{"id":22137,"date":"2026-08-21T12:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T12:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/22137\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T12:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T12:40:08","slug":"longtime-township-trustee-urges-colleagues-to-chart-their-own-course-ahead-of-merger-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/22137\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime township trustee urges colleagues to chart their own course ahead of merger deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Prairie Township Trustee Julia Goon talked about the merger plan and other township issues for this week\u2019s In the Know. News Now Warsaw photo by Dan Spalding.
\nBy Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw<\/p>\n

ATWOOD \u2014 There are more than 1,000 townships in Indiana and nearly all of them will face tough decisions next year under a mandatory merger plan outlined by state lawmakers.<\/p>\n

A new state law will require smaller, ineffective townships to merge, based on a study that has yet to be certified.<\/p>\n

Several hundred townships will likely be forced to merge while many will consider joining others as a massive shift begins next year.<\/p>\n

Many officials are already looking at their options.<\/p>\n

Julia Goon, who has served as the Prairie Township Trustee for 45 years \u2014 and has been a staunch supporter of the existing system \u2014 predicts only one of the existing 17 townships in Kosciusko County will be required to merge.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s also encouraging others to consider merging with others that already share common borders.<\/p>\n

Township trustees will have a chance to craft their own merger proposals before July 1, but after that, decisions will be left to the county commissioners in each county, Goon said.<\/p>\n

Goon was a guest on In the Know, the public affairs show you can hear this weekend on Kensington Digital Media radio stations.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of township employees will be affected. Many will lose their titles and\/or jobs and an immense amount of paperwork will have to be updated.<\/p>\n

The overall goal is to reduce redundancies and save some money. Goon admits there will be some savings as a result, but its unclear how much that could be.<\/p>\n

Also hanging in the balance are decisions on which trustees will assume the role of overseeing the much larger jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

Goon has developed numerous hypothetical merger scenarios, which she\u2019s shared with other trustees in the county.<\/p>\n

All of the mergers will combine townships along existing geographical boundaries.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how that is done, volunteer fire departments will not be affected, Good said.<\/p>\n

Goon was asked if the potential of having decisions made by the county commissioners will serve as an incentive for townships to take the lead in developing their own plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do, because I think most townships want to do it on their own and not have the state or the county commissioners tell us who\u2019s going to merge,\u201d Goon said. \u201cYou know, I think we\u2019re smart enough to do this on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The local township association will host a meeting in late September featuring Jeff Bellamy, an expert on voluntary mergers. Other county leaders are also invited to attend.<\/p>\n

All township employees are being urged to participate.<\/p>\n

All mandated state-directed or local-transitioned township consolidations must take effect beginning Jan. 1, 2029.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a separate issue, Goon reports Prairie Township has been working to reopen the old dormant Clunette Cemetery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working for the last 20 years, cleaning up, restoring monuments \u2014 \u00a0It\u2019s quite costly,\u201d Goon said. \u201cAnd we are about ready to open up Clunet Cemetery for burials again. We\u2019re really excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have about 200 graves to sell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Below is a list of broadcast times for In The Know.<\/p>\n

News Now Warsaw on 99.7 FM and 1480 a.m.:
Friday at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Saturday at 7 a.m.
Sunday at 7 a.m.<\/p>\n

WRSW 107.3:<\/p>\n

Sunday at 6 a.m.<\/p>\n

WILLIE 103.5:<\/p>\n

Saturday at 7 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prairie Township Trustee Julia Goon talked about the merger plan and other township issues for this week\u2019s In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10855,13673,13674,13675,13676,13677,13678,12024,45],"class_list":["post-22137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-warsaw","tag-in-the-know","tag-julia-goon","tag-mandatory-and-voluntary","tag-merger-plan","tag-prairie-township","tag-public-affairs-show","tag-townships","tag-trustees","tag-warsaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}