Annexation should not be force

To the editor:
Indiana Farm Bureau and its members are not opposed to annexation when it is voluntary.
However, the forced annexation process that Indiana currently allows is heavily weighted in favor of cities and towns. That is simply not fair.
If the leaders of a city or town decide that they want to annex an area and the landowners are not willing to be annexed, those landowners have two alternatives: Give in, or take the town to court.
The lives of those landowners will change overnight. They cannot imagine the amount of work or money needed to fight off an annexation. 
In order to challenge an annexation in court, those landowners have to determine which of their neighbors are in the annexation area, contact them and gather signatures on a petition. And they have to raise money on their own to pay for an attorney. 
Even if landowners win the initial court battle, they will most likely spend years fighting because cities and towns almost always appeal, and they have the resources of government behind them.
It’s just too hard, too time consuming and too expensive for ordinary citizens to fight off an annexation. No citizen should be forced to go to court to protect his ordinary everyday rights as a landowner.
Senate Bill 330, which is currently making its way through the Indiana General Assembly, could change all that. Indiana Farm Bureau urges state legislators to vote in favor of needed reforms that protect landowner rights in the annexation process.
Indiana is one of only two states that allow forced annexation.
It’s time for us to join the rest of the country and stop forcing landowners to give in to the whims of city and town officials who make unsubstantiated claims about growth, progress and economic development.
President
Indiana Farm Bureau