Two Dog And Pony Shows

On Tuesday October 30, there were two "Dog And Pony Shows" at Fishers High School

Here is how the Town of Fishers show looked.












And here is the gUO version













The gUOs reason for wanting to incorporate? Because we should be allowed to be independent. End of story.

The most compelling part of the Town presentation was the "11 Questions That Must Be Answered" portion. It was fun watching the color drain from all of the faces at the gUO table while the questions were posed to the audience. In my opinion, geist should have a go at incorporation. But, if they can't get their paperwork filed IN TIME and in GOOD ORDER, the residents that they purport to represent had better do their own independent analysis of the critical portions of the fiscal plans. Independence is a worthwhile pursuit but I've heard it said that many geist residents are on fixed incomes and simply cannot afford a spike in their taxes. I have my own opinion as to why the fiscal plans were so poorly developed but will save that hypothesis for later in this post.

So, to that end, here are the "11 Questions". Presented in my own order of importance with my comments in red.

1. What are the tax rates after the petition errors are corrected?

This is critical. Their failure to provide a certified assessed valuation from the Township Assessor, the basic math errors pointed out by the presentation plus other MAJOR problems with the income side of the plan will be the undoing of this delay attempt.

2. How is the Sheriff going to patrol within a municipality?

The County Commissioners will have to see this as a blatant attempt by geist to grab more than their fair share of County resources. I would rather see the Sheriff and his deputies kicking down the doors on meth labs in rural Hamilton County rather than rescuing cats from the trees in geist.

3. What is an East and West (g)eist police department going to cost.

These people have NO CLUE how to hire, compensate and organize a police department, and they know it. Which is why there is very little contemplation of this in the fiscal plan crockuments.

4. Who is the Castleton Volunteer Fire Department, are they capable of adequately serving (g)eist, and under what terms?

Here the town is exaggerating a little. There is no question that these firefighters are professional and could perform these duties. The failure to include the actual CONTRACT for fire protection services is inept though.

5. What are the terms of this proposed arrangement between the County and the proposed towns for road and street maintenance.

Again, the assertion that County resources are theirs to command and the failure to provide the actual CONTRACT for these services is suspect.

6. What is the impact on sewer service and sewer rates if these towns are incorporated.

It's no secret that Fishers and HSE Utilities have this locked up in the geist area. What's to stop Fishers from enacting an "out of town" rate for sewage treatment? HSE only delivers the sewage to Fishers for treatment. Unless the gUO members are offering their back yards as locations for new treatment facilities, Fishers pretty much has control over this issue. Not to mention the fact that geist will, at some point, need to deal with storm water run off and has alluded to a "user fee" for the residents at some point to provide this service.

7. What about youth sports?

If geist doesn't want to help fund our park system, then their kids should not be allowed to participate in a program that primarily uses the municipal parks of Fishers. Period.

8. What tax rates are necessary to achieve a balanced budget?

9. How will these towns deal with unexpected costs?

10. How much will taxes increase because of inflation?

The expense side of the incorporation crockuments are woefully inadequate. None of these questions are answerable. The only way these can be dealt with is through increased taxation.

11. Who is going to provide fire protection service to the areas served by the proposed fire station until it is built?

This is less of a question and more of a threat. Fishers is just posturing its position as the only current provider of fire protection for the area. We can already assume that Fishers probably will not agree to provide a backup for a geist fire department. I don't really understand why this is on the list.

Besides having a poor fiscal plan, the proposed municipalities have no territory to allow for reasonable growth, they have virtually NO commercial or industrial properties and they cannot show how Fishers would NOT be able to provide services more efficiently.

It's pretty obvious to me that this whole incorporation attempt is just a huge smoke screen to slow down the inevitable annexation process. The crockuments are deficient and amateurish. They were never intended to seriously meet all of the legal requirements and will eventually found to be that way by all of the pertinent government units.