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An Extension ag educator must live within the county to be a voting member of the commission.

Tom J Bechman 1, Editor, Indiana Prairie Farmer

April 13, 2020

3 Min Read
Notice of Public Hearing sign in tall grass
COMMISSION MAKEUP: A new Indiana law helps ensure only county residents vote on important decisions regarding land use in the county.

The 2020 Indiana General Assembly dealt with issues related to ensuring control stays local, either by passing or not passing various pieces of legislation. One new law could influence the makeup of local advisory plan commissions.

Katrina Hall, director of public policy for Indiana Farm Bureau, explains that by statute, the Purdue University Extension ag educator is a member of the advisory plan commission, if the county has countywide or area planning and zoning. Until now, this person has been a voting member.

Today, some Extension ag educators don’t live within the county that they serve. That means they’re voting on matters that affect their constituents but not them directly. The Legislature successfully sought to change the statute to correct this situation.

Senate Enrolled Act 20, which will become law, Hall says, stipulates that to serve on a county’s advisory plan commission, an Extension ag educator must live within the county. If the educator lives elsewhere, he or she can still serve in an advisory capacity as a nonvoting member.

The county commissioners will appoint someone from the county to fill any vacancy created by this change, Hall explains. “We rely on our county commissioners to make sure agriculture is represented when they make appointments,” she says.

Other topics

Here are other topics the Legislature either addressed or elected to pass on at this time:

Eminent domain. Municipalities can condemn property for economic development, and in the past, it only took a two-thirds vote of the local legislative body to exercise the power of eminent domain. Senate Enrolled Act 340, which became law, did several things, including requiring the municipality to provide notice to affected owners (both residents and nonresidents), and creating a new right of appeal in eminent domain proceedings.

Perhaps the biggest change was requiring a three-fourths vote instead of two-thirds to enact eminent domain.

“That likely means those favoring it will need one more vote on the legislative body than before,” Hall says. “These changes help better protect the rights of property owners.”

Broadband. Senate Enrolled Act 177 transferred the authority of the Broadband Readiness program to the Office of Community and Rural Affairs. “It made official what was already happening in the effort to expand broadband into rural areas,” Hall says.

She notes that the first round of grant funding authorized by the governor and Legislature in 2019 amounted to about $22 million. More funding rounds are underway. State officials are prioritizing those areas that currently have the least service when awarding grants, Hall says.

Senate Enrolled Act 343 also became law, changing the Rural Telephone Cooperative Act to the Rural Communications Cooperative Act, expanding service offerings for rural Hoosiers.

Annual IDEM inspections. A bill that would have required annual inspections of confined animal feeding operations, Senate Bill 248, didn’t pass.

“We think more scrutiny is a good thing, because it allows us to show how well our members operate,” says Jeff Cummins, associate director of policy engagement for Indiana Farm Bureau. “The problem was that the bill didn’t have extra funding for IDEM [Indiana Department of Environmental Management] attached to it. Increased funding needs to accompany any change which would require more manpower from IDEM.”

Township assessors. A bill to eliminate township assessors was on the docket, but didn’t get a hearing in the Indiana Senate, Hall says, noting it simply didn’t get traction in the Senate.

About the Author(s)

Tom J Bechman 1

Editor, Indiana Prairie Farmer

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