Committee chair meets with farmers

Reorganization Committee chair Pat Sherman recently met with those who want to voluntarily annex with Bargersville. His request? Please reconsider the annexation. Please remember that in a newly merged city they would reside in a designated rural district. A district with lower taxes and no new restrictions. Mr. Sherman says no minds were changed.

The committee is taking into account the differences between the urban and rural portions of White River Township (WRT). The rural areas  are part of the study because the WRT Board and the Greenwood Common Council included them in the reorganization proposal.  So the committee is charged with integrating the entire unincorporated portion of the township. As a result they have an interest, and some believe a duty, to attempt to stop the voluntary annexation that is currently being considered between Bargersville and the residents west of the town. In fact, it is the committee’s intent to continue to “move forward as if nothing has happened.”

To this end each member of the group independently stated that he believes the action of the Reorganization Committee was “first in time,” a potentially important legal distinction. Just as in the checkout line at the supermarket, when it comes to many legal actions such as annexations it’s “first come, first served.”  However, because the reorganization law is so new, and been used so few times, there is no clear understanding if the merger is substantial enough to count as an action that can block a later annexation attempt. The committee has passed a resolution calling for a letter to be written inviting Bargersville to take part in an “amicable judicial review” of the subject. No one on the committee expressed any desire to bring a lawsuit against Bargersville, in fact there are reasons to doubt that the committee has legal standing to press a lawsuit. A judicial review would be a less contentious, less costly and more neighborly way of resolving this outstanding question, which must be settled before either the reorganization or the annexation can be finalized.

The Chair also said that he would like to see some form of three-way talks which would include Bargersville. He would like to bring Bargersville to the table to discuss all the consolidation options. For a variety of reasons, prior attempts at a three-way discussion have not been successful.

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