Reorganization moves forward

Despite actions by Bargersville, and requests by residents to split the township between Greenwood and Bargersville, activity continued at the White River Township-Greenwood Reorganization Committee. It was a busy time Thursday night; sub-committees reported, statements on “sharing the debt” continued to raise questions, rural versus urban areas still need to be defined, and the reorganization website was unveiled.

Recently residents of the southern portion of the township approached Bargersville and requested voluntarily annexation rather than be included in any reorganization. Bargersville responded in a positive manner to the request and maintains their action, should it be enacted, would pre-empt any effort to include the area in the “new” Greenwood.

White River Township board member Joe Acker asked if the rural areas in the reorganization plan would include areas south and east of Greenwood as well as other parts of WRT would be included in the “rural” areas . Chair Pat Sherman responded affirmatively that the plan would be all inclusive. Land Use sub-committee chair Dale Tumey said a meeting would be held next week. (We will have date, time and location on our site soon.)

Subcommittee chair Forrest Chambers stated he felt uncomfortable with the discussions of indebtedness coming into the new entity. Subcommittee chair Don Hanlin replied that Greenwood would be bringing millions of dollars in assets and WRT would be receiving those for free. It appears to me that Mr. Hanlin has missed two important points, those assets are already in place to serve the current city of Greenwood, and any new capital expenditures required for the “new Greenwood” would be shared by all residents of the new community. He also appears to somehow find some wiggle room in the state law that says no debt from the current entity can be transferred to the new residents of the new entity. This issue will continue to a hot issue in the reorganization effort.

In Thursday’s meeting the new website www.wrt-gw.org was previewed and is now available to the public. All members of the committee and subcommittee can be reached via email by using this format: first.lastname@wrt-gw.org.

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