Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Violet Township needs to change it's name to ''Asphalt Township'' - cause the only thing growing wild here is development. Violets don't grow in asphalt so now we are painting violets on our downtown roads. I vote to save the paint and stop the runaway development that degrades the quality of life in our community and empties our wallets. Let's hear your ideas.

By mushone

Population Doubling

From information in the papers, it has been stated that we need a new police station because our population has double in 15 years.

We need evermore schools (didn't we just build 2 more), (isn't our current High School only 10 years old) yet our enrollment has double over the past 12 years.

It appears to me that we haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with needed community services. The foolish idea of funding our additional community needs via ''Minimal Millage'' seems to be a way of trying to ''double'' even faster.

There must be a better way to remain a livable community within the bounds of affordability. Adding additional homes at our current rate isn't the answer and an Industrial Park outside our school district boundaries is insulting to everyones intelligence.

Stop the Maddness Pickerington!!

Is there any real tangible benefit for Violet Township (VT) residents to consider merging with the city of Pickerington? No, No and NO!!!

The city has done nothing to help our schools (they've actually hindered our schools by not providing businesses the same financial incentives they give residential developers and insisted on architectural designs that are costly to commercial developers) and the city consistently seeks 2.5 and higher densities, when developers would consider much lower (VT certainly can attest to this). But during this past month or so, we've discovered that the city is putting it's highly touted ''business district'' in Canal Winchester School District! Pickerington Local School District (PLSD) won't see a dime of the taxes generated by the businesses they are trying to attract. This is a direct slap in the face to our area residents who have been screaming ''we need businesses, not homes!'' for years. It's despicable what Pickerington City Council has done to our area. And to think these politicians actually think we believe them when they say they are ''for our school''. Bologna! Actions speak louder than words. Maybe we can evict a few in fall of 2001?

What VT residents will get if we agree to go to the city is a heavy financial burden. The city has created a bureaucracy, a beast if you will, that is hungry. It needs tax dollars and lots of them. Hence the reason they are increasing taxes for police protection (doubling current taxes)... feeding their berarucracy. VT residents would be shouldering the burden that has taken the city years to create.

These are very unsettling events for VT residents because we see residential development as a burden and demand some sort of payment from developers for the privilege of putting homes up in our community. Pickerington sees residential development as a means of paying off their last loan that financed their last improvements that were five years too late.


Finally, Pickerington City Hall doesn't have the cash to carry out the necessary infrastructure improvements to keep up with their 3,000 homes already approved on paper. The city leaders lack the foresight and leadership to carry out a necessary long term ''smart growth'' strategy so they are in a ?“get what we can take?” mode. There really is only one way for the current administration to survive and that is by shoestring economics. Putting out fires (Refugee Rd.) when they start and doing nothing for prevention. Now, desperate because of the looming legislative bill that will be written into law (Annexation Reform... see VT website for complete details) the mayor and city council are scrambling for alternatives (besides hostile annexations) to pay off those huge notes they know will soon come due.

No, I say let Pickerington be Pickerington and VT be VT. We're much better off without their bumbling bureaucrats.