Church Guarantees TOF Would Win in Court

It’s always interesting as to how it is so important that politicos show the proper amount of bluster to the public. Doug Church, Fishers town attorney, told the Fishers Town Council Thursday night that Fishers would win in court if it pursed involuntary annexation [of Geist]. “We should prevail in any involuntary annexation action” is the quote from Church in the July 13^th Indianapolis Star. In that article he said that the recent Supreme Court decision strengthened Fishers’ case.

But, of course, the Council wants to be magnanimous and work with Geist property owners on voluntary annexation even though, according to Stuart Easley, Town Council member, that “The best time to offer an olive branch is when you have all of the power” (same article).

So, the Fishers Town Council votes to withdraw the four pending annexation ordinances—hooray for our side! Forced annexation is off the table for now. (See the associated story below). That’s the good news.

What did the GUO do in return for this? We simply agreed not to discourage property owners from meeting with representatives of Fishers to discuss voluntary annexation.

We did not agree to promote voluntary annexation; we did not agree to not continue to hold the Town Council’s feet to the fire; and, we did not agree not to fight any forced annexation attempt.

We did succeed in holding off forced annexation for a bit longer—the longer the better from a tax increase perspective at the very least.

And, we are certainly not opposed to the Town Council attempting to make their case as to why it is in your best interest to pay higher taxes for services you already have (and pay for). But, we will continue to do our best to be sure that you have the facts.

For example, the above politico bluster from Church and Easley is just that, bluster. No attorney in his or her right mind guarantees a victory in court, but Church would like to make you think they can’t lose so you might be more willing to capitulate.

Stu Easley would like you to think they withdrew the annexation ordinances out of the goodness of their hearts and, because they “have all of the power,” you may as well capitulate now because the end outcome is inevitable. They didn’t and they don’t.

The Carmel vs. SW Clay case was significantly different from ours. More importantly, the ruling didn’t do anything to strengthen Fisher’s position—there is no roadmap. But, if you’re the Fishers Town Council, it sounds good to say there is, especially if you are trying to scare people into thinking you hold all the cards.

Don’t be fooled. The law hasn’t changed and we still have a strong case against forced annexation.

We have been successful in fending off Fishers and bluster-to-the-contrary they know that the court battle would be long and expensive and, in the end, they very well could lose. So the new tactic is to withdraw the ordinances—which they can re-adopt just as quickly—and try to play nice for a while. Who knows, maybe they will come up with something wonderful—like draining the north end of the lake and moving their new downtown there—and we’ll all want to jump on board, well except maybe the fish.

Lastly, please do not be fooled by Fishers claims that they are reaching agreements with 6 neighborhoods.  Those neighborhoods that are in talks with Fishers are either older neighborhoods that are on a septic system that need Fishers for their sewer connections or brand new neighborhoods that had agreements with the developers –again for sewer connections.  These 6 neighborhoods are all small and do not represent a significant percentage of the Geist area.