“We have to focus on the annexation proceedings now,” said Rachel Quade with the Geist United Opposition. “Let’s show up in force next Wednesday night at the Fishers Town Hall and tell them what we think of their plans to forcibly annex us.”

If Fishers proceeds with the annexation proceedings, the areas of North, East and West Geist will have a chance to sign petitions remonstrating against the Town of Fishers for 90 days beginning in mid January. Each area will have to secure 65% of the residents’ signatures on a petition to get their day in court.

“After we win, we’ll pull the incorporation papers back out again and refile,” added Quade.

“The Board of Geist United Opposition sincerely appreciates the work everyone did gathering over 800 signatures on petitions for incorporation,” said Kirk Bidwell. “Clearly, the promise of incorporating our area into self-governing towns resonated with a lot of people. You can rightly say that you were part of making history in the Geist area.”

An important reminder:  the Fishers Town Council is holding the required public hearing on the Geist annexation next Wednesday, December 19th, 4:00pm, at the Fishers Town Hall.

All Geist residents should attend this meeting!  Plan to make a statement at the hearing as to why you are against this forced annexation.  It may be that:

• You are against paying significantly higher property taxes for services you don’t need, don’t want, and don’t use.
  • Even if the state changes the property tax system, Fishers will simply replace property taxes with another, higher tax (e.g., local income).
• You don’t like the idea of the Town Council-a governmental body that you did not elect and who does not represent you-forcing you into their town against your will and for no other reason than they want your money.
• You don’t like the way the Town Council conducts business:  spot annexations to ensure certain councilors can retain their council seats; uncontrolled growth that is stressing our schools and infrastructure; forcing people to sign agreements not to fight annexation (non-remonstration) in order to get building permits; and, making outrageous, retaliatory statements like our kids won’t be able to play in the SPORTS program or our sewers will be shut off if we fight annexation.

Tell all of your neighbors to attend!  Please help get the word out and call your neighbors and ask them to attend this meeting.  The date and time are certainly not convenient, but that would appear to be by design-after all, why wouldn’t the Town Council make it as difficult as possible?

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/WXo3lLt2ul8" width="300" height="250" wmode="transparent" /]All parties agreed to a phone conference call tomorrow to update the Judge on the timing of the rescheduled hearing, which both sides agreed would be the week prior to the December 19th public hearing on the forced annexation ordinances by the Town of Fishers.

At stake, the claim of who made the first move in the incorporation of the unincorporated areas around Geist. Fishers claims to have introduced their three ordinances to forcibly annex Geist at their September 17th town council meeting. Geist residents, led by members of the Geist United Opposition, filed petitions to form the Town of East and West Geist on September 21st. It’s up to Judge Nation to decide if in fact Fishers has trumped Geist, forcing them to fight the annexation next spring or if Geist can move forward in their incorporation efforts.

Members of the Geist United Opposition continue to solicit Towns of East and West Geist petitions from property owners. These petitions will give Judge Nation a sense of the “will of the people” while also giving those homeowners unsure of incorporation a chance to ask questions of block captains gathering signatures.

But, fighting is expensive and good lawyers don’t come cheap!

On Saturday, December 1st, the GUO Block Captains will be making the rounds and asking for contributions.

Because we have been successfully fighting against forced annexation for two years, we have saved every Geist homeowner an average of just over $2,000 so far.  That’s, on average, $2,000 you haven’t had to send to Fishers to fund their boondoggles.

If everyone gave 10% of what they’ve already saved–$200—we’re well funded for the fight.

If you’ve given—thank you!  If you haven’t, please do. (click here)

Ask your neighbors if they’ve contributed—we’re all in this fight together and we should all contribute to the cause and not let our neighbors carry the burden.

See you Saturday.

Mitch Makes It All Go Away?

Does the governor’s tax plan make all of this moot? 

So far, there are now three or four tax plans being bandied about the state legislature.  Hopefully, something positive in terms of property tax relief will occur this legislative session.  The end product though, is anybody’s guess.

Nonetheless, it’s pretty likely that the state will either increase other taxes or establish new taxes to make up for the loss of property tax revenues.  And, it all can’t go to business; that would particularly hurt smaller cities and towns that don’t have a large number of large businesses to carry the burden.

Whatever they do, you can bet that if we’re annexed our taxes paid to Fishers will be substantially higher.

For example, if the state provides for a local income tax:  if annexed, we’d be paying income taxes to Fishers at whatever rate they establish to make up for the over $2.4 million in lost property tax revenues from Geist (that’s $2.4 million year one of annexation, it goes up after that to over $3 million by year five).

Under this example, if we incorporate into our own towns, the income tax rate would be much lower (just like the property tax rate is much lower) because we have a good tax base and we don’t need to pay for all of the issues caused by out-of-control growth and grand schemes.

So, will whatever the state legislature comes up with make annexation moot?  Not very likely.

Also in attendance and on hand to answer questions were Steve Dillinger, Hamilton County Commissioner, Sheriff Doug Carter, HCSD, Lt. Kevin Fessel, HCSD, and Chief Michael Blackwell, Lawrence Township Fire Dept/Castleton Fire Dept., as well as our legal representatives Brian Zaiger, Rob Schein, and Nigel Riggins of Kreig Devault.

