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21 Jul
0

Only Mooresville Council Race has more than 1 candidate in General Election

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Only Mooresville Council Race has more than 1 candidate in General Election

Morgan County’s General Election this November probably will not draw much attention. During a meeting of the county election board Thursday morning, Morgan County Clerk Tammy Parker announced there will be only one contested race.

That race will be between Republican Kirk Witt and Libertarian Danny Lundy for the Mooresville Town Council District 2 position.

Witt beat incumbent Shane Williams in the May primary election.

Parker said the candidates in all other races including those in Martinsville and Mooresville have no opposition. All those candidates are Republican.

Parker said the filing deadline for the election has passed so no one else can be placed on the November ballot.

Elections are expensive

Board members Becky Waymire and Virginia Perry asked Parker about the cost for the November election and, since there is no opposition for in Martinsville, did they have to hold it.

Parker said she would check with the state to see officials are required to hold an election in Martinsville since the candidates are unopposed.

Parker said the total cost for the May primary for both Martinsville and Mooresville was $22,912.

She said the cost breakdown was based on the number of votes cast in each area.

According to the county election office, there were a total of 2,346 votes cast; 715 votes, or 30%, were for Mooresville’s candidates. The rest, 1,631 votes, or 69.5%, were for Martinsville’s candidates. Mooresville paid $6,983 while Martinsville paid the rest, $15,929.

Board members said that since there were no contested races in Martinsville, the city could save money if the election was not held.

Moving 2024 election site

Board members also expressed concern with the 2024 primary and general election. The 2020 election had a heavy turnout at the administration building and board members felt that 2024 would be the same. With the construction of the new judicial campus, parking is in short supply.

The board was concerned that some people may have trouble getting to the polls to vote.

A question was raised about moving the election site from the administration building to another location that with more parking and better access. Parker said she would have to check with the state to see if moving to another location would be possible.

Parker said there will be another meeting later this year to discuss those matters.

Reports reviewed

The board reviewed the campaign finance reports for candidates who made mistakes on their initial filings. All candidates made the required corrections.

The board waived the $150 fine imposed on Mooresville Town Court Judge Susan J. Lieb. Lieb filed her report three days late. The board initially fined her $150 but after discussing the matter, decided to waive the penalty. This was her first time filing late.

~ By Keith Rhoades | Reporter | Published July 7, 2023 in The Reporter Times

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17 Jul
0

2023-07-10 Park Board Meeting

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2023-07-10 Park Board Meeting

Unfinished Business:

  • The Parks Board officially adopted the Site Master Plan Concept that was presented to the Mooresville Redevelopment Commission at their July meeting. This Master Plan will help direct and drive improvements in the park for many years to come. 

New Business:

  • New mowers are scheduled to arrive by 7/21/2023. The board voted to move forward with declaring the old mowers surplus so they can be sold. 
  • The board voted to allow a banner in Bicentennial Park advertising the Mooresville Street Fair dates. 
  • The board was presented with an updated Park Memorial Program, which will allow for far more options than the current memorial plan.
    • The current plan only allows for Park Benches
    • The new plan will allow for Benches, Trees, Trails, Markers, and have more flexibility for other creative options on a case by case basis. 
    • The board voted to adopt this new program

Updates:

  • The bathroom building for the Old Town Park has been completed. We expect it to be installed by the end of July
  • The pool heater is still in the warranty process and we are waiting on the manufacturer.  
  • Summer staff continue to do a great job and we appreciate their efforts very much
  • REC&U for the fall semester will be opening earlier this year

Park Memorial Program

About the Program:

Mooresville Parks has redeveloped and designed the memorial program to help individuals, organizations, and families celebrate their loved ones. The procedures and policies are designed to be fair, consistent, and efficient for anyone interested in donating a memorial on the Mooresville Park property.

Parks and public lands’ accessibility to the general public makes them common and logical locations for Memorials. Mooresville Parks reserves the right to restrict memorials of individuals, dates, events, and those industries and productions that do not support the goals, vision, and mission of the department.

Give a gift of green and shade, a place to stop and rest, or something special through the Parks Memorial Program. Memorial donations include select tree species, bench types, and other amenities.

For more information about the memorial program contact the Mooresville Parks Office

The next Park Board Meeting will be on August 14th at 6:30 PM

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25 Jun
0

Property Tax Shock

by in News, Articles, News, Newsletter

Has the shock of increased property taxes settled yet?

