Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

To the Pickerington City Voters,


I feel that I must speak out about a couple issues that I had planned to address early next year. There have been some postings down the page asking about me being a candidate for office in 2003. There are three council seats up for election and also one mayor?’s seat. The second issue I would like to address is the subject of recall.

I have placed myself financially this past summer to be semi-retired. Although at times it didn?’t feel that way. I have a part time job which allows me to take time off when I need it. My wife is resigned to the fact that our neighbors are asking if I will run. She knows where this is going and she accepts it. She doesn?’t like it but knows someone must stand up and take control. So to answer your question:

TED HACKWORTH WILL BE, A CANDIDATE FOR OFFICE, IN PICKERINGTON, IN 2003.

I am making this public at this time to try to draw others out that are willing to serve in one of the elected positions that will be up for consideration this coming year. I believe I will have the needed support to get elected. I will choose which office I will run for later.

With all of the talk of recall here on this web site it is important that others join me to make your intentions known so that the voters of Pickerington have a real choice if a recall does materialize.

I still think it is inappropriate that as a candidate for office that I either lead a recall effort or be one of the sponsors. I have a very difficult time bringing myself to the position that a recall is actually needed. After all they haven?’t committed a crime that I know of. I believe what they have done has been cumulative over the last three years. Many of the decisions they made three years ago are now roosting in the financial nightmare going on with our school system.

TED HACKWORTH SUPPORTS A RECALL OF THE MEMBERS OF THE PICKERINGTON CITY COUNCIL AND THE MAYOR.

I will support a recall but I will not get out front to be the spokesman. I feel the voters that will be electing the next council must be the one?’s leading that charge. After all they will be also asked to consider me for office next year and I don?’t what to be a person running for negative reasons. I will be presenting my position on a number of issues very soon and I want to present the positive ideas I have not the dark dirty part of removing one or move from council and or the Mayor.

My reasons that I think require a recall:



continued:

Recall is required!

Since my failed election bid in 1999 I have tried to attend as many Council meetings as I could. It takes a few meetings to get into the flow of this council and the deception that council attempts just about every meeting. I tried to balance attending these meetings with some very personal and demanding family responsibilities.

As you are all aware the first half of the year 2000 Mayor Hughes was suffering with a personal tragedy in the loss of his wife. The Hughes administration did very little that first year in real damage to our City and to our schools. Much of what they were doing was preparing their assault to come in 2001. They had there Council meeting in late November 1999 about the annexation and rezoning of the Diley farm. That was the first of many to come. They added this issue to the agenda minutes before the council meeting and they suspended the rules and had their three readings passing this ordinance as an emergency. That emergency ordnance passed 7-0. Let me remind everyone the members of that council: Hughes, Parker, Fox, Monebrake, Postage, Wright, and Washington. Not a one spoke up in behalf of the citizens. They simply deferred their collective decision off to the City Manager who was negotiating this deal. In other words they planned to do this out of the public view.

Along this time line they were working on a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan. It was being worked on by ?“STAFF?”. A staff I might add that didn?’t place their names on their work. I doubt there is any study by experts in the field of Urban Planning concerning this Land Use Plan. In May of 2000 they held a public meeting and inspection of this new land use plan. I had been watching for this plan to surface for months. Not seeing any action I ask Craig Maxey when they would have a public Hearing/Meeting for the public to view the new land use plan. He told me that they had already had that meeting in May (my question was asked in July of 2000). He also informed me that no one showed up. He also claimed it had been advertised in the paper. I later found out that the paper was the Lancaster Eagle Gazette. The circulation here in Pickerington is around 200. In other words they planned to do this out of the public view.

Payday for the builders

In the year 2001 things were in place for the grand pay off to the builders and developers. I will just touch on the big ones but there were many more. In March of 2001 they voted to accept the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan that had been drawn up by staff and it had not had a proper public viewing but was passed as an emergency. This new plan took hundreds of acres that were previously ear marked to be commercial development and a business park and changed them to being residential. It took me over a month to get a copy of this new Comprehensive Land Use Plan. In other words they planned to do this out of the public view.


