Fishers Annexation Vote Expected on Tuesday Night

We fully expect the Fishers Town Council to pass the Geist annexation ordinances at their next meeting on Tuesday, January 22nd, at 7:00 pm at the Fishers Town Hall.

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.