Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Mr. Lou Postage
Pickerington City Hall
100 Lockville Road
Pickerington, Ohio 43147

Dear Mr. Postage
The word recall has become more common in our city lately as it pertains to all but one of our councilmen. I read that you don?’t understand why anyone would want to recall you. Brian Fox said that the present council has done nothing wrong or illegal and therefore you should not be recalled. I suggest that all of you read the city charter. You will find that there is nothing in it that requires that one has to do something illegal to be recalled. The citizens can recall you for any action of the council or mayor they consider wrong. They just have to state it on the petition.
It amazes me that you and your like-thinking fellow councilmen claim to have no idea why anyone would be thinking about a recall. To help you out I would like to state a few of the reasons.
1. You have corrupted the democratic process by acting as if you are a self-appointed military junta that has no need to listen to the people who elected you. The way you conduct council meetings is the best evidence for this. In most city councils the citizens carry on an open exchange of ideas as agenda items are presented and discussed. At ours the public is only allowed to make short comments before the meeting. Furthermore, the people who make these comments are frequently demeaned by the mayor or council. The city?’s business is not discussed at your meetings but must take place in little publicized committee meetings or elsewhere. Votes are taken with little or no discussion. Further evidence for the hijacking of our government is your decision to publish official city notices in the Lancaster newspaper that has a circulation of only 200 in Pickerington.
2. You have passed controversial business as an ?“emergency?” when the only emergency that existed was that the citizens might want to use their only option, referendum, to change or rescind it. It is apparently your thinking that you should make it as difficult as possible for the electorate to have any say in their government. When the voters had a chance to override your decisions or influence the way you do business you declared that 70 to 80 percent of us were misled. We were not misled and even if we were it is your obligation to do the people?’s will and not ignore it as you have.
3. You filled a vacant council seat by appointing a reelection candidate who received insufficient votes to retain his position in the election that took place the month before. In fact, he received the fewest votes of any balloted candidate. Certainly this is further evidence of your contempt and disrespect for the democratic process and the voters of this city.
4. You have failed to work with other governing bodies on which your actions have a great impact, namely the schools and the township. This ?“everyone else be damned?” attitude is to no one?’s benefit except the developers.


By Martin A. Schuster

citizens can recall you part 2


5. You have rezoned potentially commercial property as residential. This puts great pressure on residents to fund the schools. The overwhelming vote against the November 5th school levy should be a message that your constituents can no longer pay the price required to adequately educate the children who are living in the housing developments you have permitted. With the exception of retail businesses you have no plan to attract industry that would provide some tax relief to home owners.
6. You have disregarded the public interest in the annexing, zoning and platting of a great deal of land. The public interest is that we have controlled growth so that our infrastructure of utilities, roads and schools can be developed at a well thought out rate. Your decisions have resulted in crowded schools and roads and a deterioration of our water and sewage system. You have negatively impacted the lifestyle of everyone here and in the neighboring cities and township.
7. You have granted tax benefits to what little new commercial development that has taken place when there was no need to do so. They would have come anyway. To compound the injury you granted tax advantages in the amount of $40,000 to Colonial Heating. A subsidiary of this firm purportedly employs one of our councilmen. No standards or policies were established or reviewed before this financial benefit was given.
8. You have exempted home builders from paying water, sewer and road fees that amount to millions of dollars in total disregard for the city?’s financial status. The reasons for this have never been explained by you. No cost benefit analysis has ever been made available to the public you serve.
9. You made a deal with a developer to locate the new police station miles from city hall on land that was essentially a swamp. You built a road for the developer and in turn had to go way over budget for construction of the building..
10. You are fiscally irresponsible. You gave $145,000 dollars in an attempt to override new state legislation that would make it harder for home developers to do their business no matter what the impact on everyone else. This amounted to the largest single contribution in the state to this lost cause. You had the nerve to call it ?“a good investment?”.
11. You allow the city attorney unlimited funds to hire outside help to fight the will of the people. For the most part he uses someone who is said to derive a large part of his income from developers.
12. You wasted many thousands of dollars on a project to ?“beautify?” our downtown area. The new brick sidewalks at Columbus and Hill are impressive to look at but there is little pedestrian traffic there. To increase the cost of this project a curb had to be reconstructed because school buses could not make the turn at the rebuilt intersection.
I could add many other things to the list but the above should be enough to convince the residents of Pickerington that you should be recalled before you do more damage to the city. To allow you to continue to degrade the quality of life in our community would be irresponsible.
Sincerely,
Martin A. Schuster
Citizen


By Martin A. Schuster

convinces me

logical

well reasoned

explained on multiple fronts

easy to understand

stays with the facts, without getting too personal

is the responsible direction for the citizens to take

Purpose of Recall



Dear Mr. Schuster

Thank you for your comments. Having just read the comments of Mike Kiger and the quotes from Brian Fox and Craig Maxey, it is evident that these political leaders do not understand the role of recall in a democratic society.

Under our charter, and the charter of many other cities, there are several avenues for democratic participation. The first that comes to mind is the election of representatives to fulfill governmental functions. Elections, however, do not creat immunity and merely staying clear of criminal conduct does not have any relevance to the issue of recall.

It is clear that it is possible that at time people may wish to change their elected officials for a wide variety of reasons. People may have made mistakes in the selection of representatives, repsresnetives may be selected because they misrepresented their views to the public or that they simply, once elected either fail to perform their duties or continue to pursue a policy that is anathema to the citizens of the community. In such cases, citizens do not have to wait the entire time of an elected official to remove the official from office, but may use the recall process to replace the representative.

The recall process does not require that there be proof of criminal misconduct nor is it any less democratic than any other election. To suggest that those who choose to excercise democratic rights are ''cowardly'' as Mr. Kiger does merely demonstrates his lack of understanding of democratic institutions.
Moreover, it is suprising to here from a person who never was appointed, rather than elected, to the office of city council that is is ''unfair'' to submit the question of whether he should remain in office to the voters. Mroever, it particulary sad to hear elected officals claim that they ahve a right to stay in office merely because they have steared clear of a felony conviction.





By David Shaver