- We got a call to order for the Elksville Redevelopment Commission, Monday, November 10th, 2025. Let's
- start with a prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us all safely here together this
- evening, and we pray that you watch over us and read our thoughts and guide our conversations to make
- the best decisions for the town. All these things we ask in Jesus' name for his dear sake. Amen.
- Congratulations to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands,
- one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I have the right to roll call.
- Yeah. Tom Pullman. Here. Andrew Henry. Here. William Ellis. Here.
- Carl Thurman. Here. Trevor Sager, I am here, and Larry DeMoss. Here. Next would be the approval of minutes,
- August 2025 meeting. So moved. Less than a second. All second. All right, Tom Corbin? Yes. Andrew Henry? Yes.
- Carl Thurman? Yes. William Ellis? Yes. Trevor Sager? Yes. All right, next we have the approval of the
- year to date redevelopment commission financial report. If everybody's looked at it. I'll second.
- All right, Tom Corman? Yes.
- Andrew Henry? Yes. Carl Thurman? Yes. William Ellis? Yes. Trevor Sager? Yes. Well, we do have the privilege
- of the floor. Mike, do you have anything? I think he does. Yeah. I have something to discuss tonight.
- You'll be the first board to hear up on the Ellensville side. I want to pass some things out before you
- Get to talking. Pass the keys down. There's going to be a test on this. Got an extra one there. I just
- came from a meeting of the Ritzland Township Advisory Board. And we've been in discussion with them
- about a process where we would explore
- reorganizing the town of Ellisville and the Richland Council. Before you is a draft of what may go out
- to the public in the near future, depending on what the Ellisville town council does. But because it's
- out, I thought this would be a good place to start so you guys won't hear about it after the fact. To be clear,
- of Richland Township and the Town of Elstville explore a proposal to reorganize. Richland Township and
- the Town of Elstville are exploring a proposal to formally reorganize into a single government entity.
- This proactive step would be part of a collaborative effort to protect essential public services, preserve
- local identity, and create a more efficient and sustainable structure for future growth for the entire
- township. Recent changes in state laws
- have placed increased pressure on rural townships and small towns to operate more efficiently with fewer
- resources. At the same time, there is a growing discussion at the state level about eliminating township
- government altogether. The performance reorganization allows Richland Township and Elstville to take
- the lead in shaping their shared future rather than reacting to outside decisions. This proposed
- reorganization would aim to give everyone both in Richland Township and Elstville
- a shared voice to shape the community. Through reorganization, local leaders hope to observe what makes
- this area special while working smarter, finding more efficiently, and building a stronger, more connected,
- reorganized town together. You can read the rest, but that's what we're looking at. That's what we're
- thinking about doing. A lot of questions to be asked.
- The fact sheet that I passed out explains some of the reasons why we may want to do this. I want everybody
- to understand that at this point we are exploring the possibility to reorganize as a single entity.
- This does not mean we are tied to that process to the very end. It would be a democratic process where
- reorganize
- Reorganizing subcommittees and subcommittees chosen by the township board and the town board would enact
- a plan to move forward both physically and organizationally to have a reorganized town. And this would
- have to go before the general public for a vote sometime, actually it would be in November of 26.
- January 1st, 27. Correct. I'd like to digest. And any questions off the top of your head? Well, I'll
- make a comment. This really shows that you can grow without having to do forcible annexations that people
- don't want to. We want to show the public that we know how to grow, and we want the public to be part
- of it. And they get a vote in that.
- So unlike some other jurisdictions, it's just forcibly annexed. We're actually going to have to sell
- while you want to come into Ellsville and actually offer a return of investment for those people. And
- I think we're up for the case, up for the job. Yes, and to be clear, a reorganized town would tie Richland
- Township, which has approximately 15,000
- people in its territory. It would reorganize that township with the town which has approximately 7,000
- population and the town or the new reorganized town would go from 3.5 square miles to 39 square miles,
- just to put some numbers on it.
- Tax base, as we understand it, through statute, the tax base can have an urban tax base and a rural
- tax base, and in fact, any fiscal responsibilities currently of one entity or the other entity would
- stay within that original tax base and would not become a burden of the other
- entity when the two entities join. So basically there would be, there's a possibility, I mean, it will
- be up to the reorganization committees and then the future government to decide how to move forward.
- But any new responsibilities, physical responsibilities they'd want to take on would have to be voted
- on by the new reorganized town board. Do you know if this changed our enrollment at the schools at all?
- Pardon. Would this change if this happens? Would this change the enrollment within our school district?
- This won't affect either schools within our. Yeah. Is actually part of Bloomington City. I believe is
- that am I correct and how would that work? Yeah, I would not play and I think there's more annexation
- process in play. We plan on.
- working with the Bloomington government and the Meroe County government and not pull the rug out from
- any of their current physical responsibilities, whether it be roads, police, we plan on trying to,
- you know, the process would allow us to work with them and try to accommodate everything they need and
- anything that would not inhibit what they're trying to do.
