Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

I wanted to post with some community information to illustrate the total confusion and ineptness currently going on in our school district.

There has been a growing concern on my part about the schools. I am concerned about what motivates them and what is driving their issues.

Over the last 21 months since I have been in office not a day has past that I have not been moving forward and toward a more controlled city both in its policies and its practices. In January of 2004 Mayor Shaver and my three council colleagues were elected and took office. Soon there after we appointed Mr. O?’Brien. With this razor thin majority we have to serve on more committees and we have had to fight each step of the way to change minds sets that were engrained for years at City Hall. In the last year and a half, the staff has been wonderful. They now understand our direction and our goals and most are feeling secure in their jobs and their future. Judy has taken over and she is fully implementing the Mayor and the majority?’s wishes at the same with a strong consideration of the minority.

Just a quick review. When we took office we were faced with a huge sewer plant expansion. If we have expanded the plant as what we had inherited then we would be under great pressure today to sell 350 sewer taps each year to pay the debt service. The expansion had enough capacity to service 6,500 new homes in the school district. Please do the math Mr. Stemen.

Yet Mr. Stemen, in his remarks at the last school board meeting said, ?“the city is still issuing building permits and nothing has changed.?”

Killing the sewer plant expansion was a fight behind the scenes the most in the public were unaware of until now. It was so bad that Mr. Wisniewski had to intervene to so that we could communicate with not only each other but with the Ohio EPA. Clearly there was tremendous pressure on the Mayor and the acting City Manager at the time to go forward with the expansion. Those of us not required to interface with the OEPA were less impressed with their threats.

When we took office we had a BIA law suit against the city and they were asking for nearly $30 Million in punitive damages. That is ten years of city income tax revenues. Here again another battle between those on council trying to settle the BIA law suit and those of us wanting to extend the moratorium for another year. For those not aware they could have destroyed the city for years to come if they had won. I know this web site and the newspapers seemed to make out that the case was cut and dry. It wasn?’t!!

In a hand shake deal, I agreed to drop the moratorium extension in exchange for the BIA not dumping spec homes on the city. So far both sides are holding up their side of the bargain. In early 2005, this law suit was handled out of court thus reducing the risk of further hemorrhaging of city tax dollars for lawyers.

For those that wonder why we settled. Then please ask anyone that has their car totaled and the insurance company gives them an offer. The city was given an offer to settle or go on our own and risk the taxpayer?’s money.

Plans forming

In January of 2004 I was given 6 proposals. These proposals were dealing with hiring a consultant to upgrade the Comprehensive Land Use plan and to develop a growth management plan. I had inherited these proposals from the previous council and the scope of requested services was very vague and didn?’t address what we all wanted and that was to control growth and to develop a better commercial tax base.

It took a few months to write the scope of service and to give the consultants their marching orders. Once that was completed the council approved $95,000 for two studies. One of the results was the Impact Fee ordinance which will have its third reading on September 20, 2005.

The second part is the growth management study and growth stragedies that I currently only have a draft copy of. This study will outline ten goals for the city to reach in the next 5 to 7 years. One huge goal will be the upgrading of the Comprehensive Land Use plan in 2006. That upgrading with be added by the cost of community services study attached to this report. It will help us in future land use and development to balance the land use with the projected return in tax dollars for different zoning districts. I understand that it says office building will return about $900 for each 1000 square feet. Please expect to see a net loss on residential development.

Mr. Stemen says ?“nothing has changed.?” Clearly the staff has worked untold hours putting this report together with Greg Dale. Judy has called me on weekends to discuss different issues with the report. Mr. Stemen, I am very offended by your comments and you isolationist position. THINGS HAVE CHANGED AND THEY ARE CHANGING DAILY.

Some of the goals in this report we are already working on. Those are the upgrading of the Residential and Commercial Design Guidelines. I believe the residential guidelines are still in P & Z. I hope to have them in Service by October or November.

These goals cost the city money because they are held to a higher standard and must comply with the law. In addition we must work with the BIA to give them a fair chance to comment. We simply can not adopt moratoriums or other growth restrictive ordinances arbitrarily. This is why the 2003 council was sued. We can not afford another year and a half law suit both because of time and money.

One of the very first actions the Mayor did when he took office was to open negotiations with the Township. We should all be grateful for Mayor Shaver?’s leadership and vision in working on these settlements. Clearly that opened the door for a cooperative effort for a JEDD and maybe a CEDA. We can never be sure what the end result will be but we are hopeful that within the next year or so the council and the trustees can ink a deal.

Mr. Stemen says, ?“nothing has changed?”. Mr. Stemen when was that last time in your long memory of this district have you seen these two parties even talking?

