Messick responds to Marks
The campaign is coming down to its final days. You can hardly pass a yard that doesn’t have a sign for at least one candidate. Among the Johnson County township races, none appear more heated than the races in White River Township. The possibility of a reorganization involving Greenwood and unincorporated White River Township has proved to be the focus of much public interest. While it has been argued that the candidates’ position on the merger doesn’t matter, as the issue will come before the voters in the November election, this has not stopped voters from asking candidates where they stand on the issue.
Perhaps the most hotly contested race is for Township Trustee. The incumbent, Jay Marks, is taking a populist approach, appealing to the voters with the benefits “he” has provided them during his term in office, naturally using our tax money. While Marks was the Trustee, Mark Messick served as chair of the Township Board. The relationship between the Board and the Trustee was not one of cooperation. As Trustee Marks controls the funds and frequently made purchases, such as benches for the Bantam League facility, which did not have the support of the Board.
This morning there was flyer in my news box encouraging me to vote for Marks. Yesterday, I received and e-mail where Messick comments on most of Marks’ statement. While the reorganization is not addressed in these items, both candidates have said they don’t support the reorganization as it described in the current proposal. As for other issues, here they are side-by-side, for you to judge.
| Jay Marks says… | Mark Messick replies… |
| Lowered township tax rate and budget in 2010. | Jay DID NOT lower the township tax rate and budget in 2010. The FACT IS he didn’t even submit a budget for 2010 thus causing the $404,000.00 budget from the previous year to be adopted when only $265,000 should be needed to run the township. |
| First year removed WRT from a near $3,000,000 in debt. | Jay did remove the debt for the administration building. Jay DID NOT pass any savings on to the taxpayers by lowering his budget in any year to reflect the removal of the bond payments, thereby creating over $650,000 of excess taxes to the taxpayers during his brief tenure as trustee! |
| Saved over $$79,000 first year in office expenses by running an efficient office. | Jay CAN NOT account for the claimed $79,000 savings in office expenses! |
| Restored 6 WRT Cemeteries in first three years in office. Saved township over $75,000 in free cemetery restoration from DNR & Indiana Historical Society | Jay DID NOT restore 6 township cemeteries as claimed. The State of Indiana and the DNR did work to help restore the Lyons and Bargersville cemeteries. NO RESTORATION has been made to the Miller or Lowe Cemeteries. There are questions about one headstone in the Messersmith Cemetery. The sixth cemetery is a mystery! |
| May 2009 prevented current board from suing township taxpayers. | Jay DID NOT prevent the township board from suing the township taxpayers. The FACT IS the board voted against supporting any effort by any political unit of suing anyone! |
| Prevented a 16% tax increase by current board in 2009. (Daily Journal Article, April 9, 2010) | Jay DID NOT prevent a 16% tax increase by the township board in 2009. The township board CANNOT increase any proposed budget from the trustee. The FACT IS he continues to manage the township to the maximum tax levy which the Department of Local Government Finance will allow! |
| Bringing common sense to local government with integrity and honesty. | Is it good COMMON SENSE not to submit an annual budget as required by State Law? |
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7 Responses to “Messick responds to Marks”
I have to agree with Mr. Messick about the cemetery restoration. I am the owner of Stone Revival Cemetery Restoration in Franklin.
I find it highly doubtful that the restoration workshop at Lyons cemetery saved $75,000. I don’t believe for a minute that the work would have cost that much if not for the workshops. I have done cemeteries much larger than Lyons and have never come close to $75,000 for a single cemetery. In fact, I doubt that Lyons would have cost half that to restore.
When Dan Maple was still in office I did some volunteer work at Bargersville Cemetery only to have vandals knock over monuments I had reset. When Jay Marks took over as trustee I attempted to contact him numerous times to again volunteer my services to finish work at Bargersville. Each visit to his office found him unavailable.
Any work Marks has had done has been done without an open bidding process. Instead of seeking bids for the work he decided to hire the company that did the workshops for the DNR. Their work is fine, that’s not the issue. The issue is the lack of an open bidding process. In fact, I also attempted to talk to Mr. Marks about restoring all of the township cemeteries only to find that he was never in his office. He didn’t even return my calls.
I have also tried to talk to Mr. Marks to determine exactly which cemeteries belonged to the township and never got a response from him on that either.
Messersmith Cemetery was restored several years ago when Dan Maple was still in office. I talked to Jay Marks at the workshop at Lyons Cemetery and offered to repair the one broken stone at Messersmith at no cost. He said to go ahead but when I showed up to do the work someone had already done it.
It would be nice to have an open bidding process so a Johnson County company has a chance at doing work in Johnson County instead of contracting with someone from another county without accepting bids.
Comment made on May 3rd, 2010 at 7:24 amWhile I agree that Jay Marks may have not done the best job as Trustee, I refuse to vote for anyone who supports a merger with Greenwood.
Comment made on May 4th, 2010 at 8:50 amAndi – supports any merger, or the current merger plan?
Comment made on May 4th, 2010 at 10:50 amPlease don’t confuse voting to put the merger issue on the ballot in November with “supporting the merger”. The only way to truly kill the merger is for the citizens to vote it down. The state law says that if one body, in this case Greenwood, approves the plan, and the other doesn’t, then the Reorg Committee gets to draft a new plan, if that doesn’t go to the voters for approval within one year it becomes law without voter say so. If this should come back again in a new form at some point I want who ever is then on the township to put the plan on the ballot so everyone gets a vote.
Comment made on May 4th, 2010 at 3:54 pmCan’t the WRT Board simply reject the proposal now? Especially if the reorg committee comes back with changes that one body (Greenwood) approves? Then we wouldn’t have matching resolutions, which is required. Hmmm…
Comment made on May 4th, 2010 at 10:06 pmUnless Greenwood is willing to start all over and come up with a smart, fiscally responsible merged government with proper representation (yeah right), put it on the ballot and let it be voted into oblivion.
Especially with the “one year with no action means it goes into effect” provision.
Comment made on May 4th, 2010 at 10:17 pmSadim asks: “Can’t the WRT Board simply reject the proposal now?”
Short answer is no. As you can see in Jody’s post, failure to act means it goes into effect within a year. The only way to kill the proposal is for the citizens to vote it down. And given that I haven’t heard one person who supports the proposal, I think it’s safe to predict it will die at the ballot box.
Comment made on May 5th, 2010 at 12:13 pmLeave a Comment