More Properties To Be Added To Turkey Creek Sewer District
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
County commissioners decided to move forward Tuesday with adding adjoining properties to the Turkey Creek Regional Sewer District so it can protect its assets.
The one stipulation is that any property added to the district doesn’t have to connect to the sewer or pay any fees.
No specific properties’ locations were provided, but after the meeting county attorney Chad Miner said they were out in the county and he expected those legal descriptions to be a part of the petition brought before the commissioners at their July 23 meeting.
Andrew Boxberger, attorney for the district, said the district had reached out to Commissioner Brad Jackson about a month ago and talked with Miner about the issue.
“The sewer district has had some challenges over several things. It has several assets that are not currently in our territory. It has three large customers – a church, school and brewery – and more significantly structures that are outside the territory. ... It creates a challenge for them,” Boxberger said.
The district does not get called to locate its main lines when there’s digging outside of the district, which poses a danger of those lines getting hit, he said.
“So what they’re asking the commissioners to do is to voluntary petition the district to add this to their territory in order to afford them the ability to view those locations and add the statutory authority under Indiana code to (add) these territories so they can protect their assets,” he said.
He said there was a relatively simple process under statute to add the adjoining properties to the district.
“They have no intention of ... adding customers, forcing anybody to connect. In fact, they have no service lines there,” Boxberger said.
He said it was by no way a customer grab. He said it was just the district adding to its territory to govern and protect its assets.
Jackson said the big question he had with everybody was, “Does this effect people who are being pulled in? Is there a fee they have to pay? I was assured the answer to that is no.”
Boxberger said that was correct.
“They have no intention of connecting any customers, unless voluntarily something works out, the customer wants to connect. There’s a couple of additions in there. And they do have some existing customers, which is the reason for this. But the sole purpose is to bring their assets under their authority.”
Commissioner Cary Groninger asked Miner if a public hearing was required. Miner said he didn’t believe a public hearing was necessary as it was just a simplified streamlined process since the county was involved.
Boxberger said he would work with Miner and bring a petition to the commissioners at their next meeting if they chose to move forward with it.
Miner said it would be possible to put something in the petition stipulating that new people added to the district wouldn’t be required to add on to the sewer. Boxberger said he talked to the district board and they were more than willing to add that stipulation. Jackson said he would want that in there.
Jackson made the motion to approve the additional territory for the Turkey Creek Regional Sewer District subject to the commissioners and Miner finding the agreement satisfactory. The motion was unanimously approved.
