By Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press
Area residents grappled with ideas for streamlining Indiana's city, county and township governments in Evansville on Tuesday, even as a key House committee in Indianapolis dealt reform efforts a blow.
The news that the House Government and Regulatory Committee had defeated several of the major Kernan-Shepard Commission reform proposals swept through Carter Hall at the University of Southern Indiana, where a public workshop on local government reform was convening.
But it did not dampen the enthusiasm of residents, at least, to kick the tires on proposals for remaking local government.
"It's important for (legislators) to know what the citizens and the people that vote to put them in office are thinking," said Carol Young, executive director of the Koch Family Children's Museum. "The bottom line is, the legislators are accountable to the people."
Tuesday's workshop, convened by the Indiana Humanities Council and the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University, attracted nearly 70 people.
Former Gov. Joe Kernan, co-chairman with Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard of the Kernan-Shepard Commission, had been scheduled to appear, but travel problems kept Kernan from flying to Evansville.
Pointed questions and strong words occasionally punctuated hours of panel discussion in which advocates on all sides of the debate over local government reform in Indiana laid out the issues and made competing arguments.
Reform advocates argued Indiana communities are saddled with multiple layers of local government that can be confusing to companies wanting to relocate here and to residents seeking constituent service from what can be a puzzling array of politicians who represent them.
Township government advocates - the Kernan-Shepard Commission had proposed eliminating townships - argued that townships can deliver better, more personalized service to citizens than counties could if they assumed township functions.
Roberta Heiman, former president of the League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana and a former Courier & Press reporter, asked Pigeon Township Trustee Mary Hart whether she is fighting township reform "to preserve your own job."
Hart, president of the Indiana Township Association, replied that her concern is the potential loss of personal service to residents who may need immediate help.
"We make decisions on the spot, and it may be a matter of 45 minutes before (a township resident) is going to be disconnected that we can make a decision to assist that client and stop the disconnect notice," she said. "I don't think you're going to see that on a county level.
"... Elimination of township government would be horrible for the state of Indiana and the people who need township trustees."
But Cheryl Musgrave, former commissioner of the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance and a former Vanderburgh County commissioner, pointed out that Indiana has 92 counties while California has 58 counties.
"County government is very close to the people in Indiana, and I believe could fulfill the role of being close to the people that is near and dear to Mary's heart," Musgrave said.
After the panel discussions had ended, workshop participants divided into three session groups in which they showed they had plenty of ideas of their own about reforming local government.
The ideas reflected a general consensus to preserve township functions while still streamlining local government, a trick many said may be easier said than done.
The ideas included clearer direction from government about where to go for services, elimination of at-large elected positions in favor of creating more districts, nonpartisan elections, night meetings of local governing bodies, more town hall meetings held by elected officials and referendums on unification proposals.
"Groups like this will have impact as long as the information is taken to the appropriate people so our voices are heard," workshop participant MacKensey Crooks said afterward.
But Crooks, a business development specialist for Heritage Federal Credit Union, admitted she doesn't have all the answers, either.
"I see the pros and cons," she said.