emails where voters could leave questions or make comments either by giving their names or by remaining anonymous. Certainly our city could amend its email system to accommodate anonymous emails those that are inappropriate then don?’t show them. But try to answer everyone?’s questions whether they leave their name or not, instead of making up the questions like they did with issue 14. Make that email address available and published to everyone.

I have seen the newspapers conduct polls online. I know there are people that vote more than one time but do we have the technology to restrict the numbers of times a person votes?

My point here is to get the public involved in the decision to raise their taxes. Clearly the city has not made its case to the voters. They have a huge gap (65 to 35) to make up and unless they get consistent with their message and adjust that message to the public wants then it will take a long time to close that voting gap. There is a going mistrust in the city of the council. It is up to them to turn that around. The difference with an income tax issue that must go before the voters is that they are expecting the same information that council gets. Would we expect council to vote on an issue with only the agenda or some talking points?

Some good points

Ted,

You make some good points. Isn't 20/20 hindsight a wonderful view?

I'll ask you this question: Why were you not the champion of these recommendations during your 4 year tenure? he system seemed to work for you then but it doesn't now?

So are you recommending that all residents receive the same council package you all got before your meetings? Or are you saying it should be online? Or what? How many trees must we kill?

Police Levy 2001.

I do not believe that the city has put a tax issue on the ballot for 6 or 7 years now. So how can anyone make recommendations when the situation had not been presented to the person that you think posted?

I am sure you will have an opportunity to make those recommendations on December 10th and take all of the credit.