Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

PATA Has Inaccurate Information

Lisa,

I?’m really interested about PATA taking credit for the donation of land from the developer of Wellington Park and, in particular, your statement, ?“PATA members stood up and fought this over 18 months ago at the first zoning hearing.?”

PATA did not exist 18 months ago.

As I have often said, PATA needs to be factual and accurate with its information to have ever have any credibility with the public, the media and public officials. You have a lot of inaccurate information on your web pages. I told Bill Miller months ago he had inaccurate information about Pickerington schools taxes. I shared accurate information with him from the Ohio Department of Taxation. His information is still on your website and still is inaccurate.

PATA must earn the trust of pubic officials, the media and the general public with objective and accurate information. So far, you have only earned the reputation of extremists, troublemakers and political hot potatoes (Southeast Messenger), and unless you change your tactics, within a year or two will fade like SMART did.

Mark W. Uher


By Mark W. Uher

Stone Throwing harms our kids

Feb 18, 2001
You are right Mark, PATA did not exist over 18 months ago, but it's members who are in the organization now...were at the hearing! You were not. The results of the hearing are one of the many reasons PATA was formed! We all started showing up at the same meetings to effect issues and thought maybe we should get together and make it organized! I see that you seem to take pleasure taking potshots at people who neogotiated with this developer to try to help reduce the impact on our schools... while you are willing to headline the effort to ask the community to pay more taxes to support our children's needs...shouldn't the two have a common thread in your mind...less impact on schools from housing developments means a better situation for our kids! I see we need to draw another picture for you to remind you that some of your basic beliefs are really the same as some of the PATA members you throw stones at.

By the way, he did not offer land.... he offered CASH. Please Call Lori Sanders to confirm the situation, she will tell you who asked and followed up. I hope the school officials follow up and get this in writing and that the check does not bounce. I have written other developers to encourage them to contribute in this manner too. I hope you will consider doing the same thing. Donating to the levy campaign is great, but cash into the capital development fund is better!
-By Lisa Ross

PATA Steals Credit

The real unsung heroes of the potentially large cash donation for our Pickerington schools are John Brinson & Chevington Village Civic Association and the progressive, enlightened developer, Mr. Ruma.

PATA tried to steal the credit and headlines. PATA didn't exist 18 months ago.

Violet Township residents should be praising proactive developers like Mr. Ruma and his concern for the welfare of our community. We need more enlightened business persons like him.

Pickerington school board member Gail Oakes should be encouraging contributions and donations to our schools rather than berating and humiliating the donating business. For the record, Mrs. Oakes voted against or abstained from voting on the last two large donations to our schools. PATA members should encourage Mrs. Oakes to embark on a genuine ?‘fiscal responsibility crusade?’ instead of taking thousands of dollars of tax money for her own personal benefit and berating contributions to the schools. I hope Mrs. Oakes votes to accept Mr. Ruma?’s contributions and praise John Brinson for all his work.

Thanks John and the Chevington Village Civic Association!

Mark W. Uher

P.S. Lisa, how quickly you forget my efforts on behalf of my civic association to negotiate a lower housing density with the developer in the land adjacent to you (even though we lost the initial battle). I always have been for smart growth and accurate public information. I just don't like PATA's tactics and misinformation. I firmly support all the noble efforts of our area outstanding civic associations to control growth.

Come Together

Mark, you are right. The P.A.T.A did not exist 18 months ago.

I believe it was June, 1998 that David Ruma of Davidson Philips visited myself and the rest of the Chevington Village Civic Association board of trustees. Back then ?“P.A.T.A.?” was known as the ?“ad-hoc committee?”. We were trying to convince any and all listeners to take a stance against wanton residential development, which, by the way, is the same stance P.A.T.A. now takes.

Oh how I dream that you will somehow become a member of P.A.T.A. and help us to help ourselves!

P.A.T.A. did not take a stance on issue #14. I did and I opposed it. Now, I?’m actually glad it passed. My point is people get things wrong sometimes. And perhaps, you too are wrong not to join P.A.T.A. Your tremendous effort and energies could greatly assist our endeavor.

Is P.A.T.A. radical if they chose to hold public officials and public policy accountable? I do not think so. We must challenge our leaders -- always. This is simple democracy.

Maybe your direct input, as a member of P.A.T.A., could help us all to more clearly see that it is not only Pickerington that is putting the screws to our wallets, but also Violet Township?

The fact of this whole complicated situation is that we, as a community, need to curtail residential growth. Pickerington and Violet Township are knee deep in residential construction, now and well into 2002, and we need a legal means to curtail future reckless residential growth that is not only going to price our fixed-income neighbors out of our community, but also drive away potential buyers of our homes by our excessive property taxes.

The fragile entity in all of this is our school district, which I truly believe is the finest in all of central Ohio. Thank God for P.L.S.D. Keep up the fine work!

Finally (to Mark, all P.A.T.A. members and the rest of this community), we must come together, if even for one piece of legislation, one petition, one means to stop this craziness or else we are all in for a long haul, both financially and personally.

Someone please get us together, to put legal home construction limits on our community! 1% sounds good; ?½ % sounds better. I would hope we could all agree that this is in all of our best interests -- except, perhaps, our elected leaders and their bosses (home-builders).