Nonetheless, plan to attend to voice your displeasure to the public and the media.  We need to make a significant noise to let the Council know that this action is wrong and we are ready for the battle.

The GUO will also be prepared with remonstration (anti-annexation) petitions for homeowners to sign immediately after the Council passes the ordinances.

This is also an excellent time to make a contribution to the legal defense fund.  We need money to win this in court.

Senate Bill 114 Passes Committee-Step One Win for Our Side

On Wednesday, January 16 the Senate Local Government and Elections Committee voted 6 – 4 to pass SB114 onto the full senate for review and vote.  The Committee vote was along party lines with the Republicans voting for and the Democrats voting against.

This bill, authored by Senators Drozda and Gard, significantly changes Indiana’s annexation law for the better.  In particular, the bill eliminates forced annexation in Indiana; the only way a municipality could annex a territory under this law is if the landowners agree.  If the municipality initiates the annexation, all of the property owners would have to consent to the annexation.

Now it is up to the Senate to pass the bill.  If the Senate passes the bill, then it’s on to the House for a vote.

A key provision of the bill, as currently written, is that it is retroactive to January 1, 2008.  It says that any involuntary annexation ordinance adopted between January 1st and July 1st, 2008 is void.  If passed into law with this provision in tact, it would stop the Fishers forced annexation of Geist.

As you can imagine, Stu Easley, Fishers Town Councilor-who testified against the bill at the Committee hearing; imagine that-complained long and loud to the press that this provision was targeted to Fishers.

But, the issue of forced annexation is a state-wide issue and there are many other communities in the state, such as Jeffersonville, who are fighting forced annexations.

The basis of the bill is to make the annexation process fair and equitable.  If that is the objective of the general assembly, then stopping all pending forced annexations now is the fair and equitable thing to do; it would not be fair to allow municipalities to proceed with forced annexations between now and the time the law would otherwise become effective(July 1, 2008).  That would also be an attempt to circumvent the intention of the general assembly.

That’s akin to telling your child they are misbehaving, but allowing them to continue to misbehave until some point in the future.  Common sense says that you stop the misbehavior now, even if the child got away with it in the past.

This bill continues to need your support.  Please call and/or e-mail the state senators.  To e-mail, go to www.in.gov, click on the General Assembly link, click on the Legislators link, click on the How to Contact link, and click on each senator to e-mail.  Also, encourage your family and friends throughout the state to send their respective legislators a letter or e-mail. This is not just an Indianapolis-area problem, it affects residents in Pendleton, Anderson, Jeffersonville, Whitestown, Muncie and Morristown (near Shelbyville) who are all involved in hostile annexation.

Senator Beverly Gard represents most of the Geist area and is solidly behind this bill.  But, the rest of the senate needs to hear from the populace.

When you voice your support to the senators, please tell them that the retroactive provision of the bill is the fair and right thing to do.   The other guys (the municipalities) have not been playing fair for a long time, so making this bill retroactive only helps to somewhat even things out.

Don’t forget too that Fishers, Carmel, and some other cities and towns will no doubt be spending a lot of money on lawyers and lobbyists to try to stop this bill; we can only succeed if we continuously tell the legislators what we, the people, want.

What is very important here is that this ruling in no way harms our case against the Town of Fishers! Nor does it help the Town in its pursuit of usurping our property.

The Fishers Town Council held off on its pursuit of forcibly annexing the Geist Area pending this ruling because no one really knew what the court might do. For example, the court might have addressed points in annexation law that would make it much more difficult for a city or town to annex territory. If the court had done so—which it did not—then Fishers and other municipalities might have had to change their tactics.

In fact the good news is that since the Town had to wait, we’ve enjoyed another year (plus) of not paying higher taxes to Fishers and are even more prepared to fight this forced annexation attempt than ever before.

Despite all of the hoopla bandied about in the press, the ruling really came down to two elements: (1) a municipality has the right to modify the fiscal plan after the annexation ordinance is adopted; (2) SW Clay did not meet the test of having 65% of the property owners of record remonstrate against the annexation.

Because of this second point, the court ruled in favor of Carmel.

