The Journal Gazette, 600 W. Main St., Fort Wayne IN

INDIANAPOLIS – Citizens from various parts of Indiana urged a state panel Wednesday to make major changes to the state’s annexation law or possibly prohibit forced annexations altogether.

Matt Milam, president of a central Indiana group fighting an annexation in Hamilton County, said Indiana is one of only six states that allow involuntary annexations.

He claimed some cities looking to annex are unethical, even setting hearings on holidays or during the winter when it is hard to get the necessary signatures to remonstrate.

Milam told the Annexation Study Committee that his tax bills would go up 24 percent as a result of the annexation.

But he said that’s not why he is in opposition. It’s because the officials in Carmel – the city trying to annex Home Place – are on a spending spree.

Aboite Township Trustee Barbara Krisher, a member of the panel, empathized with the effort it takes to fight an annexation and the tactics used.

“I don’t think it’s just about money,” she said.

She also criticized the new annexation technique of having subdivision developers who are seeking city sewer and water service on their land waive the future right of homeowners to remonstrate against annexations.

Krisher said some people are not told about the waiver until the day of closing and are forced to make an immediate, untenable decision. She supports more notice requirements for these types of waivers.

That issue will be discussed in more depth at the panel’s Oct. 10 meeting.

Meanwhile, some communities in southern Indiana have begun to get crafty with the waivers. In one Floyd County annexation, the specific boundaries made it impossible to reach the 65 percent remonstrance threshold because more than 35 percent of the landowners were bound by such waivers.

Gene Thompson, who fought a forced annexation in Boone County, said the 65 percent amount is hard to achieve and does nothing but get the remonstrator a day in court.

He believes the law should be changed so that a remonstrator must get signatures of 65 percent of those who are able to sign, which would exclude those with waivers. Otherwise, those who are not bound by waivers are disenfranchised because they can’t meet the threshold. Thompson likened the current rules to requiring a city council member or state representative to receive votes from 51 percent of all registered voters – not 51 percent of the votes cast.

He said the entire process would be smoother and cleaner if there were a simple referendum on the annexation of the affected landowners.

“Let the citizens vote on who is going to govern them,” he said.

The committee will have at least two more meetings and recommendations to the General Assembly for the 2008 legislative session.

nkelly@jg.net