Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Dr. Rigelman,

Thank you for explaining the dilemma our school board and this entire community is facing. I remember a year or so ago Mr. Yocum, the PLSD superintendent, made a comment at a Pickerington City Council meeting that a ?“Revenue Neutral Development?” would require that all of the houses within that development be in the $700,000 range. I want to point out that according to your figures currently in the PLSD we have a property evaluation per student of $268,214 (assessed value = 35% or $93,875). That is an extremely low figure for delivering dollars per student in any school district.

Doing a very quick check of the Ohio Department of Education web site with figures dated in 1998 compared with Franklin county school districts we are 20% to 30% lower in property valuation per student than other school district. The only school district with lower in property valuation per student is Hamilton Township Local Schools. Even Canal Winchester Schools ($110,000) is considerable higher in assessed value than Pickerington schools ($78,000).

To get our local tax problems down to the lowest denominator, I believe strongly that we must set in place a community plan to increase that property valuation per student in the next few years.

I believe Pickerington, Violet Township, Canal Winchester and Columbus have pursued a development plan that has buried this community in debt and uncertainty. The root of the problems rests on the water and sewer plants and how we have tried to resolve these EPA issues. It is my understanding that currently Canal Winchester is using 30% capacity on their sewer plant. To pay for it the Pickerington residents of Sycamore Creek and the new Diley farm development will be paying CW for sewer services. This is a direct result of poor negotiation on the part the Pickerington Officials in 1996. We must now provide CW with AT LEAST 100 sewer taps per year or Pickerington gets penalized.

Fairfield County is not much better. They have a plant on little The Walnut Creek that is using only 20% of its capacity, that obvious means that the county will be pushing residential development just to pay off their debt and drive PLSD deeper into the hole.

Currently Pickerington has an application before the Ohio EPA to double the size of its sewer plant to 3.5 million gallons per day. Once they get the permit to install they will have even more sewer capacity for the area. Sewer areas, that I might add, that are overlapping. They have been competing with each of the above sewer providers (Columbus, Canal Winchester, and Fairfield County) for years now to get the sewer business.

School funding cont. #1

Water and Sewer services attract residential development. Slowing this water and Sewer capacity development will certainly slow residential growth. Currently Canal Winchester, Fairfield County and Pickerington have invested millions to build and operate these sewer plants. The alarming issue here is the debt load that the City of Pickerington is currently carrying. That certainly will have a very strong effect on Pickerington City residents in their ABILILITY to pay additional schools taxes.

It is obvious to me; one consideration in increasing assessed value per student is slowing the rate of residential growth down. One way to slow residential growth is to choke off the water and sewer expansion. They can?’t build houses without those services.

What has the school board done to slow growth?

For a long time, I have been concerned with the LACK of action on the part of the PLSD. I wrote to and spoke to the Granville Village Schools Treasurer. I was interested in how and why their Community Authority agreement with M/I homes came to be. He told me that one of the school board members, Dr. Haff, pushed the school board to engage M/I homes about a large development that they planned to build within the school district. They first pushed to have an impact fee levied against all of these new homes. Unfortunately they lost their battle in court. So they found a very good attorney and worked out a Community Authority agreement with M/I homes and these new homes pay an additional 5.25 mils per $1,000 property valuation. This money is used for capital improvements, like building new schools. I know the attorney and he has assured people in this community that they can do the same thing here. As a private citizen I have very little power to pursue the powers to be around here to have our school board pursue an agreement like this. It will take a large power government entity like the Pickerington School Board to pursue the COMMUNITY AUTHORITY.


What about split sessions?

I don?’t know if many are aware of this, but I have been told by a Pickerington City Councilman that he sees no problems with the kids going into spilt sessions. He told me that when he attended Pickerington High School they had split sessions. Has the school board considered split sessions at one or more of our schools instead of the portable classrooms? At $75,000 per double portable classrooms it seems we could gain a little there. Have we considered YEAR ROUND schools?

School funding cont. #2

Has anyone considered a growth management plan?

Before the horse is out of the barn when do the elected leaders consider a growth management plan? I know that some of our Pickerington City Council members have attended a seminar on zoning and land development recently. Instead of our council men going to them how about the instructors of this course coming to us and educating the entire community? Take a day or so in the Central High School auditorium and tell us all how to develop our community and what strategies are available LEGALLY.

Has anyone at the Pickerington School Board asked the City of Pickerington, The City of Columbus, and Violet Township how many building permits they are issuing? Could you make that public instead of sitting on the data? Publish it in the School Bell.


What happened to Economy Development Director?


In 1999, three ago Pickerington hired a Development Director. Since then Pickerington has converted well over 700 acres on land that was previously stated to be commercial into residential development. Why are our City taxes paying for a Development Director that is not developing any commercial property WITHIN the PLSD? Lou Postage said he would fire her if she didn?’t perform. Well we are waiting. Why does the City continue to pursue the commercial development in the Canal Winchester School District? Does anyone on the school board have an answer for that?


Why is the City of Pickerington buying a right of way for a road that the owner has veto power over? In addition, the road goes right down the middle of a bunch of new homes meaning that his road will cost everyone millions more to build. Why is Pickerington going to spend millions more to widen Diley road so even more homes can be built. If the residential developers what more homes let them build their own roads, or maybe this might be a great time for the school board to talk to these prospective builders about agreeing to a COMMUNITY AUTHORITY.

Would this community be willing to privately fund some Attorneys to write-up and citizens to circulated initiatives petitions in both the Township and in the City of Pickerington to call for a moratorium on all future residential growth until and a GROWTH MANAGEMENT IS IN PLACE AND WORKING IN BOTH THE CITY AND THE TOWNSHIP?

Solving school funding problems

Dear sir,

My name is Michael Noll and I am the Democratic candidate for Fairfield County Commissioner. I am sure that you and everyone else has worked hard to develop the current school systems by paying off existing debt for 20 years. The current problem is with developers who do not finish developing the community. In order to finish a new development, the developer should pay an economic development fee at time of closing where 80% of this fee would go directly to the schools building fund and the other 20% divided between the local police and fire departments. Check my web site, mikenoll.com and find out how I am preparing to solve the problems without increasing personal property taxes.

Michael Noll