The court did not rule on other points of annexation law nor did a “roadmap” of how to proceed really come out of the ruling.

As you may recall, when Carmel first attempted to annex SW Clay a remonstrance group called No Ordinance for Annexation (or NOAX) was formed. After NOAX secured the needed number of remonstrators (65% of the property owners) to fight the annexation, it then negotiated a settlement deal with Carmel and, for certain concessions like tax abatements, it agreed not to pursue the fight against forced annexation. Part of the result of these negotiations was that Carmel revised its fiscal plan to provide services to the area to be annexed and adopted an amended annexation ordinance.

However, others in SW Clay said that NOAX did not represent their interests and continued on with the fight. One of their arguments was that the law did not allow a municipality to change its fiscal plan and, as such, the NOAX deal essentially didn’t count. The court ruled otherwise saying that both the property owners and municipality have the right to negotiate a settlement, if they want to, and amend the fiscal plan accordingly after the annexation ordinance had already been adopted.

Based on the evidence presented, the court ruled that the NOAX deal was valid, and because of that, those property owners who had initially remonstrated against the annexation but then subsequently agreed with the NOAX settlement could no longer be counted as valid remonstrators; thus, SW Clay no longer had the required 65%. Without the required 65% there is no valid remonstrance under the law and Carmel wins.

If there is a roadmap in that for municipalities to follow for annexations, good luck in finding it. That said, now that the wait is over, no doubt Fishers will re-start its efforts and political spin game to annex the Geist Area. We’re ready!

We will easily get more than 65% of Geist Area property owners to sign a remonstrance petition and we are already organized to get those signatures; we have a solid legal fund in place and will collect even more to fight the good fight; and, there is no one empowered or willing to negotiate a settlement—Fishers will have to try to settle with each and every homeowner individually if they want to try to cut a deal.

More importantly, we have a strong basis in law to fight the forced annexation—a basis that was not touched by this ruling. WE ARE GOOD TO GO!

How much did your property taxes go up?

Due to the recent reassessment, the average property tax increase across the state is around 24%. Some in the Geist Area have experienced a 28% increase, while others have been a bit more fortunate.

Keep in mind that if the Town of Fishers prevails, our taxes will go up another 22% on top of what we just got smacked with!

The Power of Pooh!

The Town of Fishers is using its monopoly power over waste water treatment in southeastern Hamilton County to persuade certain neighborhoods in the Geist Area to agree to be annexed. The neighborhoods of Country Lane Estates, Forest Knoll, and Carefree Estates are at various stages of negotiation to be converted from well and septic service to sewer and city water service.

The Town has offered interest-free financing of the construction in exchange for the neighborhoods agreement to be annexed. These agreements were on the agenda of the Fishers Town Council this past Monday, June 18. The agreements for Country Lane and Forest Knoll were approved; the agreement for Carefree Estates was removed from the agenda. It’s not clear what the Council approval signifies. There was no discussion by the Council and no one in the audience asked to speak.

In the case of all three neighborhoods, the residents are waiting to see detailed cost estimates from the Town before they make a commitment.

Pricy Fire Protection

As you know, Fall Creek Township contracts with the Fishers Fire Department to provide fire and EMS services to the unincorporated areas of the Township (mostly the Geist Area), with the exception of a small section that is supported by Fortville.

And, as you may recall, last November the Township sold the Brooks School Road fire station to the Town of Fishers because the Township didn’t have the money to pay for the entire 2006 fire contract. Fishers paid $916,000 for the building of which $213,000 was applied against the then $1.8 million contract and the remainder was retained by the Township.

Part of the story according to the Township board was that they were trying to hold down taxes and basically ran out of money. Although the $703,000 gain was helpful, there is still some risk that Township taxes may go up. They also said that part of the problem was that new homes were going up faster than property-tax revenues to pay for the fire protection contract.

Here’s the rub, though: The Township has never entertained a competitive bid for fire and EMS services for the unincorporated areas of Fall Creek Township; they simply assume Fishers is giving them a good deal. But, Lawrence Township Fire Department is very interested in bidding to provide these services.

How do we know they are interested? Because, unlike our Township Trustee, we asked. And, from our initial discussions, Lawrence likely can provide the services for less money than Fishers.

