Incorporation obstacles exist, but creative tools available Salem told

town-of-salem-sign-webTwo state Department of Administration officials who deal with municipal incorporation told the Salem Town Board Wednesday that moving from being a town to a village has its obstacles, but creativity can help overcome them and achieve the original goals of looking at incorporation.

Erich Schmidtke and Rene Powers of municipal review division of intergovernmental relations of the Department of Administration were invited by the town to speak about incorporation and answer questions.

Salem has been studying incorporation with a committee of citizen volunteers after an elector initiative at an annual meeting.

A question that surfaced early on was would Salem be able to incorporate all of the current town territory in one action or would it have to incorporate a smaller more compact portion of the town and then annex other parts of the remaining town. This is what happened in the nearest, most recent such action in Bristol.

The state officials suggested that a complete annexation could be proposed, but probably wouldn’t win approval from the state.

“It’s difficult for a whole town to incorporate because these standards ask for the land to be compact,” Schmidtke said, referring to state statutes that set standards for what areas can be incorporated.

By compact, Schmidtke explained, the standards mean urban. He went on to say the most common mistake in incorporation petitions submitted to the state is including too much territory, including farmland.

“When in doubt, make your petition compact,” Schmidtke said. “Try to keep out the farmland.”

To keep the town intact as one governmental entity, but still obtain the boundary protection that incorporation offers, the state officials said there are other tools available, like boundary agreements and municipal consolidations. Even if an incorporation is pursued, an in-place boundary agreement can smooth the process by defusing tensions between municipalities, Schmidtke said.

Salem has a boundary agreement with Paddock Lake, in effect until 2035. Salem also has a shorter term boundary agreement with Bristol. There is no boundary agreement in place with Silver Lake or Twin Lakes.

While Salem officials have been quiet about their views on incorporation, Chairman Diann Tesar suggested she would oppose pursuing it if incorporating the whole town at once was not feasible.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to be separate from the rest of the town,” Tesar said.

 

 

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3 Comments

  1. Lorry Spencer says:

    Has anything been discussed as to the tax burden that this will place on the tax payers? Incorporating into a village has a higher tax rate than unincorporated towns. Look at the tax rates for the surrounding villages. Has any of this been discussed with the taxpayers of the Town of Salem? I wonder how many citizens would be agreeable to annexation if they are aware of this.

    1. @Lorry — I don’t believe there is anything that would mandate a higher tax rate for a village versus a town. For example, when Bristol became a village it seems to me its tax rate did not change significantly. If you are comparing Salem to Silver Lake and Paddock Lake’s tax rates, well they are smaller places with lower total assessed values over which to spread a tax burden.

  2. Commitee says:

    There is a committee of citizen volunteers headed up by Mike Ullstrup that is gathering information that will be presented at a future meeting.

    This information will help answer many of the questions that may be asked by the voters.

    Please keep aware and make plans to attend this meeting when it happens.

    There is a lot of work being done by a few to answer questions for the many.

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