The Central Ohio Building Industry Association and the Columbus Board of Realtors mounted a showing before council last night to lobby against ordinance 2003-17. Sitting in the lobby last night I heard a couple of the construction workers complaining that their boss told them to go straight to the meeting and take the company truck with the company LOGO on it.
The builders and their hired hands gave their laundry list of how much they benefit this community. One even said, ''that the schools are having problems in all of the communities he works in.'' Basically its no big deal to have problems in the schools and in the lobby they were saying the schools were mis-managed. They talked about how much business they are bringing into to Pickerington. They buy their lunches, gas for their trucks, but the guy saying this has his office in Canal Winchester and he lives in Circleville. Not one of these builders gave us a solution to the problem of funding our schools.
The area residents gave a good showing. I estimate that there were well over a hundred in attendance. Maybe as high as 140. The residents were less than half of those in attendance. Clearly the message coming from our residents was that the schools in Pickerington are about to go broke and even with the 7.9 mil levy in May it will not fix the problem. It only gives us another year or so and with some very deep cuts in current services. There was public comment on the condition of our roads and the wait time to get on I-70 in the mornings. Clearly we have some major problems. The council tried to soften their opposition by saying they are building a bike path and they are working with ODOT to widen route 256 to help traffic flow and folks this should all be done just before the election this year.
I personally want to focus on the issue of who our Pickerington City Council represents. Last night with the exception of a few local land owners they (council) had very little public support from the area voters. Clearly siting on this council who were elected to REPRESENT those people that voted and live here and pay taxes here. If they can only get public support from a grining M/I homes representative then they are truly representing the builders and not the people they are required to represent as call for in our Pickerington City Charter.
The builders and their hired hands gave their laundry list of how much they benefit this community. One even said, ''that the schools are having problems in all of the communities he works in.'' Basically its no big deal to have problems in the schools and in the lobby they were saying the schools were mis-managed. They talked about how much business they are bringing into to Pickerington. They buy their lunches, gas for their trucks, but the guy saying this has his office in Canal Winchester and he lives in Circleville. Not one of these builders gave us a solution to the problem of funding our schools.
The area residents gave a good showing. I estimate that there were well over a hundred in attendance. Maybe as high as 140. The residents were less than half of those in attendance. Clearly the message coming from our residents was that the schools in Pickerington are about to go broke and even with the 7.9 mil levy in May it will not fix the problem. It only gives us another year or so and with some very deep cuts in current services. There was public comment on the condition of our roads and the wait time to get on I-70 in the mornings. Clearly we have some major problems. The council tried to soften their opposition by saying they are building a bike path and they are working with ODOT to widen route 256 to help traffic flow and folks this should all be done just before the election this year.
I personally want to focus on the issue of who our Pickerington City Council represents. Last night with the exception of a few local land owners they (council) had very little public support from the area voters. Clearly siting on this council who were elected to REPRESENT those people that voted and live here and pay taxes here. If they can only get public support from a grining M/I homes representative then they are truly representing the builders and not the people they are required to represent as call for in our Pickerington City Charter.
