First it was businesses. Now it’s your kids’ high school

Grove City’s Law Director, Stephen Smith, says he doesn’t believe any rational person would call a school a Heavy Industrial Development. We agree. And state law gives schools protections the City isn’t mentioning.

So why is the City telling you Issue 28 would hold up the new Grove City High School? In an email reply to a resident, written at Council President Berry’s request and now circulating online, Mr. Smith says that if Issue 6 and Issue 28 both pass, the new high school would have to go through the Issue 28 process, with South-Western City Schools paying the costs and the project delayed.

We could rehash the text, but let’s skip that. His reading is that any one of the three triggers is enough, the high school site is over 50 acres, there’s no carve-out for schools, parks, or churches, and no official can waive it. Even if you accept his reading, look at the claims that follow from it.

What his answer leaves out is that Issue 28 limits what the City can approve. It doesn’t give the City any new power over a school district. And under Ohio law, a city’s power over another public body’s essential projects is already limited. The Ohio Supreme Court’s rule is a balancing test. The district is expected to make a reasonable effort to work with local rules, but when that would frustrate the facility’s public purpose, a court weighs how essential the facility is, its effect on neighbors, and the alternatives. Ohio courts have long recognized that one public body can’t simply block another’s essential public work, and a public high school is about as essential as it gets.

And the delay? According to the district’s own Issue 6 FAQ, construction on the new high school isn’t scheduled to start until 2028, with the building opening in 2031. Mr. Smith says the earliest an Issue 28 vote could happen is November 2027. So even on his timeline, the earliest vote would come before construction is scheduled to start.

Churches? No church will come close to the power or water triggers. The City has pointed to a couple of local churches on more than 50 acres. If the City tried to make one of them win a public vote to expand, federal law sharply limits local land use rules that substantially burden religious exercise, and no charter amendment overrides federal law.

Here’s the part the City leaves out. The school question came up in August, and we answered it. The compromise we negotiated with the City dropped the acreage trigger entirely, so a new high school wouldn’t have triggered it. On September 3, three Council members, including Council President Berry, voted against putting that compromise on this ballot. Now the City is warning you about a concern it chose not to resolve. Voting no doesn’t get you that compromise. It gets you a gap. Once Issue 28 passes, we’ll bring that change back to you for a vote. But schools don’t have to wait for it. State law protects them now.

About those businesses

Business leaders are telling you Issue 28 will scare new businesses away. In July, the City’s PR firm billed for “writing messaging support for GC with businesses.” Meanwhile BJ’s Wholesale is knocking on the door. They just filed plans for a 104,000 square foot store on Stringtown Road… in the middle of this campaign. They want to do business here, Issue 28 or not. And at about 18 acres, Issue 28 doesn’t even touch them. It applies to developments of 50 or more contiguous acres, or more than 20 megawatts of power, or more than 500,000 gallons of water a day. Issue 28 doesn’t stop growth. It asks for a vote only on sprawling projects, like the 300-plus acre hyperscale data center campus that started all of this. That’s more than 225 football fields.

The City is pulling out all the stops

Since March, the City has paid a Columbus PR firm, MurphyEpson, more than $64,000 of OUR money (and that’s before we’ve even seen the Sept invoice). The invoices are public, and they’re billed as “Grove City Economic Development Messaging and Communications.” Here are some of the details…

The firm was hired in March, before our petition even existed. Its early work was FAQs on the annexation and the project, and by April it was billing for “Data center fact sheet prep and research.” (yep…you read that right!) By late June, the firm’s notes show a meeting with the City’s Development Director that “discussed Charter Amendment and educational efforts to ID champions to build awareness for impacts prior to Nov.” On July 29 the line item reads “Develop strategy to counter Community Consent Agreement.” (They didn’t even get the name right.) Then came a “counter strategy approach document.” In August the firm’s senior art director worked on a Community Consent Amendment mailer over six different days, and on August 7 the firm met with City administration and the Mayor “to review content and timeline.” That’s nearly $17,000 since the counter strategy started, and the City has since mailed out another one.

Meanwhile, residents asking for public records are waiting weeks. Several have had to take their requests to the state just to get an answer. The City found time to pay its PR firm for “FOIA request response.” It hasn’t found time to answer yours.

Council President Berry signed our petition in June. Now he says the amendment wasn’t attached to what he signed. We posted photos of that packet, taken before it was turned in. All 17 pages are there.

They had other options

If the City really thought Issue 28 was a bad idea, it had plenty of ways to deal with it. Council could have put its own charter amendment on the ballot. It could have passed an ordinance. We wouldn’t have liked that, since a future Council could repeal it with one vote. But it was an option. There were any number of other solutions.

Keep that in mind. Right now, the only thing protecting Grove City from a hyperscale data center like the one Headwaters proposed is a moratorium, and Council can end it at any meeting with one vote.

The City even had a solution in hand. We sat down with them and negotiated a compromise version. On September 3, Council needed five votes to move it fast enough to make this ballot. It got four. Three members, including Council President Berry, voted no.

Instead, the City chose to spend your money fighting the voice of the people.

So why is the City working this hard?

Because power wants to hold on to power. Issue 28 takes one decision out of their hands and gives it to you, and they don’t want to let it go. First it was new businesses. Now it’s schools. Each claim sounds scary, and each one falls apart once you see the full picture.

They’re so disconnected from the people they serve that they’re paying an outside firm for “tracking social conversation,” a “social media listening report,” and “counter tactics to boost resident sat[isfaction].” No one needs a consultant for that. Just listen to the people. Protect Grove City came to the table to work with them. Is the City here for the same reasons, or is this about holding on to power? You decide.

Issue 28 does one thing. It gives YOU a vote on developments massive enough to change Grove City forever. That’s exactly what the City is spending your money to stop.

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Vote Yes on Issue 28!