Unfortunately, property values are expected to keep rising into the year 2025. As the real estate industry continues to have low inventory coupled with an increase in buyers, this drives demand up which drives property values up. Assessed value is for taxation purposes, used by your local and county governments. Market value is what a buyer is willing to pay for a property and a seller is willing to accept for their property. The bridge between these two values is the appraisal, during the due diligence period of acquiring the property. This appraisal value and final deed gets recorded with your local authorities.

In the past couple of years, thanks to COVID, we saw a BOOM in housing. The Association of Indiana Counties commissioned a study by Policy Analytics LLC and Dr. Larry DeBoer Emeritus Professor, Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, titled: Evaluating the Impacts of Increased Assessed Value in Indiana.  The average assessed home value in Indiana increased almost 16 percent during this boom. However, in Morgan County, the increase in property values was more than 20 percent. Higher home values mean higher tax bills. It would be beneficial to take this into consideration when budgeting for 2023, 2024 and 2025.

However, one thing to bear in mind is increased spending equals an increase in taxes. If your local government entities collected $20 million last year in property taxes and their budgets remain the same, your taxes would also remain pretty much the same – you’d just pay a lower rate. Any increase in spending means they need to collect more taxes. When coupled with an increase in assessed value, they can collect more while your tax rate could remain the same or even decreases overall. So, bear that in mind when your local elected officials boast that your rate remained the same or decreased. If the amount you paid went up, it’s because they spent / collected more in taxes, not just because your assessed value increased.

On a positive note with the rise in property taxes, these funds SHOULD be going toward items that taxpayers use, such as: schools; libraries; first responders; local infrastructure such as highways, roads and streets.  As a community, it is our job as taxpayers to make sure these increased funds are not contributing to items that do not directly improve our County, such as the salaries of local units of government. Our local government impacts our day-to-day more than our federal government. This is why we need to elect town council members that are just like you and me: Wanting to keep our hard-earned money in our own pockets, instead of the governments’.

I encourage you to check out the study

You can ask your local realtor to provide a comparative market analysis if you would like to try and appeal your hike in property taxes. You can go here for the required forms to appeal your property taxes.

Please Note: A Compromised House Bill 1499 has passed unanimously 98-0, while the Senate approved it 49-1, to help aid homeowners’ in their tax bills. Be on the lookout for these changes in 2024 and 2025. That bill would expand a supplemental deduction that’s currently set to a flat 25%.

Homeowners with properties worth less than $600,00 would see assessed value deductions of 35% for taxes this year, 40% for 2024, 37.5% for 2025 and and 35% for those due afterward. Those with properties worth more than $600,00 would get smaller deductions.

The bill would also raise income eligibility for senior citizen property tax deductions by linking the caps to the cost of living increases applied to Social Security benefits.

You can review information on that bill here.

Thank you for staying involved & informed in your community.

Tracy Bailey, The PINK Realtor & Libertarian of Morgan County

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13 Jun
0

2023-06-12 Park Board Meeting

by in News, Appointees, News, Reports

2023-06-12 Park Board Meeting

Unfinished Business:

  • The Parks Board finalized a new logo and it will be rolled out soon

New Business:

  • The Parks Board approved the addition of a Disc Golf Course in the wooded area on the North end of Pioneer Park. The design and installation is in partnership with the Morgan County Disc Golf Club. 
  • The Parks have aging mowers and one of them is not functional. We reviewed options for replacements and the Parks Board approved the superintendent, Philip Cornelius, to submit a replacement cost for 3 mowers to the Town Council under the Capital Improvement Plan at their next meeting. 

Updates:

  • The bathroom building for the Old Town Park has been delayed by the manufacturer. Its new expected completion date is the end of June. So we expect to have it installed in July. 
  • The pool heater has failed. After much back and forth with the manufacturer and installer it has been found to be under manufacturers warranty. So it will not cost us to have it replaced. However, this may take longer to complete. (likely several months) 
  • For the first time in a long time we are fully staffed for the summer season. Thank you to those who have come out to work for us this year. 
  • REC&U for the fall semester will be opening earlier this year

The next Park Board Meeting will be on July 10th at 6:30 PM

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12 May
0

2023-05-08 Park Board Meeting

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2023-05-08 Park Board Meeting

