EVANSVILLE — Evansville-Vanderburgh County consolidation planners voted Thursday night to "move forward with reasonable diligence" — but probably with no referendum this year and possibly not next year, either.
Rebecca Kasha, chairwoman of the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Reorganization Committee, told the committee and a packed Civic Center meeting room that subcommittees don't appear far enough along in their work to forward a complete proposal to the City Council and the County Commissioners in time for a vote this fall.
"More and more people are coming to our subcommittee meetings, more and more people are expressing input," said Kasha, a League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana member who helped collect signatures for the petition drive that kicked off the current consolidation push. "I don't want to do anything to stop that process.
"So, while I wanted it to be on the ballot in 2010, the feeling I'm getting from the committee is that we can't meet the deadline that we had tentatively worked our backsides off to try to meet.
"... We have really given it everything we had to try to make this work."
The 12-member reorganization committee voted unanimously for a motion to keep working with no deadline.
Committee members had been working under the premise that a consolidation referendum could be held in conjunction with 2011 city elections by opening polling places outside the city. But attorney Mike Schopmeyer advised some of them before Thursday's meeting that legislation reorganize may preclude that possibility.
Schopmeyer is a partner at law firm Kahn, Dees, Donovan & Kahn, which works with the Indianapolis firm Krieg DeVault to advise the committee.
"The statute says 'Regularly scheduled election of the political subdivisions,' plural — and this body is studying both city and county," he said after the committee's meeting.
With no county elections scheduled in 2011, Schopmeyer said the attorneys are doing research.
"Our preliminary investigation suggests that the 2012 primaries or general election may be the next opportunity to vote on this referendum," he said. "We're still exploring (the law), but our preliminary viewpoint is that this referendum question may not be able to go on the ballot in 2011."
County Clerk Susan Kirk has said it could cost $60,000 extra to hold a referendum with May 2011 primaries for city offices. A referendum as part of the November 2011 general election would cost about $10,000 less.
Kasha said the next few weeks and months should be about compiling a comprehensive consolidation proposal and hearing out the public.
By law, the reorganization committee has a year, or until Jan. 11, to complete its work.
"I'd like the issue to be what the plan is about as opposed to when the plan is going to be done," Kasha said.
"But when that plan is ready for review by the public, I'd like to have a series of community discussions ... before we turn it over to the County Commissioners and City Council for their consideration and vote."
Before the full committee met, the public safety subcommittee voted to recommend that a consolidated government's governing body hire a consultant to study fire protection issues. The study would examine ways Vanderburgh County's fire departments could work together more efficiently.
Evansville Fire Chief Keith Jarboe gave the subcommittee an eight-page "scope of work for a cooperative services feasibility analysis" by Emergency Services Consulting International that would cost $78,624, but the subcommittee is not committed to that company or that price.
The subcommittee already recommended consolidating the Evansville Police Department and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office into one agency under the sheriff. The vote included provisions to put parking police, Central Dispatch and animal control under the sheriff's direction, but the reorganization committee will recommend that parking police be a function of the Board of Public Works.