Major Moves update: Toll Road lease signed

We just received this important update on the Major Moves program:

"The Indiana Finance Authority and ITR Concession Company LLC, the joint venture formed by Cintra and Macquarie, today executed the lease agreement for the Indiana Toll Road. Charles Schalliol, director of the Office of Management and Budget Director, in his capacity as chair of the Indiana Finance Authority Board, signed the agreement. Signatures are effective as of 9 a.m. today.

The parties will now move toward closure of the $3.8 billion, 75-year Toll Road lease by June 3o.

The lease includes an addendum, which provides for: a "toll freeze" for passenger vehicles at current rates until electronic tolling is put in place; a 40 percent discount through June 30, 2016, for passenger vehicles utilizing electronic tolling; and continuation of commuter discount cards until the availability of electronic tolling. Copies of the addendum are available. The lease agreement itself, which is posted at http://www.in.gov/ifa/, did not change."

HEA 1362 - Local Government Reorganization

With respect to broad local government reform, the 2006 legislative session should be considered a success. While IAR would have preferred to see property tax assessment consolidated at the county level and the rest of Mayor Bart Peterson’s IndianapolisWorks! program approved, we think that HEA 1362 can be a catalyst for discussion and action on reform across Indiana.

HEA 1362, authored by Representative Jim Buck (Kokomo), allows almost any local unit or school corporation to merge or reorganize. It is no coincidence that just weeks after the session ended, Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard has made news by endorsing a new consolidation plan. The Journal Gazette’s Benjamin Lanka reported on this development yesterday (full article here):

Backers of a consolidated local government collected a choice ally Tuesday as Mayor Graham Richard announced his support for a single countywide executive and a single countywide council.

Richard made the announcement as the Fort Wayne City Council and Allen County commissioners prepare to meet in joint session Monday to discuss House Bill 1362, which Gov. Mitch Daniels recently signed into law. The meeting is believed by many to be the first-ever joint meeting of the two legislative bodies.

The law allows local governments to restructure or consolidate without state approval. It requires the process to be started by resolution of a legislative body or a petition from residents.

More specifically, the bill states that a reorganization process may be initiated by the local legislative bodies (such as a county council and a city council) or by a petition from 5% of the voters in the units.

The entities that are seeking to reorganize would then form a committee to develop a final plan. If the legislative bodies of the affected units approve this plan, it would go before the voters as a referendum. But even if these bodies don’t approve the plan, it could still be placed on the ballot if 10% of the voters petition for it.

Some legislators insisted on a mechanism to prevent “hostile takeovers”. To address this concern, the reorganization plan could include a “rejection threshold” to ensure that one unit would not be absorbed by another even if the vast majority of the less populous unit were against the consolidation. The bill has other safeguards to ensure that pension liabilities or other debt incurred by one unit cannot be spread out to the other entity.

We expect HEA 1362 to begin or rekindle debates in other counties, and Indiana desperately needs robust discussion at the local level. It is very difficult for state legislators to craft one-size-fits-all approaches, but HEA 1362 gives communities the tools to begin drawing their own blueprints for local government in the 21^st century.

NOTE: One thing HEA 1362 does not allow is for a town or city to “move” to another county as is favored by at least one Hoosier (click here). However, upon re-reading the bill, it appears this town might be able to consolidate itself into a new county, but I don’t think that is what this gentleman had in mind.

Good article on growning ranks of Hoosier agents

Most of us have read accounts of the swelling ranks of real estate agents in boom markets, but few media outlets in Indiana have covered the increasing number of Hoosiers in this profession. Indiana may not have red-hot markets, but it has seen its share of growth— membership in IAR recently topped 19,000, for example.

Jenni Glenn of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette recently wrote an excellent article with a wealth of background information and statistics (and not just regarding the northeastern Indiana market):

Northeast Indiana isn’t the only part of the state experiencing this trend. The number of active agents in the state skyrocketed 51 percent in the last four years, said Nicholas Rhoad, director of the Indiana Real Estate Commission. The number of salespeople with active licenses jumped to 12,598 as of Jan. 1. The state only had 8,330 active real estate agents as of Jan. 1, 2002.

You can read the full article on the J-G website by clicking here.