Published: November 05, 2008 01:01 am         

Harrison Township opts to keep assessor

Voters in eight precincts in Harrison Township opted to retain a township assessor under a referendum vote on Tuesday’s election ballot.

That’s was good news to Mick Love, who will retain his elected seat as Harrison Township assessor. The final tally on Public Question No. 1 was 6,587 for a “yes,” which would remove the office, to 9,506 for “no” which would retain the office.

“I am happy the voters chose to keep local government,” Love said. “The vote would have removed a layer of government and would, I think, take people out of the process. Now people will be part of the process,” Love said.

“I am happy to keep my job and nine others in the office get to keep their jobs; that is wives, husbands and they are taxpayers, too. They understand [the township] and want to help,” Love said.

Harrison Township has 27,500 property tax parcels, which is larger than 52 Indiana counties, Love said. “It is a big and daunting task, but one needed to be done to help resolve problems,” he said.

Love said a door-to-door campaign, plus manning all eight precinct voting polls on Election Day helped retain the assessor’s office. “I am very thankful to the voters that they had the wisdom to make the choice they made,” Love said.

Rod Henry, president of the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, called the final tally disappointing. The chamber will continue work with MySmartGov.org, a group established to implement initiatives from the Shepard-Kernan report, which suggests local government be consolidated.

“They are initiatives to move Indiana out of the 19th century and into the 21st century,” Henry said.

“At some point in time, this will not be an individual issue, but a tax issue, which is what it is aimed at; that government is in difficult financial pressures requiring stepping outside the box and finding new ways to provide service to the public,” Henry said.

This may include discontinuing non-essential services, consolidating departments and offices or implementing user-fee services, he said.

“Mick Love is a great person and this was not an anti-Mick Love vote, but wanting fair and equitable taxes between entities, where we have one person who is accountable for all tax assessments to be correct,” Henry said.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.