§ 157.010. UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF PUBLIC REMONSTRANCE AND PROTEST.

(A) The nature of public remonstrance and protest is fairly well known to public officials as being a potentially vitriolic process where the public enthusiastically exercises its right to free speech, often accompanied with derision toward public officials. Such meetings often become confrontational, despite the best efforts of the community to avoid such outcomes. During vitriolic exchanges, it often becomes difficult to maintain a clear message. Therefore, it is important for the municipality to clearly state its intent in writing, in order to accurately convey the municipal intent, for better or worse.

(B) Unfortunately, remonstrators and protesters will often engage any practice to defer, delay or obfuscate the municipality's proposed action. Such tactics therefore require simple clarity on the part of the municipality with regard to its intent, in order to combat the efforts at obfuscation. It is not uncommon, especially in public discussion of annexation, for remonstrators/protesters to make facetious demands on the municipality in order to force the public officials to delay the process for the purpose of responding to demands.

(C) The statutory phrase, "providing services in the same manner", does not mandate the city to place certain capital improvements in the annexed area unless that is the way it would provide the capital improvements in other comparable parts of the city. The purpose of this statement of municipal services is to state, with as much clarity as possible, the municipal services which are provided by the city. In addition, this document also attempts to address the issues of "developmental amenities" and "development standards" in order that these other terms not be confused with actual "municipal services. " This effort is expended specifically to clarify the municipality's response to the requirements of IC 36-4-3.

(Ord. 24-2002, passed 8-5-02)