Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

It appears to me that the city may be issuing builders what are, essentially, blank check building permits. It appears that neither the permit applications nor the permits themselves describe houses that the builders actually plan to build. The builders apparently believe that, when they sell a house, they can take one of these blank check permits off the shelf, have the city amend it to describe the house they have sold, and then proceed with construction.

I have serious doubts as to the validity of such blank check permits. To my knowledge, building permit applications must actually describe the house that is to be constructed. This seems evident from the city's application form, which you can easily find on the city's web site. Frankly, I am astonished that the city would ignore this requirement and issue such permits.

I hope that the new city council that takes office next year will give serious thought to ruling that all of these blank check building permits that the city has been issuing were issued unlawfully and thus are invalid.

A Lawyer In The House

Not being a lawyer, I can't say whether I agree with Mr Rigleman's observations or not. Is there a lawyer posting out there that might have a better idea if there's any validity to this point?

I ask for this reason. Council delayed the moratorium (and then staged the Parker/Sabatino sabotage) to give their friends time to stockpile as many permits as possible before the November moratorium vote. That gives them a few more critical weeks to continue this process, and if they put together some sort of community authority documentation, couldn't they then not start the moratorium until they're stopped in November. How many hundreds of building permits will they issue by then?

If this process is not consistent with some legal requirement, is it possible that fact could be used not only to later invalidate these permits, but also to initiate action to stop their issuance. Even if that were a short term injuction, that might be enough to close this short window of continued opportunity that council has arranged for their benefactors.

Sounds like we need a lawyer...funny how that always seems to be the case when you're dealing with the Pickerington City Council. I'm sure they believe that's what our founding fathers had in mind.

Administrative delay

Folks,

Yes they can issue all the building permits they want between now and November. However please keep in mind that if a new group of council persons are elected then maybe our building permit department is over staffed. Clearly the current council and City Manager are loading us all down with debt. I see a bunch of layoffs coming Jan 1st 2004.

For those that have the recall petitions, your roll is very important you must remove those that allow this orgy of issuing building permits to continue. If you remove Parker and Wright you make the effort to gain control of residential growth a reality. For those of you that feel helpless in what is going on please contact Bruce Rookstool and get a set of recall petitions.

Postage Admin. will save us???

If the Postage/Bushman/Mapes team has anything to do with making a decision if these permits are valid, we already know the answer. If they can't legally find case law to support their view, the taxpayers will be asked to hire outside legal help to support their view. These individuals do not work for us, they work for themselves and their builder buddies. I hope Mayor Shaver, a new City Manager, new Legal Counsel and a Council that actually will work for the taxpayers resolves this insanity. I was not always in favor of the recall, but now all of us have to ask ourselves a question. HOW MUCH MORE CAN THIS GROUP DO, IN THE SHORT TIME THEY HAVE LEFT, TO DESTROY THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND THIS CITY?