The following letter was recieved from Aaron Williford, a citizen of Kokomo(who gets it.)Tyranny; it is an abomination to Americans. We bristle at the very thought of it. At least we used to. Sadly, these days, far too many Americans don’t even seem to recognize it. Open your eyes my friends, it is staring you straight in the face. Fellow citizens of Kokomo, I am referring to the mayor’s ill-conceived, ill-considered, bombshell proposal pushing for the forced annexation of our friends and neighbors in the county and also, the city council’s apparent complicity, complacency, and stunning lack of leadership in regard to this extremely serious issue. My assessment of the annexation “plan” may initially strike some as too harsh but, I assure you it is not. Every word in that opening was painstakingly considered and deliberately chosen. It is the most accurate description of what is transpiring that I can devise and I will vigorously defend it in this narrative.
Tyranny; no doubt, using such a word to describe what is occurring would provoke some people to accuse me of engaging in hyperbole. I flatly reject that charge. The English Encarta Dictionary defines tyranny as “cruelty and injustice in the exercise of power or authority over others” and “oppressive government by one or more people who exercise absolute power cruelly and unjustly.” I challenge anyone to point out to me where this proposal contains even the slightest shred of “justice.” When you look up synonyms for the word “annexation” you will find words like “capture, seizure, takeover” and “appropriation.” Folks, there was no clamor from city residents demanding that our elected leaders launch such an aggressive act against our county neighbors. Likewise, there was no clamor from county residents requesting that they be made part of the city. The only clamor has been the tremendous outcry of resistance to the idea from those who stand to be annexed. These people have no representation in city government and they are not even allowed a simple up or down majority vote to accept or decline the proposal. All they can do is voice their grievances and, from what I witnessed at the second council meeting, they might as well go argue those grievances to the cornfields that will soon become part of the city (you know, “urban” cornfields). My friends, for the mayor and the city council to be so completely obstinate in the face of such overwhelming opposition, it is downright shameful. There is simply no grass-roots support for this issue. There is only antipathy and apathy. It is indeed tyranny. To describe it as anything less is to sugar coat it. Period.
Moving on, I labeled the mayor’s “plan” a bombshell, because it undeniably was. If you consider the size of the area that the mayor originally proposed be annexed (or even the “scaled back” version), I think you will agree that it is not just some modest little proposal that he has made. Quite the contrary. It is exceedingly ambitious and will have a broad, deep, far-reaching, and long-term impact on the future of Kokomo. Yet, candidate Goodnight made no mention of it in his campaign. No city official, neither the mayor nor any representative on the council, campaigned on the issue of annexation. Fellow residents of Kokomo, this is absolutely unacceptable. A proposal of this magnitude has to be rolled out during the campaign, so that there can be public debate and public scrutiny focused on the issue. Voters deserve the opportunity to hear and participate in that debate, reflect on it, make up their own minds about it, and then cast their votes accordingly. We do not deserve to be broadsided by those we have just elected with sudden, poorly planned, fallacious “grand-designs” that they neglected to mention to us when seeking our votes. If we allow this to stand, we will be demonstrating our own irrelevance and carelessly inviting future “surprises” from our elected officials.
When you consider the fact that Goodnight was inaugurated in January and he unveiled his forced annexation proposal in April, it is only reasonable to conclude that he had the idea in his mind all along and deliberately withheld it from the voters until after securing his election victory. That is one aspect of why I consider the proposal to be “ill-conceived.” By all rights, given the scope of this proposal, it should have been a centerpiece of his campaign. Isn’t that the whole point of a campaign? You tell the people “Here’s what I want to do and here’s why…” and then they decide whether or not they want to let you take a crack at it? Are we to believe that, after just a few short months, the new mayor had already successfully addressed all of the issues that he did run on, and now he was seeking some new challenges to tackle? You can be assured that this proposal will bring on plenty of those. Folks, the way this issue has been handled from the get-go is just plain “shady.”
In addition, I find the plan to be “ill-considered” because the mayor (and apparently the council too) seem to be willing to flip the world on its head and literally refer to “East” as “West,” so long as it helps them ram this thing through. You see, there are two ordinances; one for the Westside and one for the Eastside. What you may not know is that Indian Heights has been included in the Westside annexation ordinance. This defies all common sense. Indian Heights is south and east of Kokomo’s city limits. How is it that it has been included in the Westside proposal? When I asked the council members this question at the last meeting, none of them had an answer. Council President Kennedy essentially shrugged off the question saying something to the effect of “That’s just the way the mayor wanted it.” I was fine with that answer because it was just a rhetorical question. In fact, it was a perfect answer. It was just one more countless example of how clueless the council is about this “plan.” I know full well why Indian Heights was included in the Westside ordinance. Councilman Kennedy probably does as well but, he just didn’t have the guts to openly admit it. It was done in a deliberate effort to dilute the possibility of a successful remonstration from the county residents who actually live on the west side. You see, residents of Indian Heights have signed a waiver abdicating their right to remonstrate against annexation. By placing them in with the Westside ordinance, west side residents would have to gather remonstration signatures from 83% of their population instead of the only 65% required by state law. At the second reading of these ordinances, the city council voted to amend the Westside proposal and cut out 1108 parcels, none of which were in areas where people have signed waivers. This is the master stroke that pretty much dooms any chance for successful remonstration. When city officials are willing to call “up,” “down,” and “night,” “day,” just so that they can get what they want by craftily circumventing the rights of those whom they seek to govern, it should raise a huge red flag. I say again, if we the citizens of Kokomo allow this to stand, we are openly declaring our own irrelevance and abandoning our civic responsibilities.
