Consolidation meeting looms large

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March 29, 2010

Mayor hosting event today to gauge community response

By Scott Smith The Kokomo Tribune Mon Mar 29, 2010, 08:30 AM EDT

Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight received his first official negative response to his call for consolidation last week from Eastern Schools superintendent Tracy Caddell.

“I believe that local elected school boards and their communities should make decisions regarding their local schools, and I would hope that other governmental entities, including the mayor’s office would respect their jurisdiction,” Caddell wrote in a letter Tuesday.

If you go:

• WHAT: Consolidation meeting, including representatives from Zionsville who will discuss the strategies and legal process.

• WHEN: 5:30 p.m. today

• WHERE: Council chambers, City Hall, 100 S. Union St.

That might have been a predictable response to Goodnight’s State of the City comments March 8, when he suggested some members of the community were still longing for the days when the Clay Township Brickies played the New London Quakers in basketball.

Even if Goodnight can’t draw interest in the ever-controversial topic of school consolidation, he’ll try to create interest today in a community consolidation discussion.

Goodnight is bringing in several representatives from the recently completed Zionsville consolidation to discuss the legal process involved for formal consolidation talks.

Zionsville and two townships merged under the provisions of House Bill 1362, a state law passed in 2006 to enable voluntary consolidation.

“It’s just a walk-through,” Goodnight said of today’s meeting, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. in council chambers, City Hall, 100 S. Union St.

“If we want to do this, here are the legal requirements, here are the timelines and here’s how to do it,” he said. “We’re not going to vote on anything, no decisions are going to be made. They’re just going to lay out their experience of how this could work.”

With a history of frequent city versus county battles in recent years, Kokomo and Howard County officials will perhaps have to work harder to find common ground than their counterparts in the Zionsville area.

In that situation, township officials went to town officials, volunteering to dissolve township government in return for the privilege of being brought into Zionsville.

“First, we’ll have to answer the question, ‘What is it that the community wants to do?’” Howard County Attorney Larry Murrell said Friday.

Murrell said he supported the idea, put forward by Goodnight, of establishing a citizens’ committee to help answer that question.

Murrell also said he’d prefer, if an ad hoc committee is formed, that it include some representation from local government.

He referenced the Kernan-Shepard commission, which was headed by a retired governor and the chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court.

“You want people like that, who don’t have any skin in the game, but I’m sure they consulted a lot of sources that knew about local government. So you need both,” he said.

Howard County Treasurer Martha Lake said she will attend the meeting, and said the overriding goal must be to save money for the taxpayer.

“I know we need to work together,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt the city and county have had some issues getting along and communicating, and I would hope, as we look at these things, that we do it in an open, honest way; that it’s not a competitive thing.

“I don’t want to see residents caught in the middle of something that turns into a power struggle.”

• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at 765-454-8569 or via e-mail at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com

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