Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Don't forget the past

Look into past voting records of the three minority councilmen. Much of what they are saying and getting quoted now in the press are outright lies. Much is stretching the truth until it wants to snap. Information is posted here in this site but more importantly, minutes of meetings are posted on the city website.

Don't forget the past. Do you honestly think that thes three minority councilmen are smart? Come on! How about Parker ''We were elected to run this city the way we want''. How about Sabatino. Just because my mother stands to make a killing off this Diley Road expansion, it is OK that I continue to vote on it.

Don't be so naive to believe that Bushman and Berry aren't still working diligently behind the scenes to make the best attempt to regain control of this city. We successfully caused Bushman to be gone. Rules Committee successfully dispensed with Berry. They are out and they want back in. They will stop at nothing to get back in.

Lancaster is finding out the truth about Berry and he will have run his course there. Bushman is tied to Coleman and Coleman will soon be out. They have nowhere to come back to but here.

Stay the course and don't forget the past.

Commercial base

The worst part about trying to establish any type of commercial base is the anti-commercial stance of many of the NIMBYs once something is proposed. Everyone wants to live in a nice area, but bedroom communities such as Pickerington can't be too picky when a business wants to set up here.
Just look at one example from the Dublin (or Powell?) area, where Wal-Mart wants to put in a superstore. The area residents have tied that up and have made it clear they do not want that in their neighborhood. (ATTENTION: I am NOT proposing that we should get our own Wal-Mart, just using that as an example of NIMBYism that springs to mind.)
I know we have an area out along 33 that is a commercial development area. Is that where all of our commercial base will go, if it comes? Aside from Giant Eagle and any other Kroger stores that spring up.
Once a business decides to locate here, then we (city & twp) must work to keep it here, within reason. Grandview has lost a huge chunk of their tax base in the past three years, with Big Bear and other large employers leaving or closing down. Their base just suffered another hit when the Thomas W. Ruff Co. laid off 30 workers yesterday when they were bought out by a larger company.
We must encourage our civic leaders to actively seek out businesses willing to locate here, but also remind them not to give away the store while doing so.

What can we offer?

What can the city offer to commercial developers to make them want to come here? TIFs, tax breaks, free roads, free services? It's all been tried in the past. All we have are million dollar roads that go nowhere and TIFs that the schools suffer for.

What is the city willing to give up in order to draw commercial? No income tax for their employees? I can't think of a single thing we have to offer. Our last panacea of commercial development was annexed and rezoned by emergency and we now call it the Diley Sea of Homes. Everything you need to draw commercial was there and the absolute first thing they look for is access, access, access.

Where else does the city have access to an interstate or an interstate wanna-be like 33? No where. I read that ODOT absolutely refuses to consider Mink/Wagram as a new interchange off I-70. A comercial development wouldn't consider asking their 200-300 employees to use 70/256 both ways every day, would they?

Diley will be a sea of homes and school busses. Want to send their employees up and down there? ODOT is adamant that Hill Rd. will be another interchange over Allen. Not in the city and not near it. Perhaps a JEDD could be looked at there and both the city and township could share the rewards. Whoops, forgot about Jefferson Farms and Woods. Big bucks. Will the interchange and potential commercial in their back yard back yard be any better received than Diley?

Pickerington is becoming less and less viable for anything but retail cloaked as commercial. Sorry, we missed the boat, or should I say that the previous councils missed the boat. It is time to assess what we have left and how we can best capitalize on it. Commercial may not be it. Perhaps bedroom community will work if the cards are play right and at a conservative manageable pace.

I'm stumped as well

I agree. I do not know what the city and twp can do in this situation. Businesses seeking to relocate or start up have become used to getting breaks from the government in order to justify their taking decisions that, in a perfect world, should be determined solely by whether or not the said business would be viable at that particular location.