You may have noticed that anytime I use the word “plan” to describe this proposal, I put it in quotation marks. That is because there appears to be no “plan,” just a proposal and its vast, unknown, unintended consequences. The only planning involved seems to have been focused exclusively on keeping this under the radar of city residents (by avoiding any public debate before the election) and strong-arming the county residents (by attempting to torpedo their remonstration efforts). I’ve covered the “tyranny, bombshell” and “ill-conceived” remarks, now it’s time to move on to “ill-considered.”
Being a resident of the city already, I was only following this story casually but, I was following it. Everything I kept hearing about it, whether it was anecdotal or in the press left me scratching my head in puzzlement. I heard several people say that when they had asked a city official “Why is the city doing this?” the answer they got was “We need the money.” My instinctive response to that was “Well, isn’t all that new money going to be offset by the cost of added infrastructure and services?” For weeks and weeks, county residents were repeatedly assured that there was no cause for alarm, that this would not take any additional money out of their wallets. Again I’m thinking, “Well, where is all of this money that you say you “need” going to come from?” Then I hear local news update on the radio which reports that the county government is voicing concern about the proposal because of the loss of revenue that they will incur. The story went on to relate that the city government had told the county government not to worry about it because it would be “revenue neutral” for them. I thought to myself, “How can it be revenue neutral for them but not for you? How do you square that one?” Then, a few weeks later I hear another local news update on the radio which reported that the city was hiring a company that specializes in analyzing the economic ramifications, to actually crunch the numbers and study the potential impact on both the city and the county. “What!!?” I thought, “After all your assurances you’re just now getting around to looking into the actual ramifications and costs?” At that point, I decided that I would be attending the council meeting at which the second reading of this proposal would occur. What I witnessed was nothing short of astounding.
I presented the council with many of these questions and points but, I did not get anything close to a satisfactory response. There were many others there who raised excellent questions and made terrific points (for example, all of the unknown, tangled mess of city ordinances that will have to be addressed when these areas become part of the city, such as leaf-burning, discharging a firearm, owning livestock, having a septic system and who knows how many others) but, none of them got satisfactory responses. If I heard “We don’t know” once, I heard it two dozen times. These people, who had legitimate questions and concerns, could not get straight answers because the council simply didn’t have any solid information to impart. They had no answers to give. I’ll tell you what I told the council. I came to that meeting a little confused about this issue but, by the time the meeting was over, they had made one thing nice and sparkling clear; they really had no idea what they were voting for or what the ramifications would be. Yet, despite being so utterly uninformed about the proposal, all but one of them (Bob Cameron) voted for it anyway. That is why I say they are either complicit or complacent on this issue. Real leadership would be displayed by telling the mayor he should have campaigned on this issue if he wanted to pursue it and that the next time he has a major proposal in mind, he had better display far more transparency and preparation.
Now, I understand that this is the mayor’s proposal and not the council’s. I also understand that voting in favor of it at the first and second reading does not necessarily mean that a council member will vote in favor of it at the final reading. I assume Mr. Cameron will oppose it again and I understand that Cynthia Sanders has announced her intention to vote against it. The others can still be brought to their senses. They are obviously not the slightest bit concerned about angering county residents who cannot vote for them but, a flurry of phone calls and emails from people who can vote for them might just get their attention. I am asking you, fellow citizens of Kokomo, how much do you know about this proposal? Do you know that they cannot do this on either side of a census year? Doesn’t that explain the urgency driving this? If they don’t do it now, they won’t be able to do it until 2012. Are you comfortable allowing them to make such a monumental decision so hastily? Are you comfortable allowing them to pass it even though you don’t really know much about it? Are you O.K. with it even though the people who are being annexed, your neighbors (and customers), are adamantly and decidedly hostile to the idea? I sure hope not. A quick phone call or brief email to your representative, indicating your opposition, will have an impact. Let’s let our elected officials know that we are paying attention and we demand much better from them.
It’s the eleventh hour Kokomo. Time is short. The final reading is set for Monday at 7:00. It is up to us. Now is the time. The court may strike down this abomination but, I would much prefer to see the people slap it down. It’s time to send our elected officials a message.