Home Place Loses In Court–But, Their Case Is Not Our Case

Today, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the Hamilton County Superior Court ruling and gave the City of Carmel to go ahead to forcibly annex Home Place.Home Place had challenged Carmel on its fiscal plan; basically saying the City did not specifically cite the methods and means of how it would finance services to Home Place.  Carmel claimed that it had sufficient resources to provide the services.  In light of the state Supreme Court ruling in favor of Carmel over Southwest Clay, in which the court essentially said that the fiscal plan can be amended from time-to-time by the City to reflect negotiations with property owners, the Court of Appeals ruling in favor of Carmel.

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.