Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

How ironic that the same people who were pointing fingers and saying ?‘THEY want to close the door behind THEM?’ are now all of a sudden jumping up and down saying ?“it?’s ok to move to Pickerington as long as you pay more to live here than I do?”. Doesn?’t this sound hypocritical to you ?– it does to me.

When I hear the community authority discussed in Pickerington compared to the one in New Albany it makes me cringe. Why you ask? Pickerington is no New Albany and neither are the homes in which the CA will be developed here.

$200K is the number being thrown around for the price of a home in Pickerington's CA and I believe that is high. What is the average cost of the homes in New Albany's CA? $500K, $750K, or higher? I'd love to see the figures on this. Why you ask? Because someone that buys a $500K dollar house isn't going to care what he or she pays in taxes/fees for the school district.

People move to New Albany for the prestige and to
say, ''I live in New Albany''. I doubt a few more mills are going to bother people in this class structure too much.

However here in Pickerington we can't pass an operating levy for our school district now. What happens in the future when you have another 3000 homes (ie 6000 taxpayers and voters) or more paying an additional 10 mills for the 'opportunity to live in Pickerington?'

Think these new homeowners are going to be jumping up and down to pass operating or building levies? I don't think so. Please don't give me the naive argument about the CA building all the schools we need because the numbers don't add up. It will bring in additional revenue but from what I've seen and heard it is far short of what is needed and half-baked in scope. However, in the best-case scenario that the CA builds all the schools we need for these incoming students ?– it is just for brick and mortar NOT for operating expenses.

Which brings me back to the fact that we CAN'T PASS AN OPERATING LEVY NOW so what happens when you have 600 more voters NEXT year paying 10 mills more than their neighbors or 1200+ in 2005?

Before I?’m convinced of the feasibility of this CA I need some answers:

1. What is the price range of the homes in the CA in Granville since there is no comparison between the homes in Pickerington?’s CA and the one in New Albany?

2. Of the homes in the CA in Granville what has been the voting history of the residents in the CA on voting FOR school levies?

3. What happens to the resale value of the homes in the CA when someone can purchase the exact same home outside of the CA and not have to pay the additional millage?

4. Does the CA give the builders the right to ignore the recent zoning measures passed by the voters of Pickerinton. i.e. 2 homes per acre.

5. Will people purchasing homes inside the CA be aware of the additional millage or will this come as a surprise in 1-2 yrs when all of their taxes kick in?

6. Why would I purchase a home inside a CA when I can purchase the same home a couple miles away in the same school district and not pay the additional 10 mills?

7. Will the sign welcoming you to Pickerington have a quote added that states ?“Please leave your wallet at the door and we?’ll clean it out for you??”

% of district

Brian

You are asking some very good questions that I haven?’t heard for a few years now. In 1999 I had a number of conversations with the Granville Exempted Village Schools Treasurer about their Community Authority. He told me that they were collecting 5.25 mils on new homes built in the M/I development and for the life of me I can?’t remember the sub-division name. I think it was Turley addition.

Anyway Grandville was a very small school district at the time. I believe he told me around 1000 homes. M/I came in with a project that would have built around 700 homes. Just to be conservative they have over a 160% increase in their school district and it looked like it would be in a very short time frame. They (The School Board) fought them first for impact fees but lost that battle in court. They then encouraged M/I to form a Community Authority with the 5.25 mils on these new homes for 25 years.

The village of Grandville only had around 1000 homes when this started. Clearly they couldn?’t afford to build the new high and other schools that would be needed without some starter money from this new project. I also believe they restricted the builder on the total number of homes to be built each year.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that this development in Grandville would have over doubled the school system The school district is located in one Jurisdiction. So those moving into the community would be part of the entire community. I believe these homes in Grandville are on the same valuation range as those in Pickerington.

Unlike Pickerington our school district is located in Columbus, Pickerington City, Violet Township, and Liberty Township, Reynoldsburg and after the annexation Canal Winchester. When the levies fail we all start pointing fingers at which area didn?’t support the levy and why? Now with the new High School (Taj Mahal) many are upset in the city of Pickerington that they pay taxes just like everyone else and all of the good stuff went to the other school because most of the City Students attend the old facility. Many also feel this was a set up on the part of those people in some of these township precincts. Now we have current residents including the Mayor of Pickerington wanting to tax the crap out of new residents. I believe there are about 3000 homes currently in Pickerington, maybe 4500 homes in the PLSD part of the Township, and maybe 1500 homes in the Columbus area. At the very least we are looking at 9000 homes in the school district. These 3000 new homes would present only 25% of the future homes in the school district. To equate this to Grandville it would equate to about 6,000 new homes in the PLSD. Clearly these new homes would out number the current homes and they also would provide much more revenue to the school in terms of percentage.

Each area of our school system pay different income tax amounts to local governments. So we all will find differnet reasons that this will probably not work as well as it did in Grandville.

Are we the same?

Brian

I also wanted to mention New Albany. New Albany was a very small school district just like Granville. However they saw a different problem there in that they needed roads and bridges. They used their Community Authority on transportation like issues. One of the reasons they could do that was that Mr. ?“Limited?” Wexler donated I believe $ 8 million to build the new high school a few years back. They also have their district in more that one government entity part in Franklin County part in Delaware County.

I have been to both Granville and New Albany in recent weeks and both had school operating levies on the ballot. I am not sure if they passed but the CA wasn?’t helping with operating monies.

So with the limited amount of information I have been able to supply and I can?’t say it is all accurate because this is four year ago information. Do we fit anywhere close to either New Albany or Granville? Do we have the same problems that they were trying to fix?

If we adopt a growth control plan and we limit the number of children coming into our schools each year then that lowers the need for what a CA will do for us. If we over tax those in the city with a CA I doubt those future home owners will care much about voting for an operating levy in the future. Clearly we can?’t handle the shear numbers of new students coming into Pickerington each year. The CA does not address that problem and it very likely will compound our local problems.

What the team of Maxey and Fox have done is to divert us from talking about the growth management plan that I am circulating and they are trying to replace it with something that is not needed right now and will not address our current operating problems.

We all must ask ourselves where are they leading us? The next question is why?