By this time, Bob Harding was joining me on a regular basis at the Pickerington City Council meetings. The Diley Farm was before P & Z commission in April of 2001. I objected to some of zoning promises. Like they placed R-3 houses (1800 sq ft homes) on R-4 lots, actually they are not even R-4 lots. The majority of the lots are 8500 square foot lots. Mr. Parker told me to shut up at one point because I dared to correct him on assumption that he had made. After the meeting we had a little talk in the backroom where he tried to intimidate me with his political popularity. He offered nothing of substance to support his efforts to get this, 245 acre farm that is within eye sight of the Diley Road interchange, rezoned into homes. During the Service meeting and the Council meetings no one spoke in favor of rezoning the Diley farm into R-4 except Parker and the Attorney Richard Braum. By the way the City of Pickerington paid Mr. Braum at Least $39,000 to represent the owners Dominion Homes for this annexation. They allowed Joyce Bushman to negotiate this agreement in the back room. In other words they planned to do this out of the public view.

Each step along the way we became more aware of the scam that our Pickerington City Government was playing on the voters. Then in August they started with the Painter Kohler farm. This property had not only more homes added to our schools system but presented some real environmental problems to the Pickerington Ponds. In a letter that is posted on this web site John Bain the CEO of Homewood demanded in exchange for the 21 acres that this council would pass this rezoning as an emergency. His letter is not binding, nor anything else he has offered. Here again the Council chambers were packed for the three meetings and this council passed this rezoning and annexation as an emergency. This was a back room deal directed by Mayor Hughes to circumvent the will of the voters. In other words they planned to do this out of the public view.

A wheel fell of the cart!

Then on November 6th 2001 their little world began to fall apart. This fellow named David appears out of no where and ran for City Council. He was the TOP VOTE GETTER. Now the people had a voice on council despite the $31,000 the incumbents spent, they still couldn?’t get themselves re-elected.

They are having their executive meetings without David Shaver. Since Mr. Shaver has not been invited to attend any executive meetings then how did they give the go a head to sue Canal Winchester over the Thornton property? When did they decide to do this and on who?’s authority? There are a number of other law suits going on and Mr. Shaver has not been part of any of these Law Suits. They are so underhanded that they must discuss these issues without David Shaver present then when are they making these decisions? Are they just giving the City Manager the authority to pursue lawsuits for the city? Who is running this city? Who is making the decisions? Do they have any respect for our laws?


In October of 2001 the Pickerington City Council minus David Shaver approved an ordnance to authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute a contract with 8185 Farms. This is now called the 316 acre annexation south of the city. In this contract Mrs. Bushman gave away nearly $1 million of Pickerington utilities user fees in the form of water and sewer taps fees. Yet when a public request for documents, justifying this charity to the developers, was made the requester was told none existed. Clearly our City Council and Mayor has deferred their legislative authority and power over to the Pickerington City Manager. Is this called malfeasance? In addition they allowed the Donley Family to shoot fire arms on their property that now is within the city limits of Pickerington. Is this equal justice under the law? The Donley family has rights that no other civilian citizen of Pickerington now has, just because they agreed to annex into Pickerington. What will stop this out of control Council?

The Fairfield County commissioners approved this annexation in July of 2002. On September 9th Judge Luse issued an injunction to stop the annexation and rezoning of this 316 acres south of Busey Road. September 13th the Pickerington City Council passed an ordinance annexing this property. They claimed they had not been served yet Mr. Mapes did know about it. And should have made the Council Members aware of this injunction. Clearly this City Council has employed a law director to find any and all means to deny anyone or any other government entity legal rights under the law. They are forcing everyone including our own citizens to go to court and sue them. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of our dollars to deny their own citizens their Ohio Constitutional Rights. They are doing that as I write this statement. They have spent thousand of dollars to deny the citizens of this city their rights to petition the council about their decisions.