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.