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SB348 Vote Delayed One Week
(posted Feb 12)
Speedway residents will have to wait until next week to find out the fate
of SB 348. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Senator Luke Kenley
decided to hold off voting the bill out of committee until Feb 19.
During today's hearing, the committee voted to add Marion County back into
the bill with a 7-2 vote. The amendment to include the county was added
to the bill at 8.30 am, just 30 minutes prior to the hearing's start.
Kenley said the amendment features a referendum allowing library district
residents to vote to opt out of the plan. The amendment requires one hundred
signatures on a petition to force a referendum.
The proposed library services planning bill has Speedway residents, officials
and library staff on edge because they have interpreted the bill as a sign
of consolidation. The library staff and board members have referred to
the situation as fighting a “battle” and “war.”
After nearly two hours of testimony over the bill, which will create a
universal fee and library service system, Kenley said the vote would be
delayed because some of committee members were missing due to the lunch
hour.
Kenley said the committee will not hear discussions at next week's vote
because the committee heard from supporters and opponents of the issue.
Senator Mike Young, representing the Speedway area, testified that 3,102
of the town's 12,880 residents have signed a petition to be excluded from
the plan. The petition was started last year after the Kernan-Shepherd
report called for school consolidation. Speedway Library Director Darsi
Bohr encouraged patrons to sign the petition in anticipation of further
consolidation efforts.
Young said Uni-gov gives excluded cities the power and the right to have
local control, including library services. He recommended changing Uni-Gov
instead. “Speedway has already spoken, they don't want to be in it.” He
noted eighty-seven percent of the residents are cardholders.
He said Speedway does not have enough money to hold a referendum. He preferred
gathering petitions rather than a vote. He described the bill as a start
to systematically taking Speedway apart.
“Today we lose our library, tomorrow our we our lose parks, next year we
lose our water and sewer, the year after that we lose our fire department
and the year after that, we lose the police department, and there will
be no Speedway and we've never changed the Uni-gov law.”
Speedway residents attended the hearing to show their support. Town Manager
Barbara Lawrence, Library President Lynda Miller and Redevelopment Commission
Executive Director Scott Harris also spoke in hopes of keeping Speedway
out of the plan.
Miller said that Speedway had a reciprocal program with Indianapolis Marion
County Public Library at no charge. She said after four years, Speedway
patrons asked the library to drop the agreement because of the decline
in services. She said the library was serving 3,000 IMCPL patrons a month.
The excluded cities were not invited to participate in the initial committee
that looked at streamlining services.
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