By Jason Michael White, Daily Journal of Johnson County staff writer
White River Township Board members wish they could get Greenwood and Bargersville to agree to one merger study that would include the city, the town and the township.
But neither Greenwood nor Bargersville is proposing that, so for now the township has rejected Bargersville's proposed study and is moving forward on a study with Greenwood.
What board members would have preferred was this: one study committee, with representation from Bargersville, Greenwood and the township, taking a year to study the future of the Center Grove area and whether it should split between the city and town, stay the same, or the entire township become part of Greenwood or Bargersville.
Board members Wednesday voted 3-0 to reject Bargersville's proposal to study a merger with at least the southern part of the Center Grove area because the plan was for a partial merger, and board members would prefer one committee studying the entire area.
The board directed member John Ebert to write a letter to Bargersville encouraging them to draft a different resolution to participate in the merger study. Board member Mark Messick said his hope is that representatives of Greenwood and Bargersville will meet with each other to work out some sort of arrangement so Bargersville can participate.
That might be possible.
After initially saying legal issues would make participating with Greenwood difficult, one Bargersville Town Council member said he would be willing to look at the possibility of Greenwood, Bargersville and the township working together to study the future of the Center Grove area.
White River Township Trustee Jay Marks questioned why the board didn't draft its own resolution to form a study committee to include Greenwood and Bargersville.
Instead, White River Township has responded to proposals from the city and town, rather than outlining what it wants and sending that to both for their consideration.
Board members should have acted as a neutral third party to bring together Greenwood and Bargersville, which are involved in a lawsuit over land that the city and town both want to annex, Marks said.
The committee could have come up with a plan to split the township to the benefit of residents north and south of Stones Crossing Road, which is a natural dividing line, to start discussions, because most residents south of Stones Crossing identify with Bargersville, and most residents north of Stones Crossing identify with Greenwood, Marks said.
Messick said he got the impression that Bargersville wasn't interested in joining a merger study along with Greenwood, which is why he didn't recommend the board draft a plan that would include the town.
For example, he talked to town council members Cindy Jarvis, Steve Welch and Kevin Combs individually a couple of weeks before meeting to discuss Greenwood's proposal, and they didn't express interest in joining the study with Greenwood, Messick said.
The town's proposal was for a partial merger that didn't call for participation from Greenwood.
Greenwood's proposal didn't call for participation from Bargersville either, but the city's plan looked at the township as a whole, and that's how the Center Grove area should be studied, Messick said. A plan is needed for the entire area, he said.
The board would have wasted its time by drafting a resolution that would have been defeated, Messick said.
Initially a majority of the town council said they would be hesitant to have representatives on the same study committee as Greenwood.
"Having a lawsuit against us from Greenwood, and having to sit at a table with them, I think there'd be problems," Combs said. "I'd want to look into the legal issues with that."
But now, Welch said he would be willing to see if an arrangement that involved Bargersville, Greenwood and the township would work. He's interested in reading the letter being drafted by Ebert.
"If they are going to send us a letter, we'll look at that," Welch said. "We're still as a council open, so that's something we'd consider. We haven't closed our doors."
Center Grove area resident Norman Duke suggested the board delay voting on Bargersville's resolution and not take any action until the city and town resolve their lawsuit.
His concern was that even though the merger process gives the public final say, 100 percent of the people in southern White River Township could vote against it, and it could still pass because of the northern part of the township, which is significantly more populated than the rural area south of Stones Crossing Road.
"I'm a farmer. I live closer to Franklin than I do to Greenwood," Duke said. "It makes no sense for me to be involved with the city."
Residents of southern White River Township and Bargersville can participate with the Greenwood study by serving on the many subcommittees that will form to look at how property taxes and services such as police protection, street maintenance and government would be affected.
For example, the study committee can look at options for farmers who don't want any additional services and want to be left alone, Messick said.
A study committee could find ways to make certain areas exempt from city ordinances that would interfere with rural lifestyles, Ebert said.
Board members would prefer not to have separate, competing studies with Greenwood and Bargersville. The law doesn't say that a township can have two different studies, but two studies are not prohibited by the law either, said Mary Jane Michalak, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.
The law was worded loosely to give local governments flexibility, she said.
Marks suggested that, if the township wasn't going to have one study committee with involvement from the town and city, the board should approve Bargersville's proposal for a study committee separate from Greenwood's committee.
Ebert said he didn't think two studies at the same time would be in the best interest of the township. He doesn't want competing studies that could put the township in the middle of the land dispute between Greenwood and Bargersville, he said.
Greenwood's proposal seemed like the best option because the plan covered the entire township and had fewer stipulations, leaving the study committee open to do its work, White River Township Board member Joe Acker said.
Bargersville's plan had too many restrictions, Acker said.
For instance, the town's plan had an option that let pockets of land stay unincorporated and not receive town services, but the property still would be under the control of town planning and zoning.