Sellersburg council votes yes on annexation

Clark County

Discussion

September 22, 2009

Town believes its effort to annex Covered Bridge will be successful

By BRADEN LAMMERS The News and Tribune Tue Sep 22, 2009, 12:06 AM EDT

Sellersburg took another step toward annexing Covered Bridge subdivision at a special town council meeting Monday night.

The council quickly and unanimously approved resolution 2009-005, which amended the original resolution — 2008-001 — adopting an updated fiscal plan. Time is likely to become a major factor in not only Sellersburg’s annexation effort, but in Covered Bridge’s attempt to incorporate in order to thwart the town’s takeover attempt.

Sellersburg officials believe they started their annexation efforts for the area before Covered Bridge began its incorporation proceedings.

“Our current expansion process started in June 2008 with an annexation ordinance; this ordinance has not been rescinded,” said Paul Rhodes, Sellersburg town council member at a previous meeting.

However, problems did exist in the original notice sent to property owners that were to be part of the annexation area.

“We anticipated having a public hearing [after the June 2008 meeting], but we determined the notices that we had sent were not pursuant to the statute,” said Perry McCall, attorney for Sellersburg’s town council. “So, at that point, we did not have a public hearing and now we’re reissuing an updated fiscal plan and reissuing notices, and then that would trigger the time period for passing the ordinance and any remonstrance thereafter.”

He added that the reissue of notices did not affect the position of the town in being first to submit a proposal.

Timing becomes important because Covered Bridge residents filed incorporation papers with the Clark County Commissioners Sept. 17, which accepted resolution 12-2009. Following the accepted petition, a public hearing on incorporation will be held between Nov. 17 and Dec. 17.

For the town of Sellersburg, “notice is going to be issued Friday,” McCall said.

Notices to residents inside the proposed annexation area — which includes Covered Bridge, The Willows and Sterling Oaks — should be received by mail sometime within the next week. The proposed area includes 1,852 acres, about 1,250 residents and has a real property assessed valuation of more than $92.7 million, according to the Sellersburg resolution.

A public hearing will follow, as required by state law, and has tentatively been set for Nov. 25. If the effort continues, a hearing to adopt the annexation ordinance is planned for Dec. 28.

Some hurdles exist for the council before it will be able to annex the proposed area in 2010.

Residents will have the chance to remonstrate, but unless 65 percent of the land owners oppose the effort, sign a petition and get it into court, they likely will be pulled into the town, said David Bottorff, executive director at Association of Indiana Counties, in a previous report.

The council does believe some of the residents will try to remonstrate.

“I think they’ll attempt to, whether they have the right to that will be determined,” said Brian Meyer, town council president, referring to a covenant the residents of the subdivision signed with Sellersburg not to remonstrate when it was developed.

“If we didn’t feel it was going to be successful, we would not have entered this ordinance tonight,” he said.