EVANSVILLE — The possibility of separate votes on consolidation by city residents and those who live outside of Evansville gained some traction Thursday. County Commissioner Stephen Melcher pledged he would not support a plan to merge local governments without a so-called rejection threshold.
But whether such language can be legally implemented into a final proposal remains unclear. In addition, one of Melcher’s colleagues on the three-person board said he is staunchly against allowing two different votes.
Melcher’s promise not to support a proposal that doesn’t require majority support of voters from both inside and outside of city limits came hours after public hearing on a draft consolidation plan Wednesday evening. There several non-city residents voiced concerns that consolidation would favor those who live within the city limits.
“That’s the only way that it is fair to those in the county,” Melcher said. “We’ve got other problems with it, and I am going to work on those problems because I want the voters to vote on it. But I’m not going to support a plan without a threshold.”
The three-member county commissioners must pass an identical proposal as the city council for a voter referendum, probably in 2012.
In January of 2010, both the city council and the county commissioners unanimously decided not to include such a separate vote in the original plan and opted instead for a majority-wins countywide referendum.
Melcher, who was a commissioner at the time, supported not having a threshold. State law prohibited the reorganization committee, which drafted the current proposal, from suggesting separate votes. While the city council and county commissioners have the ability to modify the current plan or completely rewrite it, there is no mention in the 2006 law if the two bodies are bound by the decision last year in a potential rewrite.
Kathryn Schymik, an attorney who represents the county, said she and Evansville City Attorney John Hamilton discussed that issue after the meeting Wednesday
“We’re not even sure at this point if that is even permissible under Indiana law, and we have not resolved that question yet,” she said.
Schymik said she was unsure when they would have a final answer for the council and the commissioners.
If a threshold can’t legally be added during the current attempt of a voter referendum on the issue, Melcher said he will not support any final proposal. The other two commissioners Lloyd Winnecke and Marsha Abell, who would have to support the proposal if Melcher does not, said their plan remains to allow the voters to have the final say.
“I would love to see a voter referendum. We heard it echoed many times (Wednesday night) that we don’t listen to them, well this would give them an opportunity to speak,” Abell said.
While Abell said “everything we heard (Wednesday) night is on the table,” including the threshold, Winnecke said he is against it, equating a threshold to having separate city and county votes for countywide offices.
B.J. Watts, the city council president, said whether to include a threshold, if legal, should be left up to the commissioners because they are the ones who represent residents outside of the city.
Those who spoke in favor of enacting a voter threshold into any final consolidation said they feel like the voice of those who live outside the city has already gotten buried during the consolidation process and expressed concerned that a proposal could mathematically be passed without a vote from a single non-city resident.
“From the beginning, the rural county areas have had a disadvantage putting this plan together,” said Bruce Blackford, the president of the Vanderburgh County Farm Bureau. “Basically we get the feeling our vote is not going to count.” Blackford told the committee that only three of 12 members of the reorganization committee live outside city limits and urged the committee to include separate votes, pointing out that the plan merges two different entities.
Joanne Alexandrovich, who lives outside of the city limits, said she doesn’t believe the current consolidation plan benefits everyone who lives in Vanderburgh County.
“The more I considered the proposal the more and more it began to look to me that Evansville would simply be erasing the rest of Vanderburgh County from the map,” she said.