Here’s another rub: Lawrence did say they would need a fire station located in the North/East section of the area (think around Olio and 104th) to ensure proper protection to that area. Of course, the Brooks School Road fire station would have worked, but the Township gave that away. But, the Township could float a bond and build a building with little to no impact on our taxes, especially if Lawrence’s services are less costly.

If you think that the Township should undertake a competitive bidding process, instead of simply giving the deal to Fishers—the current contract expires 12/31/07 and also can be terminated upon 60 days notice—contact your Township officials:

Terry Michael, Trustee
Jason Meyer, Board
Mike Reuter, Board
Dan Rieke, Board
317-841-3180

Remember, all of these folks are elected to office.

By the way: (1) The Township should allow Fishers Fire Department take care of the unincorporated areas (Swiss Cheese “holes”) that are well within the Town boundaries, of which there are many—why should we pay for fire protection for areas that Fishers doesn’t want to annex because there is no economic gain in doing so?; (2) Lawrence FD also has boats on Geist, so the lake would continue to be covered.

Incorporating Our Own Town—Update

The subgroup of GUO is continuing to investigate the feasibility of forming our own town. We have secured an agreement in principle with a nearby fire department to provide fire and EMS protection, and are working through the cost and tax implications of setting up and running a town.

By forming our own town we can permanently thwart future annexation attempts—even if Fishers loses this round, they are free to try again in four years.

We will provide a more complete update in the near future as we work through the numbers. Meanwhile, please share your thoughts below by posting a comment.

Here is a link to the ruling online

First of all, the original settlement that the NOAX group negotiated with the City of Carmel was originally thrown out by Judge Hughes in the Hamilton County Courts. The court went on to hear arguments from the landowners that remonstrated against Carmel and Judge Hughes ruled in their favor.

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the original referendum that NOAX negotiated was valid and overruled Judge Hughes’ decision to throw it out.

Carmel announced their intent to annex Southwest Clay on June 21, 2004 and notified landowners on July 2nd which started the 90-day remonstrance clock. During this time, a group called NOAX entered into a settlement agreement with Carmel on behalf of the residents and the City of Carmel revised their fiscal plan and adopted the ordinance on October 7th. This deal with Carmel was voted on by the landowners and approved by a count of 708 in favor and 515 opposed.

After this agreement had been struck, three homeowners led efforts to get the remonstrance signatures they needed to in essence block the deal struck by NOAX and Carmel. They garnished just under 70% of the homeowners’ signatures (almost 5% more than the 65% requirement to remonstrate).

So, there were two deals that went to court on March 20, 2006:

1. The original deal that NOAX had struck with Carmel
2. The remonstrance against the annexation led by the 3 homeowners

Judge Hughes threw out the first deal with NOAX and Carmel and ruled on the annexation in favor of Southwest Clay. The Supreme Court essentially overruled Judge Hughes on the NOAX deal saying that they in fact had a majority of votes by the homeowners and said that the remonstrators didn’t have enough votes to satisfy the 65% they needed to remonstrate.

Wait, didn’t they get just under 70% signatures?

According to the Supreme Court, those people that voted for the original NOAX deal couldn’t also vote for the remonstrance, throwing out 546 petitions from the 2,210 needed to remonstrate.

How does all this affect the Geist annexation by Fishers?

It doesn’t really affect the Geist annexation.  The ruling, whether in favor or against Carmel, merely gives the Town of Fishers the green light to move forward with their annexation plans.

The Geist United Opposition is not secretly or publicly negotiating any special terms with the Town of Fishers. Chief Justice Shepard’s ruling today did not address the key problems that Fishers will have to deal with should the Geist residents successfully remonstrate: fire protection, water, and sewers not currently being provided by the Town of Fishers.

Fishers is providing fire protection through a contract similar to the Southwest Clay / Carmel arrangement. However, Geist residents have a competitive bid from the Lawrence Fire Department for $200,000 less per year (more on this later).

As soon as a ruling is issued-and our attorneys will get immediate notification-we’ll publish the results to you right away.

