Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Why should we?

Mr. Shaver,

You have lucidly stated what many of your constituents feel and also many in the rest of the community feel. However, what benefit do you see in anyone coming to the Council meetings to speak their piece? You know, and I know several citizens who attend not only the Council meetings, but also the Committee meetings, Trustee meetings and School Board meetings religiously for months or even years, but to what end? They have branded, bullied, ignored, ridiculed, dismissed, and in a case close to my heart, screamed at by Council. They have been misquoted in the City-controlled media. Why would we come back? Who beside you would listen? Until it is an election year, and even then until the last 4 or 5 months, all in the City government besides you don?’t know we exist. Until the men and woman sitting at the big table act like gentlemen and lady, there is no point in going to the meetings, in my opinion. If I want to be treated badly and rudely on my own time, I?’ll just drive back and forth to Wal-Mart and partake of the kamikaze drivers all day.

We appreciate you continuing your campaign pledges and your honesty. That is why we felt confident in voting for you. Keep up the good work. But you are a lone wolf howling at the moon. You need to divide your time between doing what you are doing on Council and exposing them for what they are, but also time needs to be spent developing candidates for the seats that will be contested in 2003. I think a few probable candidates have either let it be known that they are interested or others that are constantly referred to as good candidates. These people need coaching, training and mentoring from now until it is time to file. In addition to the potential candidates, there are also the necessary mentors and trainers in the community. They will need to be recruited and engaged to help. There also needs to be a grass roots support network developed. The next Council election is more than just getting people out to vote. It is about making a permanent change to the quality of life in our community. The time to start is now.


By Maverick

impossible to unite

Dr. Rigelman,

Thank you for seeking opinions in this forum in addition to the public forums you have held since the boundary committee process.

Although your statements and desires on creating these boundaries are well meaning, I honestly feel as though it will be impossible to achieve these objectives. I will list a few points to consider and there are many more that I will not touch on due to lack of time and space.

I do think you may achieve the goal in providing equal programs at each respective school. The problem is that the ''new'' schools will always be perceived as being better by a large portion of the community , just by the simple aesthetic factors in addition to any advances in technology that are implemented which would be not transferable to any older structures. Our current High School is debatably poorly designed, the new one appears to be a better building but the jury will be out until it provides a track record of efficiency.

I think we need to face the reality that we cannot unite the community in this process. The community is clearly divided politically and geographically. Two and then three High Schools will give these divisions another dimension. Additionally, this is not longer a small town, although we would like to fool ourselves into believing this as we cling to what quality of life that has not been destroyed by the runaway growth. I believe one-reason parents are adamant about keeping elementary populations together is because this is the last bastion of a ?“small town feel?” that we have left. Our elementary schools are large by most standards and they are certainly not equal facility wise with Tussing limited to two portables while Violet and Pickerington have reached ten portables in the past due to available real estate. But the parents are very supportive of the staff and each other. Their kids play with others in different subdivisions that attend their particular school. Friendships among parents and children are formed and nobody wants to give them up because the quality of the people one of the main reasons Pickerington is so great. Throwing in additional logistics of attending another school than their friends complicates matters and the small town feel fades. We are really holding on to a fantasy of how great this town was?… and facing it for what it is now... becomes difficult.

Of the two plans you have been given by the committee, only one allows for growth in the Southern portion of the district, which is less populated now. Aside from all of the feel good reasons involved, I believe you would be foolish not to allow for growth in any plan you choose.

continued

impossible

Mr. Monhollen stated in his campaign that he would be an advocate for lessening the impact of growth on the schools at city and township meetings. I have not seen him in action yet. I believe you all should be regularly attending these meetings, rotating if necessary to maintain a reasonable schedule and life. In addition to attending, I believe you should speak out on the growth situation and demand that our leaders stop making our kids pay for poor decisions on growth issues and a stop to the runaway TIF and tax abatements that are on the horizon which virtually guarantee that several GENERATIONS of children will miss out on any commercial windfall that occurs in our district.

Good Luck with your decision, I feel as though it will be one of the easiest you have to make as I look toward the future of tough decisions you will face.

Thanks for the ear.

I Have not Given Up Yet

Lisa:

Thanks for your thoughtful response to my request for input on the school boundaries issue. Your response goes to the heart of the matter, or to at least one of its hearts.

Are we any longer a single community? Has the friendly small town atmosphere that drew so many of us to Pickerington been irretrievably lost? Are the growing splits among us irremediable? If so, are we doomed to become like the Southwest City School District, with high schools so different that it is hard to believe they are part of a single school system?

I hope not.

When my family and I first moved here in 1990, the sense of community was palpable, and our schools (and our Superintendent) were at the heart of it. Our lives truly centered around our children and grandchildren (or our neighbors' children) and our schools. One year I spent nearly two weeks of my vacation as a volunteer in our schools, and that was not at all unusual at the time. My wife still spends countless hours as a music booster volunteer. The schools have remained the source of our closest friends. That, of course, is how I met you.

I hope that we can recover this sense of community, and I would hate the high school/junior high school enrollment boundaries to become a deep and permanent dividing line within the Pickerington community.

Perhaps this is an idle hope, and perhaps -- as you seem to suggest -- we would do better to focus on building viable sub-communities. But I cannot give up yet.


By Bruce Rigelman