e giv ea m break Running for the top spots T ACCEN A6 SPORTS, B1 TROJAN MIGHT DAILY JOURNAL Center Grove teams too much for Franklin dailyjournal.net MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2014 WEATHER Today Skies: Cloudy, T-storm Temps: High 78; low 64 MAP, PAGE A8 FREE TIME Spread the word Want to have your own events added to our weekly Free Time listing? The best way to get your event publicized is to get the information to us at least three weeks in advance. Make sure to include all pertinent information and a phone number in case we have any questions. Send photographs if possible. Email the information to [email protected] or mail it to Free Time, Daily Journal, P.O. Box 699, Franklin, IN 46131. 75 cents Johnson County, Indiana What’s your property worth? County officials making progress on backlog of tax appeals BY STEVE GARBACZ INSIDE: Details on tax appeals filed in county. A8 DAILY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER [email protected] More than 3,000 people appealed the value of their property after a statewide reassessment, and fewer than a third got the reduction they wanted. More than 300 property owners are still waiting for the county to take a second look at how much their home, land or business is worth. They are a part of the more than 700 people who are waiting for a resolution after disputing the value of their property — some that stretch back to 2013. While waiting, those property owners are paying more in taxes because the county said the value of their land or their home — one of the determining factors when calculating tax bills — went up compared with past years. The good news is the assessor’s office is catching up on its backlog and getting cases resolved. Before the end of next year, the county could be ready to start handling new appeals as soon as they come in, county assessor Mark Alexander said. More than 4,000 taxpayers questioned their property’s value that is used to determine how much they pay in property taxes after a statewide reassessment in 2012. The reassessment was meant to update values for land as well as buildings based on the estimated cost to replace features such as brick walls or basements. During that reassessment, almost every property owner saw some change in their values, with 49 percent going up and 46 percent going down. When assessments went up, it was often because of the updated cost used by appraisers for certain items, with masonry work for Get the early edition City to residents: Do not rake debris into piles on street BY STEVE GARBACZ LEAVE NONE Join us on Facebook, Twitter Keep up with the news and happenings in Johnson County communities through the Daily Journal’s Facebook and Twitter pages. BEHIND facebook.com/ dailyjournalnews twitter.com/ dailyjournalnet DEATHS Franklin Greenwood Jeffrey M. Humphrey, 52 Doug Smith, 58 Indianapolis Anthony ‘Tony’ E. Rudicel, 56 Whiteland Nicholas C. Todorovich, 45 Mary Louise Walters, 84 INDEX Accent..........................A6-A7 Classifieds....................B6-B8 Comics...............................B5 Editorials............................A4 Obituaries..........................A5 Police, fire.............................A3 Sports............................B1-B4 Southside............................A3 TV listings............................A7 Weather..............................A8 CALL US Main switchboard 736-7101 Delivery: 736-2777, 888-736-7101 Advertising: 736-2700 News tips: 736-2712 DAILY DAILY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER [email protected] Schools work to ON THE WEB Roy L. Dickinson, 77 Marilyn Faye Downey, 71 Betty Jo (Ramsey) Mitchell, 69 (SEE WORTH PAGE A8) ’Tis the season to curb leaves EARLY EDUCATION WEB EXTRAS For a sneak preview of what stories reporters are working on, sign up for the Daily Journal email news update. The daily email keeps you up-to-date about what is going on in Franklin, the Center Grove area, Greenwood and central Indiana. We will alert you to breaking news, tell you about stories we are planning and let you in on what is going on in the newsroom. You can subscribe by sending an email to newsupdate@ dailyjournal.net. Put “subscribe” in the subject line. brick or stone being one of the most notable. “The 4,000 just was too big of a number to do anything other than what we did, which was labor at it. It just took time,” Alexander said. For about the last two years, the county has been working to answer questions, correct any errors and work with property owners who don’t agree with the value assigned to their property. Officials aim to keep kindergartners on same page W hen Franklin parents sign their 5-year-olds up for kindergarten, teachers start working immediately to find out what the children know about counting, the STORY BY alphabet, shapes and colors. TOM If a student has LANGE never been to PHOTOS BY preschool and can’t recognize letters or SCOTT numbers, Franklin ROBERSON invites them to a three-week kindergarten camp a month before school starts. The camp won’t teach children everything they need to know for their first day of kindergarten, but it will introduce them to the kinds of lessons they’ll learn and eventually have to master before they go on to first grade. Not all area schools get an advanced look at incoming kindergartners. Westwood Elementary School in Greenwood doesn’t have the money to pay employees to assess students the spring before they start school, meaning the first chance teachers have to gauge what students know and don’t know is on the first day of school, Principal Lisa Harkness said. (SEE BEHIND PAGE A8) “ We are having to have more interventions for these kids. But what the research shows is the earlier you can have those interventions, the more successful they’re going to be later on. Westwood Elementary Principal Lisa Harkness ” On helping kindergartners meet their potential Pictured: Kooper Tischner, 5, colors Friday in Chloe Limbach’s Northwood Elementary School kindergarten classroom. Leaves are starting to come down off the trees and cities are already picking up piles before they start clogging storm drains. Last year, an early snow covered piles of leaves in yards and at curbsides before workers could finish picking them up. Then the weekend before Christmas, heavy rain hit the area and the combination of melting snow and high water washed those piles down toward drain inlets. When the drains got clogged in neighborhoods and along streets, water began backing up leading to high water around homes and businesses. Greenwood and Franklin are hoping not to have the same issue this year. Vacuum trucks are already circulating through neighborhoods in Franklin this fall and will continue through early December. Greenwood has been making a few unscheduled trips before its leaf pickup program starts in full force in early November, but residents who are proactively raking and bagging can help out by dropping off leaves at the city’s brush collection site off Fry Road, street superintendent Kenny Duncan said. People have to bring proof they are a Greenwood resident to drop off at the brush pile at 1244 Fry Road, since residents pay for the service as part of their monthly trash bill. Greenwood also approved a new rule this month to allow commercial properties such as businesses or apartment complexes to get leaf services for a one-time fee of $75. The county doesn’t have a leaf pickup program, so Center Grove area residents outside of Greenwood have to find their own methods to take care of leaves, Johnson County highway director Luke Mastin said. Residents should do something to control leaves, before they wash down and clog up drains and lead to flooding, he said. (SEE LEAVES PAGE A8) OFFICER STEPPING DOWN Indiana National Guard leader retiring after 36 years I n his 36-year military career, he has prepared thousands of soldiers to serve overseas, STORY BY helped in the recovery ROBERT ZIEGLER after Hurricane Katrina and worked to prevent both combat and accidental deaths of soldiers serving in Iraq. Greenwood resident Todd Townsend, who enlisted in 1978, retired last month as a colonel in the Indiana National Guard. He served as post commander at Camp Atterbury from 2009 to 2012 and more recently as vice chief of staff for the National Guard Headquarters in Indianapolis. The 53-year-old’s retirement ends a military career during which he visited 15 countries, flew helicopters, commanded soldiers and assisted with security at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where a bomb went off. He enlisted as a (SEE OFFICER PAGE A8) Former Camp Atterbury commanding officer Col. Todd Townsend recently retired from the Indiana National Guard. SCOTT ROBERSON | DAILY JOURNAL