ANDERSON — Madison County will continue its challenge of a controversial annexation by the town of Ingalls.

Madison County Commissioner John Richwine, R-North District, said the county will file a request for transfer with the Indiana Court of Appeals to move the matter to a higher court.

“It’s not about telling Ingalls that they can’t annex, it’s just about the way they went about it,” Richwine said. “We would prefer they had a more common-sense approach where they were not dividing properties in half.”

The action signals disagreement with a March 20 ruling by Judge Patricia A. Riley asserting that Madison County had no standing to challenge the annexation and affirmed a decision made by Madison Superior Court 3 Judge Thomas Newman in November 2007. Since Madison County did not own any of the property in question, it was not considered a “remonstrator,” an interested party that can challenge annexation and vote to stop it.

“What it says is that the sole way to challenge annexation is by remonstration, and you have to qualify as a remonstrator,” Madison County Attorney Jim Wilson told The Herald Bulletin. “Nowhere is the county defined as being a remonstrator, so therefore, the county has no remedy on quote-unquote illegal annexations.”

At issue are the 2005 and 2006 annexation of narrow strips of County Road 650 West and Interstate 69, connecting Ingalls to 260 acres of the proposed Summerbrook commercial development.

Such an action would make Ingalls responsible for public services in the area, but would also generate property tax revenue for the town. D.B. Mann Development, which planned to create Summerbrook, offered up $400,000 to fund fire protection in the area at the request of Madison County.

Richwine said some properties straddle the annexation boundaries, leaving part in Ingalls and the rest in unincorporated county. But one Ingalls officials calls this subterfuge.

“That’s not the real issue, we’re not sure what the real issue is,” said Ingalls Town Councilman Doug Dowden. “In my opinion, they’re carrying the torch for somebody.”

Dowden said Anderson has pushed south and west along Interstate 69 and Pendleton tried and failed to annex some of the same land. Dowden said Ingalls informed the county of its annexation plans in a public meeting and officials expressed no concern.

“We went to the county commissioners’ meeting when we did the remonstration and told the county we were doing the annexation,” Dowden said. “They turned around a year or a year and a half after it’s done and dispute it like they didn’t know we were doing it.”

Meanwhile, Dowden said, the residents of Summerlake would benefit from the goods and services commercial development could provide.

“It just basically defined a growth area for us,” Dowden said. “With House Bill 1001 three or four years ago, they talked about reducing property taxes. You either need to do something to get business and industrial development, or you’re going to lose money. It’s just disappointing to me.”

Contact Justin Schneider: (765) 640-4809, justin.schneider@heraldbulletin.com