Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

I wanted to respond to Mayor Postage and his attempt to still blame the Columbus build out for the problems with the Pickerington Local Schools funding problems. Mayor Postage also states, ?“Local officials have not been deaf to the concerns of the electorate. In the Pickerington area, a consensus has emerged concerning the need to control the rate of growth.?”

However today I just received a letter from the Pickerington Finance Director, Mrs. Fersch, saying that the petition that I submitted to her on June 18th with 512 valid signatures, she refuses to send the initiative to the Board of Elections. Even though I submitted a copy of the ordinance with the initial filing it was not a ?“CERTIFIED?” copy of that ordinance. According to their Special Counsel, Don McTigue, The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that this ordinance must be a certified copy prior to circulation. That means I was suppose to write a statement and sign that statement attesting that the copy submitted, was a ?“true and exact reproduction of the original proposed ordinance.

Clearly this ordinance would have controlled growth and it would have required this city to cooperate with Violet Township. Also clear,it stated many of the same points that Mayor Postage had in his letter to the Dispatch this past Saturday (8/2). Please also keep in mind that these 512 registered voters make up a large percentage of the voters that put these current council members into office. Their vote totals were from the 870s to the 1100s.


During the process to get this ordinance on the ballot I talked with hundreds of people both directly and indirectly almost no one was against the ordinance (maybe 1 in 30). Now they will not have an opportunity to even vote on the issue.

MY PLEDGE TO THE VOTERS AND CITIZENS OF PICKERINGTON.

IF ELECTED I WILL CONTINUE TO OFFER THIS PLAN AND I WILL CONTINUE TO WORK TO GET A GROWTH PLAN IN PLACE IN THIS CITY. I WILL NOT JUST TALK I WILL ACT. I WILL NOT ACCEPT CAMPAIGN DONATIONS FROM DEVELOPERS OR BUILDERS IN THIS CAMPAIGN. I WILL ONLY ACCEPT DOANTIONS FROM CITIZENS AND OTHERS WITH CONCERNS FOR THE FUTURE OF THIS CITY AND OUR SCHOOL DISTRICT.

''I certify that the above is a true and exact statement for my position in the up coming election.''


Please vote on November 4th our future depends on it.

Timing is everything

It seems they wanted to wait until the voters for the school levy had headed to the polls thinking those in the city would be voting on a moratorium in November. Are they trying to trip the voters yet again? Who will know about this decision before they vote. Will they forget about it the next time they vote?

Rotten to the core

How convenient that our Finance Director, on advice from the city Special Counsel, waits until
one day from the school levy vote, to advise that
the petition with 512 valid signatures will not be forwarded to the Bd of Elections! This is another blatant indication that the officials at
city hall are rotten to the core! They continue to lie and connive and cater to their special interest groups. And the graft goes on.

By Watching & waiting

More info on the petitions

I would like to further clarify this certified ordinance issue and where some of my confusions came from. Last year I submitted a Pickerington City Charter Amendment. It is classified as an initiative. There is no requirement to file a proposed City Charter amendment with the City Clerk PRIOR to circulating that petition. So I circulated that petition and it was rejected because I didn?’t capitalize four words. However earlier in the year (January 8th 2002) I had submitted another City Charter amendment that was rejected by the city because of the infamous FATAL errors. Those errors were the fact that the disclaimer located near where the circulator of that petition signed his affidavit was not up to date wording. They had changed that wording with a General Assembly act and the Ohio Supreme Court had ruled on the issue about the time we were submitting the initiative petitions prior to circulate.

Now this second initiative that had the fatal errors that was submitted on January 8th was later placed on the ballot by the Pickerington City Council. I had not filed a statement certifying the wording on that initiative either. However it did make it to the ballot and the citizens over whelming passed that amendment by nearly 86%. The Ohio Supreme court in May of 2003 did have a ruling from another community that re-affirmed our city charter amendment in November of 2002. They basically stated that you couldn?’t declare an ordinance an emergency just to avoid a referendum of the voters. So we were a head of the Ohio Supreme court in that issue. This same court had ruled that in a London Ohio case the Council was able to rescind an ordinance that had been the target of a referendum and pass it as an emergency to avoid that referendum. So to those citizens that think we are losing we are a head of the legal issues here in Pickerington and leading the Ohio Supreme Court.

Now for the initiative ordinance that I filed June 18th: I guess my limited legal experience was that I thought only ordinances that had been passed by council needed to have a certified copy filed with the City Auditor (City Finance Director) PRIOR to circulation of a REFERENDUM. I didn?’t know it applied to an initiative ordinance as well. Remember the Charter Initiative required no prior filing before circulation.

This doesn?’t mean that I filed one version with the City Finance Director and circulated a different version. It simply says they the Ohio Revised Code required a certified copy of a proposed ordinance prior to circulation. I am not quite sure why the ORC wants this in the law. Clearly today?’s technology would may it very hard to determine an original from a copy unless the original was n blue ink and you copied it in black and white.


I am sorry for those that worked so hard to gather these signatures and were so hopeful that we could see some progress in the fall in getting a growth plan started. I think we all know what we must done from now until the election November 5th.