Carmel Has A New Rival

OK, Fishers and Carmel have been rivals for the last several years, each looking for the bragging rights however they may come- bigger population, higher rankings in magazines, etc. I'm thinking about the Abdul In The Morning show on WXNT, where they play the theme from Hogan's Heroes every time Carmel is mentioned, and Abdul makes cracks about Home Place being the Sudetenland, because it was targeted by Carmel for forced annexation.

Abdul, you'll have to play that theme for Fishers now. The Town of Fishers just held a press conference to announce that the Council wishes to annex neighborhoods in the Geist Reservor area. From the Indy Star report:

FISHERS, Ind. -- Town leaders here plan to annex hundreds of high-end homes that line Geist Reservoir, one of the metro area's premier addresses.

Town Council president Scott Faultless and Town Manager Gary Huff announced in a news conference this morning that Fishers plans to annex 2,050 properties along the reservoir. The annexation would be large enough to increase the town's number of households by about 10 percent.

"We're going to make Fishers a little bit better by starting to annex parts of the community that are technically not within the town boundaries. The first area we're going to start to annex is our biggest area -- around Geist," Faultless told a news conference this morning.

I'll translate for Mr. Faultless: "We're going to broaden the Town's tax base while offering nothing of substance to these people who currently live under Township government." Given this real-life translation, his closing statement in the article is hilarious:

Faultless said he expects the annexation plan to be well received by property owners.

Really? Why? Annexations were certainly not well received by the residents of the similarly affluent Southwest Clay area, nor by Home Place residents.

I would fully expect these well-to-do Fall Creek Township residents to see through Faultless' bluster and identify the annexation for what it is- an attempt to grab tax dollars, to make the Town's assessed valuation figures look better, and to make the population figure larger.

Here's the challenge to the Town: Make the case. What on earth are you offering these people? The ability to vote for Town Councilors? Big deal. Give me substance.