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Hinkle Discusses Unintended Consequences from 2008 Legislation
(posted Sept 30)
State Representative Phil Hinkle expects to return to the State House to
tweak some bills passed in 2008 that require the Speedway Town Council
and Speedway Public Library to have their budgets reviewed by the City-County
Council.
Hinkle told the crowd at his September 25 town hall meeting that the word
"consolidated city" was omitted from the legislation, causing
Speedway's budgets to be approved the City-County Council. He also said
that some "unintended consequences" occurred with the adoption
of HEA 1001, among those some taxing entities will have to lay off employees
as part of the necessary spending cuts.
Wayne Township resident Tom Copeland said another "unintended consequence" happened when the state decided to pick up public schools' general funds. He said the interpretation is that any student can now attend any school in the state. The fear is that this would "empty IPS" into the townships schools, especially for athletic recruitment.
Dr. Terry Reed of the Speedway School Board said the school passed a policy where they will not accept any student that does not live in Speedway regardless of tuition. He said the school board's action is to prevent lawsuits. Hinkle said he was not aware of the issue and would look into it.
Hinkle also is looking into the Accelerate 465 interstate interchanges
at the urgency of Jay Coffman. Coffman said that Rockville Road would become
bottle necked by its new design that includes three traffic signals. He
said the traffic signal at High School Road is only 200 feet from the southbound
exit. He also discussed the Speedway I-74/465 exit. The new exit west of
Speedway would put growth pressures to develop the unimproved land surrounding
the exit. He said there is enough unimproved land to build multiple fast
food restaurants so that people would have no reason to drive into Speedway.
Hinkle discussed the possibilities of meeting with INDOT and HNTB engineers
to discuss the interchange. Hinkle indicated he is dissatisfied with INDOT's
decision to spend $32 million to expand Rockville Road to six lanes to
Transfer Drive. He contended it would only create a bottleneck as the traffic
converges into four lanes again.
Hinkle encouraged people to attend the October 8 Pike Township Residents
Association meeting where County Assessor Greg Bowes and Franklin Township
Assessor Becky Williams will discuss the November 4 referendum to eliminate
the township assessors office. Hinkle explained another unintended consequence
of HEA 1001 was that the referendum to eliminate the assessor is being
voted on by each township and not a county wide vote. He said Wayne Township
could vote to keep their assessor and the seven other townships could eliminate
their township assessors.
Hinkle also expects the legislators to pick up the issue of dissolving
the town of Clermont as part of government reform. He said his constituents'
support for dissolving Clermont "is coming through loud and clear,"
referring to a recent walk through of the Lincoln Wood subdivision.
Hinkle's next meeting is December 11 at Speedway Town Hall, 6:30 pm.
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