  • Park Board Planning Session 2023-04-21:
    • The park board had a long planning session on April 21st. In that meeting we covered many topics and discussed the future vision and plan of the Mooresville Parks System. Some of those topics are below:
    • Updating the logo for the parks to give it a more modern iconic look, while also paying respect to the old logo
    • We also performed several exercises designed to help define and guide the park’s vision, mission, and values. 
    • We reviewed and discussed a first draft of future planning involving the North end of the park. The first phases of this plan will include upgrades to the park maintenance garage, the office, addition of an indoor activity space, and pickleball courts. These plans are conceptual at this time and have not been finalized. 
  • Park Board Meeting 2023-05-08:
    • Finalized and approved new Mission, Vision, & Values for the Parks Dept
    • Continued Logo Update Discussion
    • Approved the Cub Scouts Camp Out
    • Began Discussion on possibly moving some of the Komets Soccer fields (per their request)
    • Zipline will be down soon
    • Old Town Park restrooms are on track to be completed by end of June
    • Electrical Upgrades have been completed. 
    • One of the basketball court backboards has been broken and has already been replaced. 
    • Summer positions are filling up, but we need more lifeguards!
    • Pool opening is in progress and on target for Memorial Weekend
  • The next Park Board Meeting will be on June 12th at 6:30 PM

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19 Apr
0

2023 Sign Ordinance Update

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2023 Sign Ordinance Update

Since 2020, we’ve been hearing about how small yard signs are “garbage” and make the town look “trashy”. We’ve seen pink stickers emerge and get plastered on signs all over town every election cycle, and at a few other times as well, ever since that first Rainwater sign photo was cropped and posted by a town councilman who claimed Libertarians are criminals. It’s become a staple of Town life in Mooresville to wait for the Sign Police to come and take your “Just Be Kind” sign, your “Slow: Children At Play” sign, or your political sign out of your yard because they claim it’s not in the right place.

So, what happened? Where is the sign purging this year? This election cycle hasn’t seen any bright pink “This Sign Violates the Mooresville Sign Ordinance” stickers. Candidates aren’t driving around town reporting their opponent’s signs or, at least, if they are, no one is doing anything about it. Why?

As it turns out, the town amended the sign ordinance at their December 20, 2022 meeting to be effective January 1st, of 2023. While the town did not implement all our recommendations, they did take our most important suggestions. Here’s what changed:

First, the position of sign administrator was eliminated. The existence of this position was in direct violation of state law. State law says you either tell everyone ‘yes’, or everyone ‘no’. Therefore, the existence of an administrator to grant or deny permission was itself a violation. We are pleased to report the new UDO eliminates this position altogether and therefore defaults all requests to place signage on public property as a ‘no’.

A section has been added suspending the rules for number of signs and size of the signs 60 days prior to and 6 days after an election. This brings the ordinance in-line with state law that also says size and number of signs cannot be restricted during an election period. This section also codifies that you must obtain permission from private property owners before placing a sign. An important point given one council member threatened to fill his opponents yard with signs because that property “is no different from a park”.

There was another striking of the phrase “Located only on the same lot as the use/business” from the regulation tables for temporary signage. We’re not sure if this was an attempt to clarify the strip of your property nearest the street as your property or not. It could just be that it was redundant with the other statement in the table. “No sign shall project beyond the property line into the public right-of-way”. As far as we can tell the “that’s not your property” theory, in relation to the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street, only came from Councilman Williams. He has never backed that up with anything that states an easement is not your property, but it was certainly his interpretation that you couldn’t put signs there. This may be the section he used to justify that; it may not be.

The Libertarian Party of Morgan County had sought to allow a 90-day time limit for signage without permission, but these changes are an acceptable compromise. Our main points of being an undue burden on the public, a silly waste of taxpayer money to try and enforce, and potentially easily corrupt uses of leveraging the “permission” requirements to censor the free speech of Mooresville Citizens have been addressed. We would like to have seen clarification on whether or not we can put signs in easements or not (as that has been used to remove signage in the past), but otherwise this addressed the main concerns we have been trying to raise for the last three years. We are happy someone in the town was listening to our concerns when these revisions were written.

You can review the changes yourself below:

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11 Apr
0

2023-04-10 Park Board Meeting

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2023-04-10 Park Board Meeting

