ANDERSON — A controversial annexation by the town of Ingalls will stand under a ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The ruling by Judge Patricia A. Riley was filed on Thursday. It asserts that Madison County had no standing to challenge the annexation, which began in December 2005.
“We conclude, Madison County does not have standing to seek our intervention in the Town of Ingalls’ acts of annexation, nor do we have the authority to provide the relief which Madison County requests,” Riley wrote.
The decision upholds a ruling made by Madison Superior Court 3 Judge Thomas Newman in November 2007 that the county had no authority in the matter because it did not own any of the property involved. It was affirmed by Judges Carr L. Darden and Nancy H. Vaidik.
“It seems to me that Madison County has wasted a tremendous amount of taxpayer dollars I really don’t believe they should have,” Ingalls Town Councilman Tim Green said of the repeated legal challenges. “I think they possibly could have a right to an appeal process. But they’re hurting a developer who is trying to bring in an industrial park and jobs.”
That developer is D.B. Mann Development, which came before the Madison County Board of Zoning Appeals in June 2000 with a plan to create Summerbrook, a commercial and industrial counterpart to the Summerlake housing addition. The county required Mann to pay up to $400,000 to fund fire protection for the area, near Indiana 13 and County Road 800 West in Green Township.
In 2005 and 2006, Ingalls annexed a strip of land 200 feet wide from County Road 650 West to the north side of Interstate 69. In January 2007, Ingalls annexed the 260 acres designated as Summerbrook, and Madison County responded with legal action that called the first two annexations illegal.
“It’s just a classic lasso-type of annexation to get something five miles away,” said Madison County Attorney Jim Wilson. He said the county must decide within 15 days whether to file a request for transfer, similar to an appeal.
Wilson also said the ruling dealt narrowly with whether Madison County could challenge Ingalls’ actions, but the larger issue is what recourse county governments have in possibly illegal annexations.
“What it says is that the sole way to challenge annexation is by remonstration, and you have to qualify as a remonstrator,” Wilson said. “Nowhere is the county defined as being a remonstrator, so therefore, the county has no remedy on quote-unquote illegal annexations.”
Wilson said the ruling included the words “memorandum decision - not for publication,” which means it cannot be used as precedent. He said annexation is such a “hot potato” issue that the court of appeals is wary to publish an opinion.
Tim Green fears that the window of opportunity may have closed on Summerbrook. In the time since the business park stalled, the economy has collapsed in shambles and, Green said, pushed D.B. Mann owner David Mann to the brink.
“This has almost destroyed him,” Green said of owner David Mann. “This may be a battle nobody wins. Every community between Pendleton and Ingalls needs to work together. From Ingalls’ point of view, the hand has been extended.”
Contact Justin Schneider: (765) 640-4809, justin.schneider@heraldbulletin.com
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