Notes from my Knapsack 7-30-2026

Notes from my Knapsack 7-30-2026
Jeff Gill

Monetizing culture, eroding value, building houses
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There is so much that’s wrong with the proposed housing subdivision in Union Township south of the Village of Granville.

Whoops, getting my facts straight is going to be a challenge. I mean, in the City of Heath, since they’ve annexed over far to their west. Once annexed by a municipality like Heath, it’s not “in the township” in the same way. Consult a lawyer for details.

South of the Village of Granville, but within what was established decades ago as within the Granville Exempted Village School District (GEVSD), which is a different legal entity entirely. Lots of the wrong things that get said in online discussion and even in person trace back to the understandable confusion about how “Granville” is both a village and a school district, but they are not the same thing. Not for taxation purposes, not for zoning, not for any number of things. Hold that thought, but hold it as two different entities.

Many useful critiques have been made, though, and there’s a website in opposition to the development which has smart people saying all the right things, along with some excellent media coverage, at least of the meetings that are open to the public, a debate I’m not getting into.

What I’d like to point out, and this will continue in my next column, are some things I don’t see or hear touched on as much, but bother me.

Top of the list: this “gift” of land for a school in the middle of the development. I will continue to call it a “gift” because gift it ain’t. You know the phrase “heads I win, tails you lose”? The developers are offering the gift of acreage right smack in the middle of the proposed 500-some house project. Handy, eh?

But mark well: the Granville school district is under a high calibre gun with that tract. They have to start the process of building this school fairly quickly, or once the developers have sold about 60% of the potential total of homes, a clock starts, and GEVSD has a year to launch building or the land goes back to the developer AND they can build out another 20% or so on that very land.

Think it through. The “gift” says GEVSD either builds a school to help the developer sell the back half of the development, which it most certainly would do, or else they get to hold the potential of even more students piled onto their headcount. If the school board and voters say “hey, let’s be prudent and see how this goes” they could either be pushed into a rushed deal, or get a harder hit in student count steepness. If they go ahead and build the school as the development starts, they’re literally helping fill it by doing so.

Heads they win, tails we lose.

So it’s not a “gift,” it’s a co-optation of school demographics to get Granville schools to help them sell houses by constructing a southern elementary school. Neat trick, huh?

My next column will involve numbers and percentages. And through them, a glimpse of something about “culture.” How do we look at our schools, and why? But as a down payment, let me note this: GEVSD last year had 2,454 students, while Heath City Schools had 1,527, and Lakewood Local just to the south 1,598. Granville’s student count is increasing, but the latter two neighbor districts have been shrinking. Why the rush to put students into the district already stretched thin?


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s not normally big on math, but it tells a story. Share your views with him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on X.

Faith Works 7-24-2026

Faith Works 7-24-2026
Jeff Gill

Planning for mortality, as we must
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There are troubles common to us all. I Corinthians 10:13 is instructive in this regard.

One of them has to do with aging family members, banks, and legal documents.

Let me say clearly right up top: I am a minister of the Gospel. I am not a lawyer, accountant, or financial adviser. You can find them out there as you have need. Clear so far?

I may not be a lawyer, but I know there are legal complications about aging and debility and dementia I have had to become familiar with over the last couple of decades. In church life as a pastor, as a grand-nephew and grandchild and son or son-in-law, I’ve gotten to know a great deal in practice about, say, how and when you have to renew a driver's license, which is a subject I haven’t written about for a while.

And I had no intention this July in the current sequence of columns to write about powers of attorney and bank accounts, but I posted something on my social media last week to which I’m still getting reactions and responses. This is beyond even the feedback I got when I wrote about shredded chicken sandwiches (if you weren't there, don’t worry about it).

First and key item I have no hesitation about telling you all: a power of attorney in your hands for another person effectively goes “poof” when that person dies. Your ability to manage or control business affairs changes drastically upon the death of a person for whom you may have a power of attorney. You can take that to the bank, as it were.

Which is where this gets sticky. If you go to a bank to do something with the accounts of a person for whom you have a power of attorney (or POA for short), you will learn that alone gives you now absolutely no authority at all. Post-mortem, you’re in the hands of probate, an executor, and so on (which varies by state, so Ohio law may not apply in another state the same way).

Folks are sometimes shocked to learn this, and thought they had what’s known as “transfer on death” or TOD status. This is where my counsel is limited, but know this, friends: not every POA allows you to get TOD on a bank account even while the individual you’re concerned about is living, and they are not equivalent when they die.

In fact, you may not have a POA, but a TOD works to allow you access to funds and to make transfers. Details here I leave to the professionals. But if you are thinking ahead, have a POA for someone ailing or declining, and that POA doesn't specifically allow you to assign beneficiaries (and many do not), you can’t get a TOD applied to an account without that person’s involvement and signature.

My father-in-law gave his daughter a great gift: she came to visit once, early in our having to step in and take care of shopping and cleaning and errands while he still lived independently (and drove, but I said licenses are a later tale for us to consider). He had gone to each of his banks, multiple because like a good Depression child, he believed in multiple banks. But at each he had done the TOD paperwork, and all she had to do was sign and take them around to the respective branches.

That’s the ideal situation. But if you have an aging loved one who trusts you with a medical power of attorney, maybe even a further limited POA, yet the accounts are all in their names only, if you want to simplify how those accounts are handled, you are likely to need their willing participation.

What I’ve learned is that as a person goes into cognitive decline, still relatively functional but with large gaps in thinking or recall, that last step may be hard to impossible.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s been through a bunch of this stuff and hopes to be of service to those just starting. Tell him your story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.