  • Unfinished Business:
    • Permits have been issued for the Old Town Park Restrooms. Estimated completion is mid to late May. Cost will be around $185,000
    • Lehman and Lehman are still working on the overview design for future Park projects 
    • The Park Board will be meeting on April 21st for a work session to discuss projects. 
    • A Parks Board Handbook was approved to ensure current and future board members better understand the details of the job, purpose, vision, etc. 
  • New Business:
    • Contract with SOS Lawn Care was approved. Starnes Outdoor Solutions has agreed to donate thies services to maintain Bicentennial Park
    • We did not have job descriptions for any Park employees. Job Descriptions were presented by the Superintendent and approved by the board. 
    • Park properties are currently listed under several names & not all within town limits. The board approved the admin to work with legal and the town to get that cleaned up and pursue annexation into the town. 
    • The board approved an electronic meeting policy mirroring the town policy. 
    • The Jr Baseball League ball diamond upgrades look great. We are going to work with them and work on getting bids to possibly pave that parking lot. 
    • Three Park Board Committees were formed:
      • Finance Committee
      • Personnel / Policy Committee
      • Planning Committee 
  • Updates:
    • Pool is on target to be open by mid-May
    • Dippin Dots will be available at concession this year
    • Electrical upgrades are waiting on parts
  • The next Park Board Meeting will be on May 8th at 7:00 PM

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09 Mar
0

Reporter-Times Fails to Include Libertarians in their Election Coverage

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Reporter-Times Fails to Include Libertarians in Their Election Coverage

Morgan County, IN; March 9th, 2023

There have been several articles written about the upcoming municipal elections in Morgan County this year. Many of them focused on the primaries, which Libertarians do not participate in due to state law restrictions. In the most recent article from the March 6th edition of the Reporter-Times, however, they specifically state, “Anyone wishing to run as a Democrat or as an independent has until later this year to file for the November election.” This is also true for people wishing to run as a Libertarian and we believe readers should be made aware of that.

Furthermore, we held our county convention in January (at no cost to taxpayers) where we selected Danny Lundy to be our candidate for Mooresville Town Council in Ward 2. He will be on your ballot in November and we believe readers should be informed that they have more options than Republican, Democrat, or Independent; especially since we currently have more candidates on the ballot than the other ‘major’ party that has been mentioned in every article.

The Libertarian Party of Morgan County is well established and continues to run principled candidates. They hold appointed and elected positions within the county. Libertarians have served and are currently serving on appointed board in both Martinsville and Mooresville and a Libertarian was just elected in November 2022 to the Martinsville School Board.

It seems a pretty severe oversight to exclude them when discussing local politics and elections in Morgan County. We sincerely hope future coverage includes all the candidates so that voters can make an informed decision this November.

To learn more about the Libertarian Party of Morgan County visit MorganLPIN.org and to learn more about Danny Lundy’s campaign for Mooresville Town Council visit LundyForMooresville.com If you are interested in running as Libertarian please contact the Libertarian Party of Morgan County.

** Note: We attempted to contact the Reporter-Times about this issue, but there no longer appears to be a way to submit Letters to the Editor and the only contact listed on their website is the sports reporter. When we called the newsroom we got an automated “invalid input” message. We have had several press releases go unanswered, even to decline them. So, we have chosen to publish this response in this manner.

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07 Mar
0

2023-03-06 Park Board Meeting

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2023-03-06 Park Board Meeting

* We welcomed Phil Cornelius to his first board meeting (on his first day)

* Approved a contract with Lehman and Lehman to begin initial design work on some park improvements. That approval has a NTE of $10,000 (not to exceed)

* League of Miracles is going to work with us to help highlight and improve on our inclusive equipment options

* Child Abuse Prevention Month is in April. Morgan County Substance Abuse Council will be placing some pinwheels in Bicentennial Park to help bring awareness to that issue.

* We approved placement of a Time Capsule next year during the 200 Year Celebration. It will be in Bicentennial Park somewhere near the Founder Stone.

* Morgan County Special Olympics will be hosting a fundraiser at Pioneer Park on June 24th. Look for their announcement on that soon for more details.

* The Park Board will be meeting on April 21st for a work session to discuss projects.

* The Jr Baseball League requested permission to pave their parking area by the ball diamonds, which we approved.

* The Old Town Park bathrooms building is still waiting on approval from the State of Indiana. Once we finally get that we can move forward on getting that building up.

~ by Danny Lundy, Mooresville Parks Board Member

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14 Feb
0

2023-02-13 Park Board Meeting:

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2023-02-13 Park Board Meeting:

The Mooresville Park Board met last night following an executive session.

• Concerts will be returning to Bicentennial Park starting with a St Patrick’s Day celebration.

• We voted to extend an offer to one of our superintendent candidates and, if they accept, that position will be filled soon.

• We discussed pickleball courts and disc golf and want to move forward with getting plan options and pricing together for those to see if/when/how we can get the ball rolling on those.

• We also voted to update the privacy and trespass policies, got a new copier for the office, gave our input on the new Park Board Handbook (which should be completed soon), and discussed a lease agreement with Indiana American Water.

~ by Danny Lundy, Mooresville Park Board Member

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