Bloomington’s annexation attempts lead to legal chess, constitutional question
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The city of Bloomington is still attempting to expand its borders to the displeasure of a significant amount of the Monroe County residents who stand to be annexed.
Eight lawsuits on the matter are active in the state’s legal system at the moment. The chess match of motions and appeals could lead to years of litigation, momentum swinging in either direction and residents becoming more befuddled by the ever-growing and exceedingly dense MyCase pages. The court drama boils down to two matters: the constitutionality of a state law and signatures.
A recent development by the city looks to accelerate the annexations of two areas after a decision in early September slowing down the case.
How this started
In 2017, the city of Bloomington announced plans to annex several areas around the perimeter of the city as the city hoped to bring more land into the fold as the city grew. A 2021 interaction map shows the scale of the proposed annexation.
“We are one community, and these annexations will make that official,” Mayor John Hamilton said in a 2017 news release. “The property taxes from the annexations will support the neighborhoods and communities that we are committed to serving as we work to provide better and more efficient services to the areas affected.”
The annexation was paused after the state intervened and suspended the process, and the Indiana Supreme Court later decided that intervention was unconstitutional. The city continued forward in the second half of 2021.
The Bloomington City Council later narrowed the annexation to seven areas, amounting to about 8,155 acres and around 15,000 residents. The city is still pursuing annexation in Areas 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
In several town halls and in the public comment of city meetings after the push continued, county residents expressed their outright anger, confusion and discontent at the attempt to annex their area. Many said they are elderly, on fixed incomes and moved outside the city for financial reasons; they said they are unsure if they will have to move again if the influx of taxes proves to be too much.
The city said those county residents will become a part of the city meaning they will receive more services such as increased policing, sewer service and trash pick-up. It also means those new residents would be subject to city taxes — a major reason for pushback. Property owners could see their property taxes increase by an average of $513 per year with a homestead deduction.
Many said they don’t think the life of their neighborhoods and rural roads reflect the city and that there could be difficulties assimilating into city code. They talked about how they don’t want the city’s services and would prefer to continue contracting their own.
The voracity and the number of county residents opposing the annexation were significant in number resulting in organization and leading to new legal challenges for the city. One leading group is County Residents Against Annexation (CRAA), a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization that says it is educating about involuntary annexation and fighting against the city’s attempts in court. It’s a group known for its lawn signs with a cartoon head of lettuce and a bumble bee, symbolizing “Let us be.”
“This may be the largest grassroots movement that Monroe County has ever experienced,” CRAA president Margaret Clements said. “We have the supermajority of people signed, who were property owners signed against annexation in all of the annexation areas.”
Clements said undergoing the cumbersome process, which required notarized petitions, was a testament to how opposed the remonstrators were to annexation. Indiana is one of three states where a town or city can annex land into its borders without consent.
She said one woman in her 80s told her she stood to lose her home if her area was annexed because she would be responsible for an extra $2,000 per year in taxes. Clements brings up that other neighborhoods that are already paying city taxes don’t have the services the city promises.
“We feel that the people have spoken that they have demonstrated that they do not want to be annexed. It’s their right to do that,” she said. “Their request should be honored.”
CRAA president Margaret Clements talks about the movement behind county residents’ legal battle and her organization’s role.
In a FAQ last updated in April, the city said it has spent about $1.35 million on annexation with $800,000 of it focused on communications, surveying and externally-created fiscal plan development. The city said it would continue to spend more money on the matter if court matters are halted.
In the courts
The city of Bloomington filed a lawsuit in 2022 to challenge a 2019 Indiana law having bearing on the validity of its annexation attempts. The law says to void sewer contacts over 15 years old that allow non-municipal residents to connect to those systems in exchange for not protesting if their area was annexed in the future.
The county auditor, who is the defendant in the cases, allowed for petition waivers to be signed and submitted by those covered under such contracts since she was following the current state law which retroactively nullified those contracts. Why are those waivers important? Those landowners are remonstrators, meaning they oppose the annexation of the land they live on. If enough are received in a 90-day period, the annexation attempt could be squashed or hashed out in court.
If the state law holds up in court, Bloomington will fail to annex those areas. However, if the city wins its case and the law is declared unconstitutional, the annexation of those areas is back on.
The city then said Friday it would drop two areas from its court push “in light of the potential years-long constitutional litigation involved” and “in order to facilitate a more timely resolution of that annexation.” The city filed seven lawsuits against the state, one for each area they are attempting to annex; with this move, they are dropping two of those suits.
“Uncertainty and delayed annexation is disruptive to all concerned. We have long sought a timely annexation to right-size our city, consistent with state law and despite repeated illegal interventions from the state government,” Hamilton said in a Friday news release. “Now is the time to get this major component resolved.”
Beth Cate, who serves as Corporation Counsel for the city, told Inside INdiana Business the city plans to move forward with the other five areas, hoping this decision will allow the recently-paused case to continue.
“We concluded that the best way to proceed with a timely annexation — really it’s been much delayed,” Cate said, “but to go ahead and go forward on annexation was to then dismiss the claims.”
That decision comes after a development in a different pending lawsuit — one filed by CRAA and is legally required based on the number of petition signatures collected.
In this case, which is separate but related to the constitutionality question, the court was heading to trial in November, and the outcome of which would be whether the areas would become part of the city. However, CRAA made a motion to hold off on trial until the constitutionality of the annexation is first decided — meaning they want to wait until the seven other legal matters all dealing with that subject are settled since it could have an impact on this case. Special Judge Nathan Nikirk, who serves in Lawrence Circuit Court, ruled in their favor on Sept. 5 and handed down a ruling stalling the case.
“I don’t see that as a win at all,” Clements said. “In terms of steps toward a right decision, it’s a necessary component.”
What makes Areas 1A and 1B different is the percentage of landowner signatures collected to oppose annexation. In those two areas, they sit in a purgatory of sorts: not enough signatures to outright vote down the annexation attempt and too many to be ignored. They sit between 50% and 65% opposition, meaning the matter heads before a judge to be decided.
The city filed an appeal last Wednesday to the decision with the move to drop the two constitutionality suits directly dealing with the two areas as a reason to move forward with the case. The judge has not yet released a decision.
What’s to come
Depending on what’s likely the next decision to come out of either case, the issue could be elongated or expedited, with potentially the former if the judge shoots down the city’s appeal.
Bloomington’s next mayor may also throw a wrench in the current, but soon-to-be-former, administration’s plans. The defacto candidate is Kerry Thomson, the former CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, who told the Herald-Times in March she wants to “halt” annexation to allow for more communication but could continue the attempt without changing in scope and size. Thompson won the Democratic primary in May and is on the ballot this November. At this time, there is no Republican challenger.
Clements said she feels strongly about the remonstrators’ legal challenges. The county is well-represented legally for the constitutionality cases, she said, and the Attorney General’s office has had good arguments in her opinion.
Her organization, CRAA, is still raising money to pay for legal fees and other costs incurring from their lawsuit to avoid placing that burden on homeowners. It’s important they continue to pursue this legal battle, she said.
“It’s the right to the property owners,” Clements said. “These residents have said, ‘No, it’s not in their best interest.’ They do not want to be annexed, and we would like to have helped them have their voices heard.”
However, she said those whose houses and properties are being fought over are stressed. They aren’t as connected since many are older and were disadvantaged when the pandemic had many key meetings and opportunities for speaking up moved to online venues. Many of them though have kept up with the updates.
“It’s a very stressful time for them because they see the very affordability of where they live in question,” she said.