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It occurs to me that one way to curb the silly spending of our city leaders would be to decrease the amount of cash they have to work with. I am suggesting an income tax cut that would take up some the apparent slack but still leave the city able to perform the functions that we really need.
Might be only a few tenths of a percentage point.
Does anyone out there know how this can be done?
Would it take a petition drive for example? Could such a drive be coupled to a re-do of the recent attempt to get the 3 failed petitions on the ballot?
2003, an election year might be a fine time for such an effort. Certainly would make for a good campaign issue.
Anyone interested?
By Picktown Cowpoke
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Another initiative petition
I believe this income tax roll back could be done via another initiative petition. Recently, residents of Newark, repealed part of the property tax they pay for schools in this manner. You would have to research if the income tax levy upon the citizens is contained in the city charter, and if it is, this would need to be a charter amendment intitative. If the income tax rate was set by resolution of city council, a clearly worded initiative could put the issue on the ballot directing the city government to act upon the result of such voting.
I think your idea has merit, if not only to force them into listening to the citizens who are demanding fiscal responsiblity and controlled residential growth. The city has tools to do both of these things.... but chooses not to act in this manner. I think replacing the city manager with somebody with a different mode of operation and viewpoint would go along way to improving the community. This could be done by replacing the mayor, who according to the city charter, appoints the city manager. Heck you could recall all of them via a ballot recall effort and start over from scratch if you are not willing to wait until 2003. By then they could rezone, via emergency, for at least 5000 more homes.
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Charter limits
Yes there is mention of taxation in the City Charter. Article VII has (4) sections devoted to taxation. Section .01 ?“Limitations on Property Taxes?”, Section .02 ?“Power to incur Indebtedness?”, Section 03 ?“Issuance of Bonds?”, Section 04 ?“Procedure in Bond Issues.?”
For those that might be thinking this way limiting their ability to borrow money and their (or should I say OUR indebtedness) indebtedness limits might also be an option.
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Taxed OUT
I want to remind everyone that just before last fall?’s elections the Pickerington City Council passed two TIFs on commercial property located within the PLSD. The City Council then made this generous gift of $200,000 back to our schools. The council also gave full credit for these gifts to Ms. Sanders and Ms. Carlier.
It is a fact that most fire runs are in that northwest corner of our township. That is also the exact location of one of these TIFs. Now the Violet Township Fire Department is asking that we all shell out $87.00 per year per $150,000 property valuation. Are these related?
The schools would have received at least $60,000 per year without any TIFs. How much did the Pickerington City Council impact the Violet Township Fire Department? Are the highest runs going to the Wal-Mart Store? I know there are also some nursing type facilities in that area also, but did these TIFs push us over the top.
The sad thing here is that the Wal-Mart payroll taxes go to Reynoldsburg. Their fire protection which comes from property taxes is abated. Have those of us in this City and Township really begun to think about the burden we have placed upon ourselves? Just for this one action by the Pickerington City Council we have added an additional $87 per year to our tax bill with no real return to either our students or residents.
IN OTHER WORDS IT IS COSTING US MORE THAN WE ARE RECEIVING FROM ALL THIS GROWTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now you haven?’t got the bill for the water and sewer expansion. Right now if you live in the city and pay for your water and sewer about 60% of that payment goes to retire the debt. That debt is from the original sewer plant back in 1995 and the well system about the same time. The city has before the Ohio EPA an application to double the size of the sewer plant. They want to expand that plant to handle 3.5 Million Gallons per Day. That will service over 10,000 homes. We currently have around 2700 to 3000 homes in the city of Pickerington. Most of the older areas DON?’T have sewer service. I think the city services about 2400 homes in this city.
Sewer tap and water tap fees normally would have paid down these debts incurred in building these plants. Yet our city leaders have given away these tap fees or at least reduced them to attract even more residential properties. We must end this cycle and we must end it very some.
I would recommend that everyone that reads this posting take a drive down to Preston Trails and Sycamore Creek sub-divisions. They are building houses as fast as humanly possible. Where will all these children go to school? Each house creates a negative cash flow for the school even if it only has one child per house. Once we pass this school renewal levy they will be asking for more money to build additional schools and operating monies.
The value of your home is market dependant. They say for everyone who sells their home the buyer has looked at 11 other homes before looking at yours. Now if that same buyer has 800 new homes to compare yours with which will he chose to make an offer to? The only way you now can sell your home is to LOWER your asking price. Don?’t ever tell me that all this building is good for the taxpayers.
By Joe Sixpack
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