It is important to keep in mind that regardless of the outcome of the case, we fully expect-and are prepared for-the Town of Fishers to continue to try to annex the Geist Area.

If the ruling is in favor of SW Clay, then likely Fishers will need to substantively change their approach and rationale for annexation. While pursuing annexation under this situation may be viewed as a fool’s errand-that is, their statutory basis for annexation would not be sound-that hasn’t stopped them before. After all, ego and arrogance often drive people to do silly things.

If the ruling is in favor of Carmel, then likely Fishers will simply re-initiate their annexation plan, and we’re ready for that!

One thing we do know for sure, regardless of the court ruling and Fisher’s next steps, Carmel will have a bigger water park than Fishers.

1. Legislative Change: A group of residents from around the state of Indiana, including Geist residents, worked together with state legislators to craft amendments to existing annexation laws. Spearheaded by Geist resident Rachel Quade, this group was able to get bills introduced to the Senate Committee on Local Government & Elections. Unfortunately, these bills never made it to the Senate floor for a vote. While we were optimistic that we could see statewide change in the current laws, we were also realistic knowing that this was a long shot and would never completely protect us from forced annexation.

2. Incorporating Our Own Town: A subgroup of the GUO Board has been investigating the possibility of incorporating the unincorporated areas around Geist into our own town. Like any option we have researched, we are keeping an open mind and trying to assess the pros and cons before we present this option to our residents. Preliminary data is promising, but there are hurdles to overcome.

First and foremost, we are working with several expert resources to determine the tax impact of forming our own town. Early discussions and research have shown that we would see a slight tax increase, but nowhere near the 20%+ we would see if the Town of Fishers annexed us. Controlling our own destiny, being able to vote for our own representation, and keeping our tax dollars right here in Geist is appealing to most residents to whom we have spoken.

Other key factors in the process include the provision of services such as roads and police (likely a continuation of the excellent county-provided services we currently enjoy), and assuring fire protection and EMS services. In recent weeks, the working group has made excellent progress defining how those services would be provided at a reasonable cost.

Based on phone polls we have done with some of our residents, this is definitely an avenue we want to continue to pursue. There are a lot of details that we have to address, and with the State Supreme Court ruling on the Southwest Clay vs. Carmel case imminent in the coming weeks, time is of the essence.

Please do not hesitate to offer your thoughts on the idea by posting comments below or directly e-mailing or calling any of the GUO board members. We will be sending you more information as we get it in the coming days.

If you ask either side who won today, both will say they did well. Several local TV and newspaper journalists were on-hand to get interviews of both sides afterwards. At the end of the day, whatever ruling the Indiana Supreme Court hands down will turn the yellow annexation light to green with cities and towns all around the state of Indiana. While the City of Carmel was appealing one of six rulings by Judge Hughes, this one ruling can have a big impact on how future forced annexations are dealt with by both sides.

The Supreme Court’s website has the entire video and audio of today’s hearing online. I also captured a little video outside the courtroom as Pete Peterson was interviewed by local the local FOX News affiliate.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/sWOep4sRsdM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Now what? We understand that Senator David Long (President Pro Tempore) will consider establishing a study committee to review current state annexation law to identify needed changes and introduce legislation to place a moratorium on all forced annexations pending the outcome of the study committee’s work. However, he is awaiting a “grass roots” movement from across the state to encourage him to do so-likely, he wants to be sure there is sufficient voter support for the idea.

If you believe that these actions-moratorium, study committee-are needed and appropriate, please e-mail, call, and/or write Senator Long with your thoughts:

Direct e-mail: s16@ai.org
E-mail via the Senator’s state webpage

Senator David C. Long
President Pro Tempore
200 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 232-9400
(800) 382-9467

Following is an example of one of the e-mails sent to him, which may help stimulate your thoughts on the subject:

Dear Senator Long:

As you are aware, there are a significant number of forced annexations going on across the state in which property owners are being forced into municipalities against their wishes. As you are also aware, several bills were introduced this legislative session to help reform state annexation law to at least give property owners a fair chance to fight forced annexations have either not been assigned to Committee (House) or were not passed by the assigned Committee (Senate Local Government and Elections; passage was lost by one vote, yet not all Committee members were in attendance for the vote).

