Town of Fishers Sends Proposal/Ultimatum Letter

By now you’ve received your “offer” letter from the Town of Fishers, which recaps the same offer that they made during their neighborhood meetings and which clearly states their intention to forcibly annex the Geist Area if homeowners don’t jump on board and take the offer.

As you saw in the letter and as we reported in our last report, TOF is offering to delay the effective date of the annexation until 12/21/08 and provide a graduated tax abatement—the only amount allowed by state law—of a 75% discount year 1 (2010), a 50% discount year 2 (2011), and a 25% discount year 3 (2012) with 100% of the tax increase beginning 2013.

The Town Council has stated that your taxes will go up 16.45% provided you qualify for the Homestead Deduction and Mortgage Exemption and Property Tax Replacement Credit and Homestead Credit under state law; otherwise, your tax will be higher.

That is the purported increase today.  As you probably already saw in the Indianapolis Star (September 5th and 6th), the Town Council is already talking about a property tax increase to cover the costs of Town expansion (road projects, hiring more police, etc.).  Of course, the Town won’t guarantee you a tax hike limit of 16.45% as part of their so called deal, will they?  How long before 16.45% becomes 18% and higher?

While they are saying they are committed to additional dialog with homeowners that could lead to a pre-annexation agreement (you get the above deal if you sign away your right to petition against annexation), they also clearly stated that “To this end, please know that the Town can and will re-initiate the annexation process if it is determined to be in the best interests of the residents of the Town of Fishers.”

We don’t know whether the residents of Fishers care one way or the other; certainly, none of them showed up at the neighborhood meetings to extol the virtues of living in the Town or encourage us to join up.  We do know the Town Council wants our money.

In the letter, they also say that you have until September 21st to respond—by mailing in a form—if you wish to have further dialog.  Obviously, it doesn’t matter if you respond or not as TOF certainly plans to re-introduce the annexation ordinances soon; after all, their objective is not voluntary annexation, but getting 36% of Geist homeowners to sign the non-remonstration (pre-annexation) agreement so that we can’t fight—remember that it takes 65% of property owners to petition against forced annexation in order to get our day in court; if we don’t get to court we can’t win.

Remember too, our attorney has said that if we get the 65% we will get to court and our case is highly defensible.  We stand an excellent chance of winning.

Keep in mind also that mathematically you would save more money by fighting annexation, win or lose.  That is, if TOF introduces the forced annexation ordinances this month, our remonstration filing would take place around March 2008 (given the timeline provided for in annexation law), and it could easily take three to four years after that before the court case is settled.  That ends up being a 100% tax abatement during the period you would otherwise be paying higher taxes to Fishers, even with the abatement.

And the cost to fight annexation all the way through appeals?  About $200 per household.  That’s a lot less than paying an additional $1,010 per year in taxes (for a $500,000 home, using TOF figures)—year in and year out.

Special Census:

Why did Fishers offer a 12/31/08 effective date for annexation as part of their “deal”?  So that we could be counted in the 2010 census as part of the Town. The law does not allow annexations to occur in the year preceding a census (2009). More Fishers residents equals more money to the Town of Fishers.

But, the Town is moving ahead with a special census now, which makes sense.  Because of their unbridled growth, the Town wants to be sure they are getting all of the extra tax revenue they can that is based on population size, etc.

That’s all well and good, but some Geist residents who are not in the Town of Fishers have received a letter from the Town saying a census taker will be showing up soon.  Perhaps this was an error or perhaps Fishers just mailed the same letter to everyone in the 46038 zip code.

Obviously, if you don’t live within the Fishers town boundaries you can’t be counted in their census. And if you don’t want to be counted in their 2010 census, you’ll support the GUO in our fight against this impending forced annexation.