The boards of two of Brown County’s three sewer districts are seeking to become elected by their rate-payers rather than appointed by the county commissioners.
The Gnaw Bone Regional Sewer District filed its petition with the state to change to an elected board. All three members, Charlie White, Dave Hess and Shawn Fosnight, voted for it last summer.
On Feb. 24, that petition was approved by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
The Helmsburg Regional Sewer District just signed its resolution to change to an elected board last month, but members had already voted to do it at an earlier meeting, said President Denise Broussard. One of the three members, Jenny Austin, did not support the change.
The Gnaw Bone and Helmsburg sewer districts share an attorney, John T. Young, who is handling the filings of these petitions and resolutions.
How it will work
According to the paperwork IDEM signed for Gnaw Bone last week, the current appointed board members will remain in their posts until their appointments expire, and continue to serve until an election is conducted for their spots.
Elections will take place during the Indiana general election, the order says. Only one board member will be up for election each time, and they will go in an order starting with the expiration of the earliest appointed board member’s term, IDEM wrote.
Elected board members’ terms will be for six years.
Why change?
Gnaw Bone’s petition to IDEM says that “the district board has determined that in order to provide more efficient operations of the district and to provide the ratepayers of the district with the means within which to determine who should represent them, that board members should be elected by the ratepayers of the district.”
At a contentious meeting between Helmsburg residents and the sewer board last June, Broussard told customers that the reason for wanting to change to elected was because there had been delays in the past with the county commissioners filling open board seats. Commissioner Jerry Pittman, who was present at that meeting, disputed that any more than “a couple months” had gone by with an open seat.
The Brown County Commissioners went on record in June that they oppose these board seats being switched from appointed to elected. At that meeting, the county’s attorney, Jake German, handed the Helmsburg board’s attorney written notice that it was opposed, and German said he would “plead our case against the change” before IDEM.
IDEM’s order approving the Gnaw Bone change says that IDEM’s decisions can be challenged by filing a petition for administrative review with the Office of Environmental Adjudication within 18 days of the order’s service by mail. More information on that process is available at in.gov/oea.