There was also a large contingent of fire fighters, including a fire truck and ambulance, from the Castleton Fire Department, slated to become the Geist Fire Department should incorporation go through. They were there to show their support, which included a $1,000 contribution to the GUO to fight forced annexation and achieve incorporation.

Our heartfelt thanks to the men and women of the Castleton Fire Department!

The presentations and discussion focused on three topics: current state of affairs regarding the Fishers Town Council’s latest forced annexation attempt of Geist; status of the incorporation of the Towns of East & West Geist, including a discussion of estimated tax rates and planned services; and, finances and the need for additional contributions (see next article).

A copy of the presentation materials is posted here. You can also post questions regarding either annexation or incorporation on the website and the GUO will do it’s best to post answers as quickly as possible. We will also post the questions and answers that came up during the meeting.

Overall, there was clear and strong support from all those in attendance to continue the fight against forced annexation and to move forward with incorporation. We very much appreciate everyone coming and your strong support.

“To fight for our right to be independent….

you need to say it with your checkbook” to quote Pete Peterson, president of the GUO.

We estimate that it will take at least $400,000 to beat the Fishers Town Council in court. Based on a review of the proposed fiscal plans put forth by the Fishers Town Council, the first year alone we will collectively pay them $2,437,178 in increased property taxes.

[This number is actually higher than the one we quoted before, which we had estimated based on the NAV, whereas this number is straight from their plan.]

Divided by 2000 homes, this an average $1,219 annual tax increase for each homeowner, not counting tax rate increases from the Town Council (which have been proposed already). In that the forced annexation process began in November, 2005, this works out to an average savings, thus far, of $2,438 per homeowner.

If each homeowner contributes less than 10% of the savings already realized, or $200, we will meet our estimated financial needs to fight this battle. Of course, if you want to give more, we’d be more than grateful—fundraising is a time consuming task and the faster we can reach our goal, the more time we’ll have to concentrate on the battle at hand.

Make no mistake, the Fishers Town Council is loaded for bear and is willing to spend any amount of their taxpayers’ money to try and get us. At the recent Plan Commission meeting, at which we presented our case for incorporation, they had 6 or 7 attorneys plus financial “experts” on hand to try and dispute our case. That’s a pretty hefty burn rate.

While we don’t need that many lawyers, we do need money for legal services (and we’ll certainly guard you money with much more frugality and much more consideration than the Fishers Town Council obviously does with its citizens’ money).

Click “Donate Now” on the www.SayNoToFishers.com website, or send a check to:

Geist United Opposition
P.O. Box 56023
Indianapolis, IN 46256

Thank you very much!

PS: If you have friends in Fishers, why not ask them what they think about their Town Council’s willingness to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of taxpayer dollars to forcibly annex Geist. Our fight is with the Town Council, not the good people of Fishers. If they think this is a complete waste of a lot of their money, perhaps they would be willing to call their town councilor and complain.

Since there are many meetings/hearings over the next 2 months, the GUO thought it might be helpful to list them for you…

Tuesday, 10/30 at 6 p.m. Fishers High School Cafeteria

Hearing before Fishers Planning Commission regarding incorporation

Wednesday, 11/7 at 7 p.m. HSE High School Cafeteria

GUO Geist Community Meeting to discuss annexation and incorporation

Tuesday, 12/4 at 6 p.m. Hamilton County Judicial Center in Noblesville

Hamilton County Commissioner’s Public Hearing regarding incorporation

Wednesday, 12/19 at 4 p.m. Fishers Town Hall

Public Hearing regarding annexation

We realize that this is quite few meetings- especially around the holidays! We know that Fishers very likely planned to have all of the activity came to a head at the busiest time of the year to help keep interest and attention at its lowest possible level. GUO hopes that Fishers will not succeed. PLEASE plan on attending meetings to demonstrate Geist residents’ interest in this very important issue!!

What does this mean for Geist?

Not much!  While challenging the veracity of Fishers’ fiscal plans for Geist is not out of the question, our case will be based on a different set of laws regarding the provision of services; that is, the law says if the territory to be annexed (Geist) already receives services from sources other than the municipality (Fishers), the annexation is not in the best interests of the property owners, and the financial impact will be substantial, then the annexation cannot go through.

We meet that test because we get services from the county and other providers, not Fishers.

Of course, the Fishers Town Council will jump up-and-down and shout in glee and claim that this ruling goes directly to the heart of the matter and further validates their right to annex anybody they want and Geist doesn’t stand a chance now.  They will also claim that they provide services to Geist because we use their roads and parks and so on.  But, we’re used to the Town Councilors stretching the truth beyond reason, so this new noise won’t really be new at all.

In an upcoming Friday Report we’ll outline the ridiculous fiscal plans the Fishers Town Council has prepared in anticipation that this ruling might have gone in favor of Home Place–the plans are full of “magnanimous” spending of millions of dollars for stuff we don’t need or want.  Stay tuned.

Incorporation Plan EAST Geist (PDF Download)

Incorporation Plan WEST Geist (PDF Download)

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