I am writing as an Indiana citizen and property owner to ask you to take two actions: (1) Establish a study committee to review current state annexation law and identify changes necessary to make the law fair and equitable; (2) Introduce legislation to place an immediate moratorium on all forced annexations until after the study committee has completed its analysis and corrective legislation can be introduced and voted on next session.

The latter is extremely important. If a study committee is formed, municipalities will recognize that the annexation law may be changed and will rush through as many forced annexations as possible to get ahead of any statutory changes that may not be in their favor, which would defeat the purpose of the study committee and the value of any changes to the law.

Changes to the law are desperately needed. Although state annexation law was amended several years ago with the intention of giving property owners additional rights to challenge forced annexation of their property, there is clear evidence that municipalities are abusing the law because the cost to homeowners to remonstrate is exceedingly expensive (often in the $100,000 to $400,000 range) and, as such, the municipalities expect no legal resistance; the only check-and-balance over forced annexations is the property owner’s right to remonstrate. No governmental agency is charged with verifying the veracity and validity of a forced annexation; thus, many occur that, in fact, violate the current statutes.

Please press forward with the moratorium and the study committee so that the citizens and homeowners of Indiana have equal and fair protections under the law.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

The more people who express their concerns about current annexation law to Senator Long the greater the chance that he will take action.

Supreme Court Hearing Next Week

Next Thursday, March 8th, at 9:45am the Indiana State Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the City of Carmel vs. Southwest Clay appeal. The public may attend. The hearing will be in the Supreme Court courtroom, Room 317 of the Statehouse at 200 West Washington Street, downtown Indianapolis.

The arguments are supposed to be limited to a total of 40 minutes (20 minutes per side).

No doubt, the press will be in attendance.

This would be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate support for Southwest Clay by attending the hearing-out of respect for the court, business-type dress is appropriate.

Keep in mind that Southwest Clay prevailed over Carmel in Hamilton County Superior Court; this is Carmel’s appeal of that ruling and other municipalities, including the Town of Fishers, have filed “friend of the court” briefs in support of Carmel. After all, the very points Carmel lost on in Superior Court are the same, exact points that Fishers has included in their annexation ordinances (and, as such, likely would lose on the same grounds). The Supreme Court’s ruling on the appeal may happen 30 – 60 days after the hearing.

There is still hope to get annexation reform amended to another bill. Senator Pro Tem David Long told Senator Gard that if he sees a grassroots groundswell of support for annexation reform, he would try to get an amendment added to another bill so that we can get some changes made in this session.

He has to hear from all of us!

Send Senator Long an e-mail stating in essence that the state of Indiana needs annexation reform. That’s it.

You can also send him letters or call his office:

Senator David C. Long
President Pro Tempore
200 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204

(317) 232-9400

Dear Indiana Senators and House Representatives:

There are two proposed bills being introduced next week by Senator Gard that many residents of Indiana are supporting: SB 161 & SB 112. These were discussed last week in the Senate Government and Elections Committee hearing and the overall feeling of many on that committee was one of “these don’t go far enough”.

Several statewide forced annexations are going on with no oversight, many procedural violations, and at a high cost to both the municipalities and citizen caught in the forced annexation crosshairs.

Residents statewide have bonded together and started a web site at http://annexreform.com. My neighbors at Geist have already raised $90,000 to fight the Town of Fishers in their proposed annexation and have a web site at http://saynotofishers.com. The Town of Fishers has violated several procedural statutes to annex around these residents, violations which the residents will have to fight in court to get overruled.

To date, only four forced annexations have been brought to court in Indiana…all four were overruled by a judge.

We suggest that a moratorium be put into affect until an oversight committee can be put into place to prevent other procedurally flawed forced annexations from taking place. The residents of Muncie, Geist Reservoir, Southwest Clay, Home Place, Jeffersonville, Whitestown (now Fayette), Anderson, and Pendleton all appreciate your support of these legislative amendments.

Best regards,

Tom Britt, Publisher

http://atGeist.com

http://atFishers.com

Lawrence Township resident

(home address)

317-823-5060

317-536-3030 fax