Greenwood snub increases resolve of incorporation group
View video of meeting: Center Grove self-incorporation
If the Greenwood Council thought that refusing to indicate being open to the proposed town of Center Grove would kill or delay the movement, they evidently created exactly the opposite situation. Shortly after the meeting movement leader Ryan Rhoten said he expected to start forming investigation sub-committees within the next few weeks. He also mentioned that he was energized by the additional supportive signatures he collected while walking out of the meeting in addition to emails and voice mail messages he has received Monday night and Tuesday morning.
For those who are not familiar with the process of incorporation, it follows Indiana Code 35-5-1. The process is entirely initiated and paid for by the citizens desiring to form a town. The law lays out a number of “hurdles” that those forming the committee must clear. For example, they need to provide a survey of the proposed boundaries of the city, they must conduct an “enumeration” (census) within 30 days of filing for incorporation and state how a minimum number of services will be provided. White River Township/Center Grove faces a particular challenge. Before the town can form, Greenwood, a Class 3 city, must approve because part of the new town is within three-miles of the Greenwood city limit.
What Rhoten was doing by going to the Greenwood Common Council was trying to minimize the risk that the citizens would invest up to $100-thousand, only to have Greenwood nix the proposal in the end. Greenwood chose to continue to hold all its cards close to the chest and not minimize this risk to the citizens of White River Township, all prior statements of wanting all the options on the table aside. [Video of mayor Henderson's comments here]
Rather than walking out defeated, Rhoten and other supporters immediately began planning how to move the process forward more quickly. Consistent with his earlier statements, he wants to ensure that when the voters go to the polls next May to vote on the Reorganization, they will also know how self-incorporation compares. Can it provide the services desired by the residents of White River Township at a lower cost and with more local control than a merger with Greenwood? If so, he believes residents will reject the Reorganization and fall strongly behind self-incorporation.
For more information on the incorporation effort, be sure to check out Rhoten’s web site at http://centergrovetown.org.
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