The first story I ever wrote at the Journal-Tribune was a yearend story.
As an intern in the winter of 1990/91, I was told to compile a list of potential top local stories for 1990, so that the newsroom could vote to determine the top 10.
The list was compiled, the votes were cast and I wrote a yearend story that would have taken a year to read. In journalism school they teach you how to gather information to put in a story but only experience teaches you what should be left out of an article. Lacking skill in the arena of judgment I basically included every detail of every story, no mater how small. This led to an unyielding word count that had to be carved down before it hit print. You can ask current sports editor Tim Miller about it because he had the laborious task of editing the submission.
If you are interested, the top stories that year involved a plan to build a medical waste incinerator in the city, the resignation of the Marysville Superintendent of Schools, the city’s decision to purchase the local water service provider and the area YMCA’s decision to file suit to gain independence from the Central Ohio chapter.
All were pretty straight forward stories. They were linear, each with a clear beginning and end.
I am recounting this so that I can tell you that, as an 18-year-old intern, I could not have handled the yearend story for 2023. There are some stories on this year’s list, which started Thursday and concludes in today’s edition, that are absolute quagmires. The stories relating to growth led the full newsroom to debate how to untangle and repackage them to tell the story of last year.
The top three stories on the list are all products of the urban sprawl being forced on Union County as the Columbus metro area spills its banks. As people and businesses seek to locate around the sprouting tech and industrial employers in the region, local officials are forced to deal with the fallout.
There is one overwhelming theme to all three stories – unrest. City and economic development officials have been at odds with school leaders. The managers of the county have sparred with township decision makers. Long-standing economic incentive agreements are in peril.
And voters have landed haymakers on all of them at the polls.
Residents have told officials that the growth needs to slow, casting off incumbent council members, voting down school and township issues, and overturning plans for a development in the city of Marysville. Beyond the polls, residents are showing up to local public meetings in unprecedented numbers to tell civic leaders their opinions. At a meeting just last night a number of Jerome Township residents shelled officials with questions until after 11:30 p.m.
Union County citizens are becoming well-versed in the language of abatements and they know how TIFs impact area agencies.
These storylines about growth are confusing, because they are layered and involve colliding coverage areas. The positioning of public agencies gets tangled to the point that straightening them out becomes like digging hair from the tines of a 17-year-old brush.
It is our job, to deliver these complex storylines in an easily digestible way. And it is your job, as informed citizens, to take that information and evaluate it. If you don’t like what is happening, speak up. But if you approve of the decisions officials are making, they should hear that as well.
This is a critical time in the story of Union County. When people look back on the history of this area 100 years from now, two periods will stand out – the change brought by Honda and the explosive growth forced on the area by Columbus in the 2020s.
It is essential that residents pay attention to the decisions concerning this growth because they not only impact the quality of life in the area, but also your household finances. Much has been made about increased lines of traffic caused by growth, but the real impact is going to materialize in lines on tax bills.
Officials continue to ring the familiar bell that “growth should pay for itself,” but residents are starting to realize that this hasn’t been the case. Every expense taken off the back of a wealthy developer is an expense that must be picked up by taxpayers in the form of funding for schools, libraries, the health department or any other number of public services. When the impact of development is weighed it must expand beyond the roadways and utilities, into the very fabric of a what makes a community work.
“Making growth pay for itself” means sharing the burden it places on all people. Right now, it seems to me that various entities are fighting to make growth pay for only the services they are specifically responsible for. In the middle are the tax dollars of Union County residents, a fresh carcass being picked over by various entities looking for the fattest piece.
The good news is that Union County residents are starting to wake up. We cover every meeting and people are following along. Citizens are speaking up and they are taking action. That’s what needs to happen when community faces urban sprawl.
It’s a lot to unpack, and certainly more than I could have wrapped my brain around as an intern 33 years ago.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor at the Journal-Tribune.