Governing Putnam County—Locally: Annexation

“Cloverdale council approves annexation process.” So read a Banner Graphic headline on Feb. 14 involving a move that would expand the boundaries of the Town of Cloverdale.

U.S. history, of course, includes the addition of a great deal of new territory as the country expanded westward from the 13 original states to the Pacific Ocean. By today, however, the boundaries of the 50 states seem to have been finalized. We would all be stunned, I think, if one state somehow added territory currently belonging to a neighboring state, much less if a state on our northern border (for example, North Dakota) “annexed” some Canadian territory and made it part of the U.S.

At the local government level, however, annexation — wherein a municipality expands its boundaries by adding territory — is alive and well. The proposed annexation by Cloverdale is a case in point.

The “Cloverdale council” named in the headline quoted above is the governing body for the Town of Cloverdale. Do not confuse the Town of Cloverdale with the Township of Cloverdale. The Town of Cloverdale is the second most populous municipality in Putnam County: City of Greencastle (about 10,000), Town of Cloverdale (about 2,200), Town of Roachdale (about 850), Town of Bainbridge (about 700), Town of Fillmore (about 550), and Town of Russellville (about 300). In contrast, the Township of Cloverdale is one of the 13 townships that together “cover the map” of Putnam County, with those townships my planned focus in a later column.

As noted in an earlier column, municipalities such as the Town of Cloverdale are created in a bottom-up process initiated because residents of an area want the additional services that a municipality can provide and proceed to take the necessary steps to initiate “incorporation.” And municipalities — unlike school districts, townships and county government — do not “cover the map” of Putnam County.

As a terminological aside, the State of Indiana’s calling its smaller municipalities such as Cloverdale “towns” seems unfortunate, sometimes leading to confusion about the different governing responsibilities of “towns” and “townships.” In some other states that, like Indiana, have townships, larger municipalities are called “cities” — as they are in Indiana — while smaller municipalities are called “villages” or “boroughs,” and not “towns.”

So just what is “annexation”? Annexation is a process in which an existing municipality adds additional contiguous (that is, “geographically connected”) territory. Previously unincorporated territory lying outside a municipal boundary becomes part of the municipality, and the residents of annexed territory typically receive more local government services and pay higher taxes.

The proposed annexation by the Town of Cloverdale is hardly the first such annexation in Putnam County history. Nor will it likely be the last. After IBM suddenly announced the closing of its Greencastle distribution plant in 1986, Greencastle launched efforts to replace the jobs lost by the IBM closure. Located just east of Super Walmart on the opposite side of Route 240, the old IBM building now houses both the Area 30 Career Center and an Ascena distribution plant. The successful economic development begun in the 1980s drive brought something like a half-dozen new manufacturing plants to Greencastle, most of them built east of the former IBM building and in the general vicinity of what is now Big Walnut Sports Park. The City of Greencastle annexed the land on which the new plants were built so that the new businesses would have access to water and sewerage, two basic city services. Thus, “the east side” became part of the expanded City of Greencastle.

Why do annexations occur? For a variety of reasons, including the desire of people living just outside of a municipality to be incorporated, and thus get city water, sewerage and other municipal services; a desire by a municipality to tidy up and control an area just outside its boundaries (sometimes in response to overflow from septic tanks bordering the municipality); and/or in conjunction with economic development efforts. Either the municipality doing the annexing or residents of the area to be annexed can initiate the process, which then can be classified as “involuntary” or “voluntary,” respectively.

Looking ahead, we can reasonably expect — at some point — more annexations in Putnam County. Will one or more of the towns of Bainbridge, Fillmore, Roachdale and Russellville some day follow Cloverdale’s lead and annex territory immediately outside their current municipal boundaries? Will the City of Greencastle annex Edgelea, the residential area that lies just north of the city limits on the east side of Route 231? (I am certainly not the first person to wonder about whether and, if so, when Edgelea will become part of the City of Greencastle.)

Annexation gives rise to two interesting possibilities worth noting: “defensive incorporation” and “inburg.” “Defensive incorporation” occurs when people in an unincorporated territory lying outside a municipality’s boundaries take steps to become a municipality to prevent being annexed by the existing municipality. This strategy works because a municipality cannot annex territory located in another municipality.

An “inburg” is a municipality completely surrounded by another larger neighboring municipality. An “inburg” usually results from a “defensive incorporation” followed by later annexation(s) of unincorporated territory by the larger municipality. Eventually these later annexation(s) surround the municipality created earlier by “defensive incorporation” and render it an “inburg.”

Before closing, let me distinguish annexations from mergers or consolidations of local governments. A Banner Graphic article appearing on Jan. 18 titled “Fallacies of the school district consolidation debate in Indiana” addressed the possibility of small, rural school districts being consolidated with neighboring districts to achieve economies of scale and better public schools. In the 1960s, despite considerable opposition from some Putnam County residents, the eight or so existing school governance units in Putnam County were consolidated or merged into the four school corporations in the county today: North Putnam, Greencastle, South Putnam and Cloverdale. (The South Putnam Community School Corporation, for example, resulted from the consolidation of Belle Union, Fillmore and Reelsville.) But consolidations or mergers of local government units such as school districts, townships or even counties, should not be confused with annexation. In annexation, a municipality expands its territorial jurisdiction by acquiring unincorporated area, that is, land lying outside any municipality at the time of annexation.