Although I greatly enjoy being off the school board and out of the public eye, and plan to remain so, I would like to make four modest suggestions for this community's consideration:
(1) I believe the time has come to merge the city and the township. I am tired of one using the other as an excuse for doing nothing, and of developers playing one against the other for special favors. We are one community. It is time, therefore, that we had one government, so that we can all plan and provide for our common future together.
Of course this does not mean simply merging the township into the city. We need an entirely new form of government, with a totally new tax structure, and this entire community should participate in designing it. In the process, we should consider converting the Pickerington Local School District to the Pickerington City School District (although I certainly would not suggest sending our good friends and neighbors in Park Place and its environs to the Columbus City Schools -- they are part of our community too).
(2) This community should join in developing a comprehensive land use plan that will take us from where we are now to where we want to be when this community is built out in its entirety, as it inevitably will be. The plan should include zoning, set-backs, building codes and the like, and should include provision for commercial as well as residential development. I believe it should set as a target having 1/3 of the property in this community devoted to business use. It should also set a targeted rate of residential and commercial growth.
We should estimate now the total school buildings we will need at full build-out. This will depend primarily on population density, and our development plan should target the population density that we consider optimal, and should include procedures for reaching that result. We should be able, on that basis, to make a reasonable estimate of what our total enrollment will be at each grade level at total build-out, of how that enrollment will be distributed geographically, and of likely population trends following full build-out. On this basis, we should be able to target ideal locations for new schools.
(3) I believe we should consider using the rate of expansion of our community's sewer plant as the primary mechanism for controlling the rate of residential growth in this community. Houses can't be built without sewer hookups or septic fields, septic fields require large lots, and there is nothing the BIA can do to compel us to expand our sewerage facilities.
(4) Our schools are obviously overcrowded at grades K-6. On the other hand, our property tax rates are excessive, and we have no long-term plan for dealing with school overcrowding between now and build-out.
In these circumstances, the BOE should put only the lowest cost building option on the ballot this year, and we should vote to approve it. Two elementaries won't themselves eliminate overcrowding at grades 7-8, but they should allow us to convert Heritage Elementary back to a middle school. I believe that school works better as a middle school in any case. We should consider housing the pre-school program, which is a county program in any case, in the unused classrooms at the 8-12 level.
I was impressed by the BOE's decision last fall to put a proposal on the ballot that called for building fewer, but larger, schools. It is the first time in my memory that the BOE ever took costs, and the taxpayers, into account in fashioning such a proposal. I was very disappointed when it was defeated.
We need to encourage the BOE to stick to its guns on this score.
I look forward to your thoughts on these suggestions. If we agree that they are good ideas, lets work together to implement them.
(1) I believe the time has come to merge the city and the township. I am tired of one using the other as an excuse for doing nothing, and of developers playing one against the other for special favors. We are one community. It is time, therefore, that we had one government, so that we can all plan and provide for our common future together.
Of course this does not mean simply merging the township into the city. We need an entirely new form of government, with a totally new tax structure, and this entire community should participate in designing it. In the process, we should consider converting the Pickerington Local School District to the Pickerington City School District (although I certainly would not suggest sending our good friends and neighbors in Park Place and its environs to the Columbus City Schools -- they are part of our community too).
(2) This community should join in developing a comprehensive land use plan that will take us from where we are now to where we want to be when this community is built out in its entirety, as it inevitably will be. The plan should include zoning, set-backs, building codes and the like, and should include provision for commercial as well as residential development. I believe it should set as a target having 1/3 of the property in this community devoted to business use. It should also set a targeted rate of residential and commercial growth.
We should estimate now the total school buildings we will need at full build-out. This will depend primarily on population density, and our development plan should target the population density that we consider optimal, and should include procedures for reaching that result. We should be able, on that basis, to make a reasonable estimate of what our total enrollment will be at each grade level at total build-out, of how that enrollment will be distributed geographically, and of likely population trends following full build-out. On this basis, we should be able to target ideal locations for new schools.
(3) I believe we should consider using the rate of expansion of our community's sewer plant as the primary mechanism for controlling the rate of residential growth in this community. Houses can't be built without sewer hookups or septic fields, septic fields require large lots, and there is nothing the BIA can do to compel us to expand our sewerage facilities.
(4) Our schools are obviously overcrowded at grades K-6. On the other hand, our property tax rates are excessive, and we have no long-term plan for dealing with school overcrowding between now and build-out.
In these circumstances, the BOE should put only the lowest cost building option on the ballot this year, and we should vote to approve it. Two elementaries won't themselves eliminate overcrowding at grades 7-8, but they should allow us to convert Heritage Elementary back to a middle school. I believe that school works better as a middle school in any case. We should consider housing the pre-school program, which is a county program in any case, in the unused classrooms at the 8-12 level.
I was impressed by the BOE's decision last fall to put a proposal on the ballot that called for building fewer, but larger, schools. It is the first time in my memory that the BOE ever took costs, and the taxpayers, into account in fashioning such a proposal. I was very disappointed when it was defeated.
We need to encourage the BOE to stick to its guns on this score.
I look forward to your thoughts on these suggestions. If we agree that they are good ideas, lets work together to implement them.
