The Allen County Commissioners rejected a petition Friday to allow Harlan to become a town.

The issue of whether the rural community in east Allen County should become a town is dead for at least a year.

Residents submitted a petition in December with more than the required 50 signatures – the first step in the process of creating a town with taxing authority. The Allen County Plan Commission investigated before conducting a public hearing in January, and the commissioners had another public hearing in late February.

Several hundred people attended the last hearing, but only about a dozen spoke. Residents seemed evenly divided in support of and against the change – giving the commissioners little guidance.

The commissioners serve as the local government to the Springfield Township community.

Commissioner Linda Bloom bemoaned the lack of clear support from residents while the commissioners debated the issue Friday. She said when Leo and Cedarville residents approached the commissioners in the 1990s, it was an easy decision because residents overwhelmingly favored creating a town government, now called Leo-Cedarville.

She also questioned what benefit residents would see in exchange for their higher tax bills.

Owners of a home worth $100,000 could see their property tax bills increase $302 annually if Harlan became a town. In 2009, the owner of a $100,000 home in Springfield Township paid $507.

Bloom also said supporters did not provide enough information about how they would provide for street maintenance or fire protection and other services.

Commissioner Nelson Peters agreed and said it appeared the county would continue to provide the bulk of the services but at a higher cost to residents. The county contracts with several of the smaller cities and towns for police and highway work, adding a 20 percent premium to the cost of providing those services, he said.

Under state law, the commissioners must find that a community meets six standards to allow the incorporation. The commissioners found Harlan met only four.

They said that a substantial majority of residents did not support the proposed services of police, fire, health protection, streetlights and street maintenance, planning and parks. They also determined that Harlan did not adequately explore whether another neighboring city or town could best provide some of the services they were seeking.

Both Bloom and Peters said they weren’t opposed to Harlan’s becoming a town but that organizers didn’t meet the burden of proof set out in state law. Commissioner Bill Brown was out of town Friday and did not vote. Brown questioned this week whether the town had met the criteria laid out in state law.

“I’m not inherently against the incorporation of Harlan,” Peters said. “The statute is clear what needs to happen.”

A supporter of incorporation, Harlan resident Sharon Gustin, said she was disappointed in the decision. She didn’t know whether supporters would be willing to try again next year as they had already spent more than $5,000 for surveys and tax estimates and had been researching the matter for more than two years.

Supporters believed creating a town would allow them to continue maintaining the community park, keep the streetlights on, provide uniform trash pickup and have a greater say in the town’s future.

With possible changes to the structure of both township- and county-level government, residents worry their voices will be lost, Gustin said.

Opponents were concerned about paying higher taxes and adding another layer of government. Opponent and resident James Dinius was pleased with the commissioners’ decision.

“This is a microcosm of America,” Dinius said of Harlan’s debate over how residents want to be governed. “Democracy worked.”

aiacone@jg.net