My first township zoning Commission. Part II

O.k. I covered Traffic and Trash. I’ll come back to the evil of Wal-mart. I just have to talk about Bart Welier, President of the Pataskala Area Chamber of Commerce. I found his comment to be arrogant and snooty. To get up and tell the resident of the community that this growth is coming and you better get use to it, it showed how little Mr. Welier cares about the community that he is suppose to be servicing.

Mr. Welier we do not have to expand as Brice road or 256 just because we are the next exit. We do not have to make the same mistakes they did. Your comments show that you haven’t been paying attention to Etna Township. The zoning committee and trustee have paid special attention to when, where and how things come into this community. Solid growth is more than opening the door to any and every business that want to plop down any where they want. Planning and developing areas for business with the water, traffic and other infrastructure in place before the business or residential area comes to result issues before they become issues. Etna Township doesn’t want to be in the position of wasting money fixes problem that business or builder assured weren’t going to be problem and later find out they are.

Business will be coming to Etna, and we will see rapid growth in a short amount of time. It will be on our terms. Etna is a premium property for a company that wants to grow and expand with us. We look forward to working with businesses that want to work with the community. We will not Ohh and Ahh over every business that touts you can have revenue if I come. We say at what cost this so called revenue is taking on the community. You seem to believe that we should be appalled that Reynoldsburg is getting Sales tax and Property tax from a Wal-mart. We should only shop where we live. I choose to look at it as paying Reynoldsburg for putting Wal-mart in their backyard so I don’t have too just to shop there.

Business that come to our community should come prepared to better the community rather than profit from it. We want businesses live up to the high business ethics. You see these ethics in our local government, our local hometown business and our residents. There nothing wrong with being small. We are a small community. We will grow but that don’t necessarily mean size. We want to grow in to a strong community. Look at Brice road now. How many buildings are vacant? They grew big but not strong.

Let’s look at a Wal-Mart coming into Etna.
We know
· Wal-Mart fails to cover 60% of their workers with any health insurance.
· In addition to paying premiums up to $249.71 per month for family coverage and $72.40 per month for single coverage, Wal-Mart workers must meet annual deductible of $350 to $1,000 per person – totaling as much as 45% of their annual income.
· Wal-Mart Refuses to cover necessary routine health cost like well-child care and vaccination for children.
· 70% of Wal-Mart merchandise is from China
· When Wal-Mart comes to town, for every two jobs it creates three jobs are lost
· Wal-Mart costs federal taxpayers over $1.5 billion a year in welfare to their employees
· Wal-Mart tops the list of companies with employees and their dependents on public assistance in at least 11 states
· Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $4.1 million in Clean Water Act violations and $50 million to settle allegations of underpaying employees

What we can see in the future

There is a Wal-Mart in Reynoldsburg, Newark, Heath, Canal Winchester, Mt. Vernon and More. How long can Wal-Mart keep expanding like this? They are going to hit a wall. When they start closing stores which do you see getting the ax? The little store in Etna will get closed. We will be stuck with a huge building we can’t fill. Look at the Village Market in Pataskala. It is still waiting for a tenant. How is a Wal-Mart going to affect the Etna Market? The True Value hardware store? How many others?

I’ve ranted enough for now. Think about it, please.

My first township zoning Commission meeting.

Hat’s off to the zoning commission, who held an organized and coherent meeting. They answered people question and tolerated the disruption from us, who never had to deal with this process before. I felt welcome and I think they did go out of their way to accommodate us.

I’ll begin with the ATM machine at Cumberland trial. What pin head at the Bank thinks this is a good idea? Is there no ATM at Speedway? I’m sure the new McDonald/BP has one. Is the Etna Market's "Cash only line" that much quicker that you need some good old cash? Heck everyone takes Visa around here why do you even need Cash? Put one over in the new strip mall going on farther down SR 310 closer to Pataskala. I’m sure the Cumberland trail residents will appreciate it during their community garage sale. Yea, right.

People talked about the business coming in and generating revenue. How does an ATM machine bring revenue? It doesn’t. Etna Township has nothing on the books that would allow us to generate fees or Income from this. We haven’t passed an Income Tax. I don’t even think that it would fall into the suggested Income tax area.

Who go to this ATM when the Wal-mart will have one just across the street?

Now the meat of the matter, the rezoning of the Langel’s land. I’m going to try to look at both sides of this so stay with me till the end here.

Let’s stomp out this notion that people have the right to do what ever they want. You don’t. I don’t. Get over it. When you live in a society, you give up certain right to be a part of that society. Let me give you an extreme example. If I had total freedom, I can do what ever I wanted. That would include the freedom to kill people. No laws apply. I am total free. You see that also means that some one else who could do whatever they wanted could kill me. I live in a society where I give up the right to kill people and other give up the right to kill people. We also agree to lock up or get ride of people who kill people. O.K. that a very vague overview. But the point is that the Langel’s don’t have the right to do ‘Whatever they want with the land’. There laws to protect and respect others.

I’m sure the Langel’s didn’t ask for there property to be split by zoning. I don’t know that for a fact. But I’m pretty sure and I bet you are too that they didn’t ask for it. You want to talk about property value. I’m sure it not an easy sale for them to make. Can’t sell the whole property for farming only half zoned that way. Can’t sell it for business cause what business will buy land they can’t use? Can’t sell half the land because you end up with a land locked peace of property. As I look at the handout from the meeting, I can say, “The Langel’s got screwed big time.”

For those of you that are against her selling her property to Wal-mart, what would you approve to go in this property? What business would not add traffic? What business would not have dumpster that blow litter all over the neighborhood? What business isn’t at risk from being held up? You are willing to keep business off of this property are you willing to help bring the right business into this property?

I think it was Barbara Langel, who said, “We love Etna, We live here. We attend on staying here. We would never do anything to hurt the community.” I believe she meant it. I don’t agree that a Wal-mart wouldn’t hurt the community. There isn’t a sole in the meeting that thinks that traffic won’t be worse if a Wal-mart moved in. Well maybe that pin head from Dayton that did the traffic study. What the heck did he say about not impacting the rush hour? People won’t be stopping off in the morning or on the way home from work to get stuff. Wal-mart empty at 7:00 am and 5:00pm. Wake up buddy.

I already pull enough crap out of the tree line behind my house from the builders and SR 310. I shudder to think what a couple of Wal-mart dumpsters would do. Hey, speaking of trash does anyone know why the trash didn’t get pickup today?

To be continued… (It’s past midnight and I have to go to bed. I will write more tomorrow. I want to get to the pin head president of the Camber of Commerce or whatever he was and his comment cause they really got me fuming.)