- and answer the question, you know, a lot of people are gonna have questions about this. We're not being
- evasive on like the details. It's because basically what it's doing is taking the township and the town
- and saying, we're gonna start from scratch. So those subcommittees, you know, it'll be difficult, as
- an example, what happened in Sheridan, one of the biggest discussions they had was for snow removal.
- Do we contract with snow removal in the township area or do we expand the street department in the town
- of Sheridan?
- both of those options had different financial impacts. They went with contracting. So that had the least
- amount of impact. So our committees are gonna be discussing that too. So as those forms take place,
- as those committees say, here's what we've decided or here's what we thought, we need to know the cost,
- we need to know it's feasible. Like if they say, let's order 50 or let's hire 50 more police. Yeah,
- that may be great for funding. We may find it.
- but is that feasible to have 50 police up and running by January 1st? So they've got to work that, those
- committees work that out. And I, so I'm pretty excited about this because Richland Township until now
- has had no control over their taxes, no control over their land usage, no control over development.
- They've all been at the whim of a county that is more and more out of touch with the rural residents.
- And this will give them, because the town council will expand and the wards will change. This will give
- them actually more direct representation than they've ever had. And to be fair, we should include the
- township's inability to be represented.
- even from the town of Ellisville and how we currently do our business. As we annex and grow into the
- township, we think that this gives the township residents a chance to be part of the future and direct
- what happens in and around them. So this is, I mean, Ellisville has always been within Richland Township.
- We've always been part of Richland Township. So, you know,
- we were siblings, we would maybe be the younger brother to the township itself, which is larger and
- more population. So this reorganization allows for a lot of possibilities, but it denies us answering
- some specific questions now because it will be up to the reorganization committees to decide
- the plan and then the plan has to be adopted by both the board, the town board and the advisory board
- and at that time, which would be sometime probably in June, there would have to be a vote to move forward
- and be on a referendum. So this is an exploration right now. There's a lot of devil in the details and
- we will have a meeting at three o'clock
- with Baker Tilley here to explore some of the fiscal ramifications of a reorganization and how we currently,
- what our status is currently when it comes to monies and what it's gonna be in the next two or three
- years, which we all know the revenues are going down, not up. And so by combining how that will affect
- that and will it help or hurt.
- So we are exploring all this and there's a possibility that it could in the end not be a good idea.
- But we've got some guardrails here to make sure everybody's represented, everybody has a say.
- And at the end, if indeed we think it's a good plan, everybody will get to vote on it too. So it's pretty
- democratic.
- about the advisory board, are they on board with all this? They just voted three to zero to move forward
- with the exploration. I mean, I just came from the meeting. Will it hinder any of the flood mediation?
- There's some progress that needs to go on with that. It will hinder it. Will it help it?
- I can't answer that. I think it would be almost a neutral at this point. Wouldn't you say, Mike? Yeah,
- I mean, it's localized along Jack's Feet Creek, obviously. A reorganized town has a possibility to provide
- a new economic stability and a different way to move forward with economic development because we'll
- be, you know,
- will be a new entity that has more possibilities, more land to utilize for economic development, affordable
- housing, housing that may complement new entities that might wanna bring their businesses into town
- and that could enjoy the property that we have in and around Richland Township. So, you know, one of
- the things that we offer
- is the ability for people to utilize their land as they see fit. Obviously we have a UDO and we have
- rules and regulations just like everybody else. But we are interested in economic development. We're
- interested in preserving farmland and people that want to realize their heritage as farmers. There's
- a document in
- the Adams Township Sheridan merger or reorganization that they did last year. And it's specific how
- they protect farmland from development that would say, let's say, want to grieve noise, dust, farming
- in the middle of the night, all that is protected.
- Urban lifestyle is one thing, but we, you know, our heritage is rural. I think our town still, you could
- call it a rural small town. And we want to protect the heritage that we have now. I mean, Richland Township
- has always been a community within itself. And so Ellisville as a town is one thing, but Ellisville's
- community has always been about Ellisville and the surrounding area, which is Richland Township.
- So Sheridan's done this, and this is kind of the model you're going with. It's a good template to read
- from. There's hardly anything that I think anybody could disagree was harmful or had a dictate to it
- that people would feel a burden. You know, as mentioned, there's passed. You have to have two separate
- votes on election, what the town said, town residents and the township residents.
- The town of Sheridan voted plus 70% to do it, and the township voted close to 70% to do it.
- So they had... They were on it. They were on it. And we want to do the same plan. They went over and
- above the technicals of the statute on how many meetings. I think we've discussed that's our goal too.
