GEORGETOWN: Three battle for two at-large seats on council

Election 2007

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October 27, 2007

By CHRIS MORRIS The News and Tribune Sat Oct 27, 2007, 02:31 AM EDT

A former Floyd County commissioner, an incumbent and a political newcomer will battle for two at-large seats in the upcoming Georgetown Town Board election Nov. 6.

Republican incumbent Margaret “Dean” Hammersmith faces Democrats Mike Mills and Karla Perkins for the two seats.

Hammersmith is finishing her first term on the board and said she is running for re-election because “there are things we started that we haven’t been able to complete for the betterment of the town.”

Mills, a former Georgetown Town Board member for three terms and Floyd County commissioner, said the main reason he is running is to straighten out the town’s finances.

“The place is practically bankrupt,” Mills said.

Perkins said she would like to sit on the board because, “if you want to be heard, you need to be involved.”

The main issue facing the town is where to build a sewage treatment plant. The town purchased 23 acres of land two years ago outside the town limits, but has faced legal challenges since announcing plans to build the plant on that site. A second site also has faced opposition.

“It’s been the people of Edwardsville (who) oppose us and they don’t have a dog in the fight. They live outside the territory,” Hammersmith said. “They all live a mile or mile and a half away from the site. If we don’t build a plant, they (state) are eventually going to force it on us.”

Mills — a 37-year veteran of the New Albany Police Department and current assistant chief — knows all about the sewer-plant issue in Georgetown. He said when he was on the board in 1980, he tried to get his fellow board members to build a plant. He said at the time, the state was going to pay 95 percent of the cost for the plant. However, the board voted it down.

The current board, he said, has gone about building a plant backward.

“They have run into one obstacle after another,” Mills said. “They went out and purchased that land, and then tried to get it rezoned. They spent a fortune and have nothing to show for it. They should have bought an option on it.”

Mills, 59, also said the board shouldn’t try to force annexation on residents.

“If they don’t want to be annexed, don’t force it down their throat,” he said.

Perkins, 46, would not discuss particular issues, but said there are things that should have been done differently.

“I have an opinion,” she said when asked about town issues. “There are a lot of reasons why I am running.”

Hammersmith said she enjoys helping residents, but said the last six months have been difficult with all the criticism. She defends the board’s action.

“We had to spend some money,” she said. “When we came into office we inherited a lot of junk. We had to buy a lot of equipment. Now we’re in good shape.

“We have tried to do what is best for the town. There has been so much mud-slinging the last six months.”

Mills, who has lived in the town since 1972, said he was the first police officer in the state elected to office — Georgetown Town Board in the fall of 1979, after a law was changed.

Hammersmith, a retired employee of the New Albany-Floyd County School Corp., said she is the only candidate who is a lifelong resident of the town.

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