Rural residents speak: “Leave us alone!”

At Thursday nights meeting of the Planning and Land Use subcommittee rural residents of White River Township made some things perfectly clear, they don’t “trust politicians from Obama on down” and they aren’t very fond of Greenwood, or its mayor, either. I won’t list all the comments.

It was announced at the start of the meeting that many of the residents were specifically invited to the meeting to voice their views. Reorganization committee chair Pat Sherman then took over, and took a lot of heat as well. Although a list of questions had been submitted in advance, Sherman skipped those and took direct questions from the public (the list of submitted questions can be found in “Sidenotes”.)

Sherman stated he understands “the farm community wants to be left alone. We (the committee) do not have the latitude to draw a line.” He explained that the reorganization plan called for reorganizing all of unincorporated White River Township and Greenwood into a new entity. Craig Morris pointed to is shirt with “Bargersville” on it and commented that he would have to bear the cost of changing his farm to Greenwood should the effort pass. Sherman responded that postal districts just like fire departments and school districts are independent of city limits and no ones address would change.

He went on to explain that recently four members of the committee had met with the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance to see if there a “way you can be left alone.” The goal, he explained would be to draw a rural district, which could include rural areas already within the Greenwood city limits, that would allow all current county zoning rules for rural land to remain. Secondly the rural taxes would be indexed to the current county rate which would hold taxes at their current level instead of the higher Greenwood level. Finally the plan, should it be implemented, would create a district of rural residents that would elect one representative to the council. That council member would have to vote yes on any zoning changes in the rural district, in effect giving rural residents veto power over any zoning changes to their land.

I’ll give the committee credit for it’s novel approach and what on the surface appears to be a better deal than Bargersville’s offer to annex the area and freeze taxes for ten years. The reorganization proposal would not limit the time taxes remain at the county level. However Sherman did state at some kind of sunset clause would have to be built in the law to allow taxes to be changed to the urban rate should the farm land, “50 to 70 years in the future” be developed. The residents didn’t buy it.

Chair Dale Tumey stated “I am on this committee to protect the farmers” and other members voiced similar opinions but that didn’t stop several residents for from saying “We know you represent Greenwood despite what you say” and “taxes are going up no matter what you promise.” Even though no one on the committee would admit to being a politician the residents didn’t seem to see any difference between the volunteer committee members and elected representatives and not one person expressed any trust of “politicians.”

Although the meeting ended amicably, no one broke out the pitch forks and torches, not much was settled. Third generation farmer Craig Morris said “It’s about our heritage” and one rural resident asked “What’s in it for the subdivisions?” He was right, rural or urban this reorganization effort, if it is going to succeed, has to be good for everyone.

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