Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
MENTONE – Mentone Town Council tabled a petition for annexation during a public hearing Wednesday.
The town received a request from Brian Romine to annex a property owned by the Brian and Pamela Romine Trust.
The area proposed for annexation is generally east of Ind. 19, west of Tucker Myers & Hackendorn’s addition and north of the residential properties north of West Harrison Street. The annexation area is about 50.1 acres.
The public hearing was attended by adjacent land owners Debbie and Richard Larew. Richard said his main concern was subsurface drainage. Richard said the previous land owner was not responsive to inquiries from them and, in years past, they’ve had drainage issues in regards to the property.
Council President Jill Gross said the petition in front of the council was just to annex the property into the town. If the property is annexed into town, Richard asked who was responsible for drainage issues. Gross said it would stay with the land owner.
Richard asked if the property is developed into housing in the future, is there any prevision to maintain that drainage. Gross said at that point, any changes will have to be brought to the town. Right now, Gross said they didn’t know if anything was going to happen to the property and the council was just looking at the annexation petition.
Richard asked what the benefit of the annexation was. Councilman Tim Croy said it would broaden the town’s tax base and then, if the property owners decided to develop the property, the town would have control of what they can and can not do. If the property was ever developed, Croy said then there would have to be streets and drains. Right now, he said it’s going to stay farmland. Gross reiterated the council didn’t know if anything would be taken further than the annexation petition.
Town attorney Austin Rovenstine said what the council had in regards to the annexation was a petition that was signed by Brian on behalf of a trust that owns the property. He said the town needs to know Brian has the authority to bind the entire trust in signing the petition.
Rovenstine recommended at the Sept. 2 meeting that they get the signatures of both trustees so the council would have the information to make a decision on. As of Wednesday, both trustees had not signed the petition, so it was Rovenstine’s recommendation the council table the petition indefinitely. If a new petition is filed with both signatures, that will restart the process.
2027 Budget
Later in the meeting, the council had a budget workshop for the proposed 2027 budget.
Clerk-Treasurer Amanda Yaprak provided the council with some line items from the budget the council went through.
One topic of discussion the council had was about cyber security. Yaprak said the council discussed cyber security a couple months ago and said it is highly recommended to have cyber security software. Yaprak had $35,000 budgeted for cyber security software, at $1,400 a month. She said she hopes it includes the introduction of getting it all started, as well.
“If it’s not mandated this year, it will be next year,” she said.
Yaprak said the town would hire a company that would monitor the town’s online transactions. With the police department, they have a firewall through the county. Town Marshal Keaton Schopf said most of his stuff on his computer goes through the county and is pretty well protected.
She did say she hasn’t sought out quotes yet.
Later in the meeting when asked where she got the figure from, Yaprak said she reached out to surrounding communities and they use multiple different companies and the surrounding communities pay about $1,400 a month.
Funding for streets, trees and sidewalks was also talked about.
Budgeted for street, trees and sidewalks is $15,000. Gross said last year, $20,000 was budgeted.
She also said there could be other funds that could be used for projects related to streets, trees and sidewalks if appropriate, noting there is $20,000 in the Motor Vehicle - Other Capital Improvements Fund.
If the town is looking to pave streets through the Community Crossing Matching Grant, Yaprak said the town won’t have enough for that. The town could apply for the grant every other year because they could make a reserve with the MVH fund.
The public hearing for the proposed budget will be at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 7 and the adoption meeting will be at 6 p.m. Oct. 28.
