From the Evansville Courier & Press:
A drive by opponents of Evansville-Vanderburgh County government consolidation to stop the Nov. 6 vote may be headed to court, if Vanderburgh County elections officials heed the state's advice.
But first the county election board plans to meet to hear out leaders of Citizens Opposed to Reorganization in Evansville, who leveled a flurry of charges Thursday against the process that initiated the Election Day referendum.
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Dale Simmons, an Indiana Election Division attorney who answered legal inquiries by the League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana before it launched its voter petition drive on consolidation in 2009, said he and Division Co-Director Brad King advised Kirk on Thursday.
Simmons cited legislation passed in March 2006 to give local government units a framework to merge.
"Every step described in (the law's article on "government modernization") to get to where you are, has been done," Simmons said. "We don't see where the election board has any discretion whatsoever."
If the steps prescribed in the enabling legislation are completed, Simmons said, "it goes on the ballot."
"The only thing to prevent that is an action in a court of law," he said.
That's where Citizens Opposed to Reorganization in Evansville comes in.
The anti-consolidation group levels four charges against the process that led to this year's referendum, in two cases relying on a general statute that Simmons says is trumped by the 2006 enabling legislation — and in one case calling on the 2006 law. One of the group's charges — that the consolidation petition for which the League collected signatures "fails to accurately state issue for public consideration" — is unsupported by law.
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See the full article here:
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/aug/03/consolidation-herp/