- And for the school, which will be good for you guys, instead of having three governmental entities to
- deal with, the township, town of Ellsville,
- Bean Blossom Township, you'll be down to two, but also you're gonna see some more growth that is more
- commercial and light industrial that won't put a strain on the school, but will help you guys get some
- of that revenue that you need. For me, it's economic stability. It goes back to why when I started here
- back in 98, somebody getting up in front of the board and talking about how they didn't care what
- the town government did or what they voted on, he was interested in the fact that he wanted the town
- to develop to the point where his kids decided to live here and try to prosper. And then more importantly,
- their kids, which would have been that guy's grandparents. I think the guy was about my age at the time.
- I thought he was an old guy. But I totally get it. And for me, that's why I'm willing to put a lot of
- heart and soul into this endeavor.
- We are exploring the possibilities, and this was a recommendation from our consultants, Baker Tilly.
- It's been a recommendation from the state government, from different entities within, and this seems
- to be a good idea. Is it for us? We're going to have to wait and see.
- I presume that there would be a possibility of additional TIFs in the larger, but that would be down
- the road, yes. This is large enough, I could honestly say it'll be a detail. Yeah. There's probably
- a lot of other things we can do if this goes through, if it works out and the public agrees. But what
- I don't want to do is, oh, we could do this, we could do this. And then everybody's like, what are you
- doing? Yeah.
- just keep it simple. So just to answer a question that hadn't been asked, there'll be a redistricting
- of who is on the reorganized governing board, and it will be done by population throughout the county.
- The state statues dictate that each
- district have approximately the same amount of population. So not unlike Ellensville, which is not blocks,
- but yet their fingers and their oddly shaped districts, it'll be the same for the township as a whole
- in the future. How many members are on the board will be decided by the reorganization committee. And
- if you read through
- what happened up in Sheridan and Adams Township. They had several good ideas. And so once again, it's
- just a template. We don't have to do anything. They do, but common sense dictates. We look at it and
- think about it. That's all. Other than that, just another day. I ended up with two copies stuck together.
- When did you get short of the government?
- Well, this is big news. This is a lot to talk about. IT is always probably the biggest thing in Ellisville's
- history. And the biggest thing in Richland Township's history. And I can't think of anything that would
- be bigger than this. There'll be tons of public meetings. We have a PR firm that's going to help us
- get the message out and continue to educate the public. We're looking at every Friday having an open
- office for a couple hours every Friday morning to let the public come in and grieve or ask questions
- or make suggestions. And so we plan on saturating the public with information. The more sunshine we
- have on this, the more apt it would succeed. And the one question on taxes, I don't think I'm out of
- term for speaking with this. The goal here is not to get more money. It's to get basically the greater
- Ellisville area, which is Richland Township, under one unified government where they get representation.
- And Sheridan and Adams Township up north had the same idea. And they're able to, you know, we call it
- urban and rural taxing districts.
- they pretty much kind of referred to it as a quasi grandfathering in of people that if it's, I mean,
- you know, the existing residents, that's what they ended up doing. Their tax rate increased four cents
- for every hundred. So it's about on a $200,000 house, about 80 bucks, but that was not originally what
- they wanted. But when the committees met based on those plans,
- that's where the tax rate laid. So it'll be the same thing here. If you hear any numbers on this, they're-
- Premature. Yeah, they're very premature, because no one's meant to decide what they want or need. After
- you've read what is drafts that pretty much sum it up,
- After you've read that, feel free to give me a call. I'll meet with you. I've been trying to get ahold
- of the school and so forth. You're probably the first one to hear about it except for Jimmy. And so
- we plan to move forward as soon as we get a vote out of the town board. And if any of them can serve
- on any of the commissions too, correct, anybody here? Yeah.
- I mean, I'll be a facilitator if this gets legs. The reorganization committee in Sheridan and Adams
- Township, three people came from the advisory board, three people came from the town board, and they
- picked a seventh person because they needed a seventh people. And then they developed the reorganization
- subcommittees that all the different aspects of our governance now was
- And so that, I mean, that's how that, that's how that'll roll. But my role after this gets started is
- strictly to help educate, coordinate, and facilitate whatever needs to be done. I want to say this,
- talk to Cy, I can't remember his last name. He's the town council president in Sheridan. And that seventh
- person on certain committees, it was from the school.
- Because as an example, they had a committee on, I can't even remember what he said, but he goes to schools
- like that really doesn't overlap with us. I believe the seventh person was appointed by the
- school superintendent. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But I don't know that he was from the school, but
- possible. That's what I meant when I said from the school, as in appointing from the, but it wasn't
- for, he was saying not every committee and subcommittee, the schools like this,
- doesn't, you know, Department of Public Works that really doesn't impact us, so. Any other questions?
- I'm sure some will arise in the coming months. I'm done talking. All right then, that's big news here.
- It is. Lot to discuss, lot to digest. Just think, Ellisville's town boarders, Ivy Tech might be in the
- town of Ellisville. Very well could be.
- Any thoughts from the attendant? All right well it looks like we will adjourn this meeting.