Working together

Still in the cooperative mode. The city and the County utilities have been working closely together to agree on the Ohio EPA 208 plan. This plan will establish sewer districts and it will be binding. For one entity to encroach into the others sewer district they will need to have written permission to do so.

Why is this so important? Although some in the community disagree; the fact is that we have sewer and water lines going down one side of our local streets owned and operated by the county and the other side has city sewer and water lines. This 208 plan will eliminate that practice after December 31st 2005. It will also save the utility user?’s money. It also allows the sewer and water providers to better plan and have their investments protected from another entity crossing lines and stealing customers and the revenue to pay for their plant investments.

Last summer, the city applied for and received a MOODY?’S bond rating of A2. The ultimate goal of the city is to elevate that rating to the highest level of AAA. That means the citizens can see the financial well being of the city. We will continue to move the city financial standards to this higher rating and we recently formed the Utilities Fee Review Commission to move much of our current General Obligation debt to Revenue Bonds. That commission is meeting on September 19th at 7:00 PM. This commission will make recommendations to Service for tap fee increase and user rate increases. Please expect some sizable tap fee increases.

Closely following the above, the city has adopted a debt policy. First it helps our Moody?’s rating for us to have a written debt policy and it also establishes how we are going to do business in the future.

I should point out that any new TIFs SHALL have the developer either buy the bond or guarantee the TIF bond with a letter of credit. No longer will the city take the development risks for commercial development that promises the world and drains our general funds when these developments fail to materialize. We also will not finance a project longer than the economic life of that project. The reverse of that is true as well in that we will not over build a capital project and over burden the users with high debt service while capacity sits idle.

Mr. Stemen please note the last sentence. Things have changed.

Once our city?’s financial house is in order we will address many of the quality of life issue that we have not been able to fit on our plate up to now. Some of the funding for that will come from the new impact fee ordinance. One example is that for parks and Recreation the new impact fee charge a new home buyer $1,522. The city is currently working on a Parks Master plan. We are also working with the township and exploring the idea of a joint parks board. The Mayor has requested a Recreation Center and there is a municipal swimming pool on the unfunded Capital Improvement Plans. Maybe our local swim teams might one day have a HOME pool.

Mr. Stemen everything I have described above is public record and many were passed by ordinances that are also on the City?’s WEB site. Before you start slamming the city and the township I would hope you check out our progress first.

The boat is leaving the dock

Now why am I so steamed at Lew Stemen and the school board in General? ?

First as I described above I was working with our consultant Greg Dale to make a report on our growth and to help develop a Growth Management plan. It was my desire to include the impact to our schools from the city?’s growth. I approached and asked Dr. Thiede last January for data related to ?“where?” the growth was coming from. Clearly this data would have been similar to what the school bus drivers used in making their scheduled rounds. I did ask for one additional piece of information and that was this above information over a number of years to develop some kind of trend line. A couple of weeks later I called and Dr. Thiede stated (with Lew Stemen in the room) that they did not have that information and had no way of providing the information to the City. I was also warned by school board member that we need to stop pointing figures at each other.

The result is that the one paragraph in the draft copy of the Growth Management study will be devoted to the growth impacts on the schools.

Thank you Mr. Stemen.

Last month I mentioned to a board member that our building permits were way down over the previous year. She told me that Lew Stemen was predicting around 300 new students this year. Six weeks later Lew Stemen is saying we actually had 473 new students and then goes on to blame the city and the township for still issuing building permits. He added the comment that, ?“nothing has changed?”.

How can Lew Stemen monitor and mentor this Schools Facilities Review Commission and not know anything about what is happening at the City Hall and our expected future? None of the FRC members that I talked with AFTER they had issued their report knew that there have been no preliminary residential plats plans applied for in the city since the two lots per acre ordinance passed in November of 2002. No one from the school or the schools consultants consulted with the City PRIOR to convening the FRC.

Like the old adage Garbage in Garbage out!!


Then using the schools own numbers Councilman Wisniewski posted a new school configuration here on this web site. I am sure Brian is hearing the very same complains and concerns from our citizens here in the city as I am. His plan addressed every concern that I have heard and required no new buildings. At the same time there are children in Texas that were evacuated from the Katrina Hurricane that are going to school in tents. Mr. Thiede approached Brian last Wednesday and asked him if he had received the letter from the school administration telling him he was full of S?—T. Thiede went on to say that the school gets those kinds of suggestions all the time and they don?’t know what they are talking about either.

Our school district voters are hurting and they want something done. They want us to control our growth. The election of the gang of four in November of 2003 and its members have been very hard at keeping our promises to the voters. I am very pi---d at the schools saying, the city is not doing anything when I know first hand how hard the staff is working to first undo what we were handed a year and a half ago and to make new policy for the future.


I will not support another school levy until things change at the school district.